A tribute to Akira Kurosawa, how artistic is this side-scrolling action game in a black-and-white world?

"Everyone worships big directors, but big directors worship Akira Kurosawa."

Although Akira Kurosawa himself died in 1998 for nearly 24 years, his achievements and contributions in the film industry, as well as the phrase "I still don't know much about movies, but I will continue to try to understand its essence" when he was awarded the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in his final year are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

As the "old man" in the field of culture, the game industry is actually deeply influenced by Akira Kurosawa, especially some works about Japan and samurai themes, as early as 2020's "Soul of Tsushima", there is a special built-in "Kurosawa Akira mode", after opening the game's screen will become black and white, the sound effects will also be adjusted, close to the Japanese movies of the previous century.

However, due to the fact that "Soul of Tsushima" itself is a AAA work for a larger group of players, the game was not developed at the beginning with a black-and-white game as the goal, and after turning on Kurosawa mode, it will cause some damage to some of the game's graphics effects.

Recently, another game that was praised by players as "the graduation thesis for Akira Kurosawa" was listed on steam, PS, Xbox and other platforms, that is, the 2.5D side-scroll action game "Trek to Yomi", developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Devolver Digital. Before going live, Leonard Menchiari, creative director of Flying Wild Hog, said publicly on Sony's blog that "the whole game is a tribute to Akira Kurosawa." Yellow Springs Road currently has an 85% rating on Steam.

Here's the game trailer for Yellow Springs Road:

Style is greater than gameplay

"The Road to the Yellow Springs" tells the story of a young samurai named "Hiroki", whose village was attacked by bandits when he was a child, when he was a ronin, and although he suffered heavy losses, he managed to survive that year. Time flew by, and after Hiroki had grown into a samurai, the bandits attacked his village again, and this time, Hiroki's losses were even worse, the entire village was burned to the ground, his lover was nowhere to be found, and Hiroki himself was pierced through the ribs.

In order to make his vows and protect his beloved, Hiroki begins to fight in "Yomi", the Japanese myth of Huangquan, also known as the "Land of the Dead", and finally resurrects himself to change the outcome of the event, and in the process of fighting and adventure, Hiroki also finds his own way of samurai.

In Japanese mythology, Yomi is a place that belongs to the dead connected to the real world, and once the deceased has eaten at the hearth of Yomi, it is impossible to return to the land of the living. But Yomi is different from the "heaven and hell" after most countries die, he does not have special attributes of punishment or reward, on the contrary, all the dead will live in Yumi dark and depressed, and this setting actually coincides with the main color of the game's black and white.

Here's a video of a game demo of Yellow Springs Road:

Different from the graphics style of the game that is usually introduced, the author usually takes it simply in one sentence, but for such a work with an extremely significant artistic style, this approach is obviously inappropriate. "Yellow Spring Road" is actually closer to the movie than the game, both in terms of graphics and storyboard.

In contrast to the "cinematic games" that Sony is best at in recent years, such as "Detroit Change" and "The Last Survivor", although their narratives, frameworks, etc. have absorbed a lot of film and television industry skills, but implemented into the game, all kinds of fancy performances and narrative logic ultimately serve the player's experience. However, in "The Road to Yellow Springs", cinematic artistic expression, storyboard processing, lens language, etc. are in a certain situation on a par with the player's experience or even above the latter.

For example, the UI design of the "Yellow Spring Road" interface base, using small squares as the amount of health, using curves as endurance, and then shrinking the two in the lower left corner of the screen, in addition, there is no content outside the game screen, even in less than three seconds after the separation from the interaction or after the breakaway, even the health and physical strength of the UI will disappear, just to let the player wholeheartedly devote himself to the screen.

In addition, there are all kinds of strange things, which are not conducive to the player's combat perspective. As an action game to judge the enemy's moves, the developer does not choose to put the main body of the screen on the player in some scenes in order to make the picture beautiful, but a fixed perspective, and the result of this processing is that the player must be close to the screen to adapt to the game, pay attention to one of the small battle scenes, and better fight.

