Trek to Yomi (2022)

Second title of the year played start to finish.

Initially started on medium difficulty, but switched to easy towards the end of chapter two.

Although it would change the game slightly, I would have preferred health bars on all enemies and not just bosses.

Additionally, I know it's for gameplay mechanics, but I found it slightly amusing how certain abilities were obtained through later levels. I thought I was meant to be playing as a samurai, so should know the skills already!

Other than the above, cannot fault it too much.

What a beautiful disappointment. The style and aesthetic hit the mark, but the gameplay I found just bad.

The parry just doesn’t feel satisfying, and worse seems inconsistent. There wasn’t anything interesting about the enemy types; they all seemed the same. The combos were just mash the same button and there didn’t seem to be a point to the different light attack combos. This game had sooo much promise.

Lastly, this game irked me by putting commonly used actions on the LB and RB instead of the triggers. The triggers feel so much more natural for attacks or blocks and have so much better feedback. Elden Ring put light attack on the LB and that annoyed me, but at least I could change it. Can’t change it in Trek to Yomi.

I think I've completely avoided COVID through habitual respirator wearing, but I might as well have the associated brain damage going by how I got through this one!

Somehow, and it's truly baffling, I managed to complete Trek to Yomi (on its hard difficulty) whilst completely forgetting about the existence of and thus without using the health-regaining finisher mechanic. Not only did I miss the stylish, visceral flourish said animations lend the action, but a CRUCIAL mechanic to ease difficulty. It's the equivalent of missing that you get level up in a Soulslike game and having a SL1 initial playthrough. Or perhaps not executing an enemy for health in Doom 2016/Doom Eternal. Not once did one of the hundreds of stunned enemies sufficiently prod at/shake my mind into the realisation. Very worrying!

For my sanity, I had to quickly replay it and it took less than a quarter of the time to complete! As reviews here have stated, the easing of difficulty is an overcorrect if anything. It went from a challenge to a laid-back, overly exploitable combat experience. A much better experience, though, for sure. Now I just need to find a way to curtail the deterioration of what must be an accelerating aging brain!

Has anyone else missed something significant in a game all the way to completion?