Trek to Yomi Nintendo Switch review

Trek to Yomi is a visually arresting action game from Flying Wild Hog, developers of the Shadow Warrior series and last year’s impressive Evil West. It’s hardly a textbook outing for the usually bombastic developer, featuring a sombre tone and a subtle, black and white colour scheme that invokes the work of legendary Japanese film-maker Akira Kurasawa.

From the moment you begin, it’s striking. The lack of colour sets the tone better than any cutscene could, as bandits raid a small village and murder everyone there, including the sensei of your character Hiroki. Swearing revenge, Hiroki sets off on a trek across Japan to avenge his former master.

Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch version loses a lot of its appeal due to the limitations of the device itself. On a small screen the action simply isn’t clear enough, the lack of colour causing everything to blend together, including the characters. In a game based so heavily on parrying attacks and with a deliberate lack of signposting, it makes it incredibly difficult to judge the timing of incoming attacks. The characters are so tiny on screen for most of the game that it actually strains the eyes to pick out details.

Even if you give up and play via the TV dock, the low resolution makes the monochrome visuals seem muddy and indistinct. You’ll often be facing attacks from both sides, in dense foliage that can obscure your vision. It’s a shame, too, because so much effort was put into the visuals, and Trek to Yomi is stunning on other platforms.

Sadly, without the visual flair, Yomi is decidedly less attractive. While the story is serviceable, it’s hardly an original take, and the combat is clumsier and less fluid than it should be. Rather than delivering graceful strikes and parries, Hiroki swipes at the enemy like he’s chopping logs. The combos on offer work well enough for dispatching the Ronin you face, and even hold up against the various bosses you’ll need to defeat, but they lack the sense of controlled rage you’d expect.

As a result, you soon begin to feel like you’re just running left and right, hacking goons out of your way and then repeating. Trek to Yomi does some impressive things with its camera angles and level design, but again this something highly reliant on the visuals which just aren’t up to snuff on the Switch.

If you feel like exploring, you’ll find collectibles to hoover up as well as ammo refills for your throwing knives, and the checkpoint system is more than fair. You rarely have to run through more than a couple of screens between the Shrines at which you save your game and refill your health and stamina. It is always a perfectly playable game, but never breath-taking, and the visual style goes a long way to balancing that.

Unfortunately, Trek to Yomi is hard going on Nintendo Switch. You’re often battling against the long-distance stylistic camera angles, the dense level of detail, or the blurry resolution: none of which will make you a better Samurai. It’s a shame, as there’s a likeable game here that doesn’t outstay its welcome at just over four hours. If the visuals on Switch were better, I’d recommend it, but if you have the option to play it anywhere else, you’d be better off doing that instead.