avoided this because I figured it'd be a kind of lame film school dude's fetishisms of 50s Japanese Samurai cinema.

And I guess it kind of is, in a way. but no more shallow than any other character action video game that apes from cinema is, except this game's concept of camera placement and framing is actually pretty fucking stellar. it's genuinely more cinematic than games like God of War or Ghost of Tsushima think they are. trek to yomi might be one of the most beautiful games I've ever played.

at times it's sort of choked by its visual aesthetic, a lot of the game feels very dry. but it's basically if Journey went Kurosawa mode for 5 hours. if you've played any modern side-scrolling action game, you might not be impressed. if you've seen Sanjuro you might not be impressed. but honestly I think those two things go together really well, sort of like buttered toast or chocolate milk. just a very basic but tasty combo (and I mean pretty much every side-scrolling action game I've played thinks it's fucking Vaporware Jesus so this is kind of refreshing to some degree).

The black-and-white samurai film aesthetic is nice, even if a bit derivative, and is further aided by the choice to have fixed camera angles as the cinematography and framing provided remain well executed throughout. It never really outstays its welcome and the simplistic exploration and combat on offer here work in its favour, some annoying difficulty bumps aside. The only major drawback I have with this is how formulaic its story is, as it draws from samurai films of old in the worst way possible by recycling plenty of predictable tropes. A very solid 3/5 otherwise.

A very pretty looking game with nothing else beyond that really. Combat is insanely simple, parry windows so wide you can take a nap, wake up, brush your teeth, shower, and eat a snack and still have time to parry. Two buttons with different variations that really do nothing for quite a while. Just a very bland game. It's like walking through some pretty cool wallpaper engine japanese vistas and sometimes you have to do some basic combat. Story is fine, I didn't beat the game but i got halfway through it, don't really care about it much. A very style over substance game, if you can handle the first 2 hours being killing bandits that are raiding villages, then knock yourself out i guess. I wouldn't recommend this to anybody though, really.