Hokko Life on PC
Hokko Life is a group simulation sport with a well-recognized really feel. Cozy farming and city-building sims are in every single place, however its inventive design components make it way more than simply one other farm sim. Even in the event you suppose you’ve performed a dozen video games prefer it earlier than, Hokko Life has loads of distinctive components to maintain you entertained for hours.
Hokko Life has been in early entry on PC by way of Steam since June 2, 2021. After over a yr of improvement, refinement, and enlargement, the sport is lastly prepared for its full launch on PC, Nintendo Change, Ps 4, and Xbox One on Sept. 27, 2022. Regardless of combined early entry evaluations, Hokko Life has developed right into a sport with practically countless hours of gameplay and room to continue to grow after launch.
Character Customization
The sport begins with a personality customization display screen that’s gender-neutral and refreshingly racially numerous. To start, you choose your character’s coiffure from a formidable collection of choices. The hair textures are amazingly effectively executed, given the cartoon high quality of the sport, and all of the hairstyles are collectively in a single class quite than being subdivided by gender.
In reality, you’re by no means requested (and even given the chance) to pick a gender in your character, who will use they/them pronouns and put on non-gendered clothes all through the sport. As a non-binary individual, it was so satisfying and affirming to have the ability to customise my character with out having to decide on a binary gender choice. I additionally observed that the default pores and skin tone and hair texture have been black, which I really like.
As soon as you choose your character’s coiffure, you possibly can customise their pores and skin shade, eye shade, hair shade, and highlights. Right here is the place you first get a style of the inventive freedom Hokko Life presents you. You possibly can select from one among eight presents, however every shade is 100% customizable utilizing pink, inexperienced, and blue sliders to create the precise shade you need. You too can add freckles and cheek highlights if you want. When you’re completed customizing, the sport begins.
Welcome to Hokko
Within the opening scene, you’re staring on the rain out the window of a rushing prepare. You nod off, and if you awake, you wander away the prepare to seek out your self within the tiny city of Hokko. As you make your technique to the middle of city, you see the lights on on the inn.
Inside, you meet the innkeeper, Oma, and the city shopkeeper, Moss. Oma welcomes you to city together with your selection of espresso, sizzling tea, or water and presents you the empty room on the inn if you wish to keep awhile. Moss and Oma inform you all concerning the gradual, peaceable tempo of life in Hokko and that they hope you’ll resolve to remain.
The subsequent morning, you wander the neighborhood, assembly the opposite villagers, Ren and Poa. Ren asks you to assist him discover his misplaced pink scarf, the primary of many duties you’ll full as a resident of Hokko. That’s proper – you’re shifting into one of many empty homes on the town, and also you’re going to find it irresistible a lot that you just’ll persuade everybody passing by to maneuver in, too.
Make Your self at Residence
When you’ve met your neighbors, you possibly can select which run-down home you wish to repair up in your personal, and there the sport begins in earnest. You get your first axe from Moss that can assist you chop bushes and acquire wooden to repair up your home, however from then on, you’ll should construct most of your instruments your self in Sally’s workshop.
The method of constructing your personal dwelling within the city of Hokko is your preliminary tutorial to the sport, however you’ll proceed to customise and beautify it time and time once more. When you’ve settled in, you’ll full requests to assist your neighbors by gathering sources, gathering collectible gadgets, working errands, and crafting furnishings.
However sustainability is central to life in Hokko, so whilst you’re studying to cut down bushes to construct homes for brand spanking new residents, you’ll additionally plant extra. Rising new bushes, flowers, grasses, and crops are all a part of serving to Hokko thrive.
Design Your World
If all of this sounds fairly acquainted, that’s as a result of it’s similar to the Animal Crossing franchise and lots of different group simulation video games. However the place Hokko Life stands out is its inventive design mode.
At the beginning of the sport, you possibly can solely craft a number of pre-designed objects based mostly on design plans that your neighbors offer you to finish their requests. However as the sport progresses and also you full extra duties, you acquire entry to higher ranges of customization, from altering the colours and textures of pre-existing in-game objects to constructing your personal one-of-a-kind creations from scratch.
You possibly can place your distinctive designs anyplace in your house or neighborhood, adorning the city of Hokko any approach you possibly can think about. However your Hokko Life creations don’t keep caught in your city. When you unlock the prepare to Metropolis Heart, you possibly can share your designs with the world. Within the Metropolis Heart, you possibly can promote your creations in your store, purchase different creators’ designs, and enter the Creator Problem, a themed group design problem.
I’ve by no means performed a sport with such an in depth design mode, the place you possibly can freely place each single piece of an object, crafting it from the bottom up utilizing sources you’ve collected. I’ve spent practically as a lot time designing distinctive furnishings as I’ve the extra acquainted sport elements, comparable to fishing, butterfly gathering, and mining. All through the sport, you proceed to unlock customization choices, comparable to paints, material dyes, supplies, and in another way formed items to design the furnishings and decor of your desires.
Final Cozy Vibes
As you meet new villagers, invite them to city, and construct new properties for them to maneuver into, you’ll shortly get to know the vibe of the group. Hokko Life is delightfully anti-capitalist, with all of the characters in search of pleasure, pleasure, and peace away from the hustle and bustle of town.
Some characters wax metaphysical about life, actuality, and the afterlife, whereas others discuss their newest plan to protest company greed. However everybody in Hokko is form, encouraging, and supportive. Characters categorical their emotions and moods typically, brazenly discussing after they have unhealthy days. They’re all on the lookout for a little bit of reduction from the world’s chaos, and the sport’s music, sound results, dialogue, and story are the proper escape from the true world.
The one main draw back of Hokko Life is that, whereas many of the gameplay components are acquainted, they’re not essentially intuitive. For instance, It took me a number of in-game days to appreciate that my neighbors weren’t going to simply stroll up and inform me the best way to go fishing. I needed to take the initiative to wash up the trash across the pond earlier than I might discover ways to craft a fishing rod.
Equally, you need to invite a selected character to maneuver to city and construct them a home earlier than you may get entry to the farming space. This takes fairly a number of sport days and a sure diploma of fine timing to fulfill the correct character. Sure vital gameplay components like these are omitted of the primary storyline tutorial, which makes them difficult to seek out, particularly in the event you’re not accustomed to this model of sport.
However except for that, Hokko Life is a well-developed cozy life sim that feels acquainted sufficient to settle proper into however has loads of distinctive mechanics and artistic freedom to maintain even seasoned life sim gamers entertained for a lot of hours of gameplay.
Reviewer: Juniper Finch | Award: Editor’s Selection | Copy offered by Writer.
Execs
- Hokko Life’s acquainted community-building gameplay is soothing and stress-free.
- The distinctive Design Desk performance presents countless hours of inventive gameplay.
- The sport’s anti-capitalist, pro-sustainability, and gender-neutral sentiments are refreshing.
Cons
- The tutorial storyline leaves out some important sport options that aren’t intuitive to seek out or activate by yourself.
- Hokko’s residents are somewhat creepy trying.
Launch Date
Sept. 27, 2022
Developer
Team17
Writer
Wonderscope
Consoles
PS4, Xbox One, Change, PC