Let's start straight off by addressing the elephant in the room.
Animal crossing...
Hokko Life is unashamedly filling the animal crossing gap on the PC, but, with caveats and additions.
However it is not a cheap clone or knock off. This is an impressive homage, it feels comfortably familiar but refreshingly different. As someone who played many hours of ACNH , got burned out on it and never returned; I found this surprisingly easy to pick up and play ...... AND enjoy. All of these things become even more impressive when you take into consideration, this is the work of a solo developer, ex Sony artist Robert Tatnell. The story itself is no Pulitzer, merely serving as a vessel to thrust you into and introduce you to the world and it's initial inhabitants.
Step off the train into the town of Hokko one evening may you stumble across a friendly innkeeper, he lets you stay for one night.....or as long as you like.
Initial simple missions serve as an introduction to the core mechanics and are peppered through the game.
The control system, as you'd expect, is intuitive and almost muscle memory to ACNH players.
As I mentioned in my introduction, everything feels comfortably familiar. It's like returning to your hometown a few years later, still feels the same but a lot of things have changed since you left.
From the welcoming shadowy outline of the fish in the rivers, to the tools used together core materials, it's like you never left, just the environment is slightly different and the people have changed.
Graphically the game is pretty. Large, colorful, well crafted characters and environments, well animated and brought to life with genuine personality. (Maybe not to the extent of Tom Nook).
Gentle, relaxing and at times, jarringly familiar music accompanies your leisurely activities in this lovingly created world.
Controls are responsive, combine perfectly with both animation and sound effects to make even simple tasks such as chopping down trees feel "right".
I've spoken at length already about the similarities between this game and ACNH, but it's equally important to explain the differences.
The main difference is the level of freedom and creativity you are given in Hokko.
Comparatively ACNH feels like crafting on rails. In Hokko literally everything you craft can be tweaked to your specific requirements. Stretching, flipping and repositioning the individual components of a crafted object along x, y and z axis is just one example of the freedom you are afforded.
Sure you can build a house and fill it with default crafted furniture, but you can also lose yourself for hours in the workshop to create a highly personalized and unique items.
Along with this freedom to create comes, in my opinion, my only real disappointment with the game. It is a single player only world. All this unbound creativity opens up some fantastic prospects for imaginative crafting and it's such a shame that you can't share those with online visitors to your town.
Overall had a fantastic time with this game I can see it appealing to PC gamers who haven't had the opportunity to play animal crossing on Nintendo, as well as people who have played these games and want more.
A relaxing getaway, pure escapism and creativity that can be played at your own pace for as little as long as you like.
Highly recommended.
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