On the whole, Hokko Life’s visuals are a mixed bag. Trees grow back to their full height from chopped stumps in a few days, and any holes dug up during the day are filled in at night. None of my neighbours seemed to notice, never mind care, when I spent several days in a row “sleeping” just to build a house faster. It’s a recurring problem in Hokko Life-the game never dares to give me nothing to do. It’s quick and convenient, but at the cost of the one thing a game like this should value most: Allow me to busily do nothing, to exist in this space simply because I can.

In Hokko Life, the entire sequence takes about five real-world minutes. It’s something that needs to be learned about, gathered for, and crafted, before finally being placed somewhere sensible for the community’s benefit. As in A Certain Other Game, a bridge is a major feature granting access to empty village space on the opposite side of the river. I thought it’d be a real relief to spend time with a wholesome life sim that didn’t force me to sacrifice specific chunks of my real life to play it… and then the game asked me to build a bridge, and I immediately understood why Nintendo’s series insists on slowing me down. The game ditches any ties to a real-world clock and uses a sped-up internal one instead, so a quick nap can fast forward an hour or two, and some serious snoozing can make an entire week pass by in a few button presses. The character creator is straightforward yet flexible, with a good variety of skin tones and hairstyles (all fully colour customisable) available for your entirely genderless avatar to use. For a brief moment, Hokko Life does feel like it has some potential. Getting settled in takes around six to eight hours, but following this, there’s no real drive to keep you engaged. Mechanics, character design, and gameplay all feel heavily influenced by the series, yet Hokko Life lacks the same level of charm and struggles to provide enough content to fill up a day. The comparison itself might seem trite, but from the get-go, it’s impossible to look at Hokko Life without comparing it to Nintendo’s life sim. Hokko Life Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

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