Hokko Life Review

Hokko Life is an indie game that takes advantage of a market that is hungry for relaxing games and also Animal Crossing titles on non-Nintendo platforms. As you may know, Animal Crossing is the most popular life sim that is exclusive to Nintendo consoles. So Hokko Life tried to be the same as Animal Crossing as much as possible for other platforms, but it must be admitted that the independent developer of this title cannot compete with the money and funds that Nintendo spends on its exclusive flagship games.

Hokko Life puts you in control of a human avatar that you create at the beginning of the game with enough features. You accidentally enter the village of Hokko, whose inhabitants are cute and cartoonish animals. The game does not have a classic story narrative. You talk to people and get to know them and receive requests from them. Unfortunately, these fellow citizens are not very deep-characterized. All of them behave and talk almost the same. Your relationship with none of them becomes meaningful, and as a result, the charm of these one-dimensional creatures remains only in their cuteness.

As we said, you usually receive the tasks you need to do from others, whether it is collecting or buying something or building tools and equipment. In general, this game does not allow you to enjoy the game at your own pace without paying attention to the wishes of others, opposite to games like the Harvest Moon series where you can cultivate your farm for a long time without referring to other characters.

The gameplay in Hokko Life is a combination of city building and farming, but the game does not become too complicated in any of them and does not add depth to them. You have to collect resources to build tools, houses, roads, etc., which are abundant in the environment, and even the trees you cut down for wood regrow Fast. Something like money is easily obtained due to these numerous sources and the ability to sell them.

The game has no elements of survival. It means your character will not get hungry or be harmed. The gameplay never pressures you to do anything. In general, it can be said that this simplicity and straightforwardness of the game is intentional so that, as we said at the beginning of the article, you can have a completely relaxing experience and be away from any stress. Therefore, we approve of this and love it, but many things that are common in similar games have a weak presence here such as various festivals or significant changes in seasons.

Hokko Life is a total technical disaster, at least on the Nintendo Switch console we played it on. The first thing that strikes you is the low-level visuals. That is to say, although the game is generally small in size and cartoonish, and is far from realism, it has unappealing textures and models. On the other hand, the loading times are numerous and very long for such a small game. All of this comes with weird bugs and glitches in the physics, interface, and controls.

If we don’t give zero points to the artistic part of the game, it is because the game allows you to decorate the city as you like or even paint the in-game models as you like and personalize them easily. You can also share these items with other players online. But the game’s online capabilities are limited to this feature and no multiplayer mode has been considered.

Despite the mentioned flaws and shortcomings, we recommend this game to those looking for a game similar to the Animal Crossing titles Because it costs only twenty dollars and is available on all platforms in the market.

The review code was provided by the publisher