Hokko Life Review

Those of you who are fans of a small videogame company called Nintendo have probably heard of a franchise called Animal Crossing. This charming series full of anthropomorphic animal villagers has often been imitated, but no developer has been able to come close to capturing the unique feel that these games have. Perhaps until now. Hokko Life is — in its simplest form — an Animal Crossing title in all but name. Now that it’s fresh out of Early Access, does it do enough to differentiate itself from the more well-established series?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Hokko Life begins with your created character arriving at the town of Hokko (after falling asleep on a train and missing your original stop) full of human-like animal residents. The town's population has dwindled and you’re offered a ramshackle house to call your own — providing you renovate it yourself. With how difficult it is to buy a house these days, how can you say no? You’ll quickly settle down here and meet the various townsfolk, picking up quests as you go from day to day. There is quite a lot of back-and-forth busywork in the opening portions of the game that tends to drag on a little too long, but once it opens up more you’ll find plenty of variety in both how you spend your time, and the types of tasks given to you to progress the story. The story is quite minimal, and mainly just serves to give you more jobs to take on, although having some interaction with the other members of the town was always a nice addition; even if I did come across a plethora of spelling and grammatical errors.

Hokko Life has a very cutesy art style, not offering much in the way of detail but it certainly has a cartoonish charm to the presentation, with a bright colour palette that enhances this. The adorable humanoid animals were a particular highlight, such as Moss the giraffe shopkeeper, complete with floppy ears and a dickie bow. It was hard not to crack a smile whenever I came across a new non-playable character, they were just so lovable!

I found the musical score to be incredibly relaxing and was the perfect accompaniment to the way Hokko Life was presented visually, even if it was slightly repetitive. I equally enjoyed the smaller sound effects in the background, things like insects chirping at night, or the soft crunch of sand as you run across the beach. Overall this is a nice package; although it isn’t going to blow you away, it will certainly help ease some tension after a rough day.

As mentioned in the opening of this review, Hokko Life plays almost identically to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. If you enjoyed that game, then there is more to love here and it will definitely be another huge time sink creating your own perfect town. You’ll build homes for new residents, explore mines to forage for new materials, grow your own crops, and a whole lot more!

It has a satisfying progression system where you’ll explore everywhere the map has to offer, before going on to expand the map by doing something such as crafting a bridge over a river to open up a whole new area. It’s a game that slowly introduces new mechanics to the player and grows the world as they master these gameplay systems, giving them more opportunities to explore, customise, and create. In addition to this, building more houses will, in turn, grow the population of Hokko. More characters means more quests! Whilst it is a very simple gameplay loop, it was always fun to discover something new or meet a new townsperson and help them to settle in.

You’ll eventually progress enough that you’re given the option to take a trip to a nearby city, with its own set of unique shops in which to buy new items, as well as being able to check out and buy other players’ creations (or upload your own to sell if you’ve got a creative side to you). There wasn’t much else to find in the city, and it did feel like a bit of empty space, but I did manage to buy some pumpkins just in time for Halloween!

I did experience a fair amount of minor bugs — mainly characters clipping through objects and some screen tearing here and there — but there was nothing game-breaking thankfully. What was slightly more irksome was the fact that objects in the foreground (such as trees and houses) would often take a second or two to become transparent so I could see where I was going, and when I was finally able to see through them to where my character was, the shadow of the object would freak out and turn into a grid-like mess. This doesn’t translate to when you speak to a character however, so you’ll more often than not be looking at the roof of a house whilst you converse with NPCs.

As Wonderscope AB’s first published title, Hokko Life is very impressive, especially when you factor it’s a one person team! There is so much to see and do here that if I were to explain absolutely everything, this review would be incredibly long. Don’t expect a completely polished game and be ready to sink some hours into it before it really opens up, and you’ll find a cute and cosy title that will keep you entertained for a long time.