Although the choice of attaching importance to the picture effect does make "Yellow Spring Road" very good,but on the other hand, it also makes the player's game experience affected to a certain extent, and many players on Steam say that the game is "good-looking, but not fun" and "the gameplay is even if it is classified as a work of art." That's why I put the game's combat gameplay at the end.

The protagonist's own combat mechanics are not innovative or new, a simple analogy is a minimalist version of "Only Wolves", using a samurai sword for attacks, bouncing backs, and some lackluster combos, such as a series of slash and stabbing combinations and evasion actions that increase tactical options, and as the game progresses, players can gradually unlock techniques such as bows and arrows or sneak attacks. But in fact, after getting familiar with the game, the most basic defensive counterattack and then execution is actually enough to deal with most scenarios.

The enemies of the battle and the scene of the game actually have a certain problem of reusing materials, although this is understandable because the game is a small factory work, but with the black and white tone of the game and the protagonist's almost one-trick fresh-eaten battle, this repetition is extremely easy to cause burnout, especially in the case of lower difficulty. Fortunately, the total length of the game is not very long, about five hours a week.

It can be viewed from a distance and cannot be blasphemed

The current media rating of "Yellow Spring Road" on Metacritic is only 72 points, and the evaluation of both the media and the players is basically similar to "good graphics and music, poor gameplay".

Steam players "shiver without trembling" commented on the game, "If the look and feel of the game and the gameplay as the two legs that support its establishment, then obviously the game is not balanced: one leg is thick and eye-catching, and one leg is invisible to everyone, appearing a little lame." But if you use this kind of general criterion as a yardstick for measuring "The Yellow Spring Road", it is unfair to the game - in terms of graphics, it has transcended the ordinary pleasing category and risen to the level of artistic interest, and the gameplay is not even its focus. ”

Although GameLook also partially agrees with the player that at the level of artistic expression, "Yellow Spring Road" has surpassed many commercial and word-of-mouth products, but the game is different from Leonardo da Vinci in the museum or Monet in the auction house, which although called the treasure of human civilization, but more often, they are only the entertainment of a niche group.

As a commercial product that has been released on platforms such as Steam and released on a large scale, "Yellow Spring Road" must carry the dual attributes of art and fun at the same time, after all, most players spend $20 to make their game library more collectibles, which is the current contradiction of the game.

"The sound and painting are amazing, the game is boring, and the fight is block + counterattack." If you come to the screen, you can buy it; if you come to the game, don't buy it! ”

"Its graphics and music are good, the style is also the genre I love, and the samurai movies that imitate Akira Kurosawa's style are really fascinating." But the level of the game's action system is also the same level as the little bully of Akira Kurosawa's time.""

The ultimate tribute

For the quality of the game and its current price, GameLook only wants to say that unless you are an iron fan of Akira Kurosawa, it is recommended to decide after the Game Pass experience, or simply wait for the discount, the stylization of the game is too strong, so it is difficult to recommend, take GameLook's own experience as an example, the most attractive to the author is not the game's battle, but a tribute to Akira Kurosawa.

This homage is not something that can be achieved with a simple black-and-white filter. From the beginning of "Yellow Spring Road" to the middle and late stages, although the game plot is indeed simple, the narrative is not fancy and complicated, but the author did gain the feeling of watching Akira Kurosawa's movie many years ago.

Whether it is the early "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai", or the later "Shadow Warrior" and "Chaos", Kurosawa's films always have a core of ordinary people's heroism, and the simple, non-reward-free, and even anti-environmental heroism in Kurosawa's films has a relatively profound interpretation in the simple plot of "The Road to Yellow Springs". Even the game's simple story framework can be linked to Akira Kurosawa's philosophy of "using film to achieve mutual understanding rather than pure artistic expression."

At the end of a Sony blog post, Leonard Menchiari said, "One of my main purposes in making Yellow Springs Road was to encourage people to watch those classic Japanese movies. The whole game is a tribute to Akira Kurosawa. I definitely encourage anyone who hasn't seen these movies to give it a try. They are old classics, but I think most of them are still worth seeing even today. ”

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