The Animal Crossing series is a popular life sim that is exclusive to Nintendo, so games like Hokko Life try to offer an alternative on different platforms. The game has a lot of similar mechanics, most notably following a custom human character as they move into a small town with non-human residents.
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As a newcomer, you're tasked with improving the city by using various tools to find resources for farming, crafting, and ways to improve residents' lives. Though it has appealing aspects, some technical issues concerning functionality, gameplay, and content could use some improvement to make it a solid and enjoyable life sim.
8 Add More Activities
A key goal of life sims is to keep you busy. With farming, there are a lot of chores to do, plants to tend, and animals to care for to take up your day. With Hokko Life, there is a surprising need for ways to stay busy. The main objective is to improve the town which involves talking to the residents and fulfilling their orders through crafting.
When you're not harvesting materials, you're at a workstation putting things together which can get tedious quickly. The other activities available aren't nearly as fulfilling, engaging, or amusing, so there's room to enhance these and add some new ones.
7 Fix The Camera
For life sims, the more you can see from the standard camera position the better. Depending on the layout of the game world, angles and zooms can be incorporated but aren't necessary. Unfortunately, the camera in Hokko Life is uncooperative when it comes to doing things.
The standard angle works to show your character running around and the surroundings, but that's it. You have no control over it when you're trying to do things that require precision such as bug-catching, which is why the camera needs a technical fix.
6 Expand The Town
A comforting element of life sims is the town in which you find yourself. Something about small towns creates an atmosphere of simple bliss. However, even the smallest towns can have a ton of variety. Unfortunately, the town of Hokko Life is in dire need of an update.
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Although the story revolves around improving the town, there's still so little to do and few facilities to visit when you're not working. This small town is just too small for long-form gaming, so it could use a few more buildings.
5 POLISH
Stylized games appeal to audiences of all ages for their colorful and friendly appearance, which makes them perfect for life sims. Even though they can look like cartoons, there are ways to give them a sharp and vivid look. Though Hokko Life has a cute and solid design, it could use a second pass.
Some characters alternate between being animals and having patchwork details like toys which makes them thematically confusing. They and the environments also look flat which makes a case for additional polishing.
4 Provide More Customization
Life sims aren't just about living in a virtual world but also about giving you the option to visualize yourself in said world. Nowadays, many games have very in-depth character customization options that let you adjust even the slightest body part. Hokko Life with its stylized look is not expected to be as complex but still lacks options.
Your character is who you're going to be looking at almost all the time, so you should be able to customize them to a certain degree. This game needs a few changes to bring its customization to that level.
3 Adjust The Villager Personalities
In addition to the town that the life sim is set in, the residents of it also add a lot to the quality of the gameplay. While it's natural for many of them to be pleasant and friendly, a good town has a mix of all personality types. Even grumpy characters can be likable, but Hokko Life goes to extremes. The nice villagers are almost aggressively nice and invasive when it comes to your character.
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On the other end, the grumpy villagers are overtly mean which makes you wonder why they're even there except to make you feel bad. If these personalities can be balanced out, both the nice and grumpy will be fun to be around.
2 Speed Things Up
Just like in reality, life sims can take up a lot of your time. You can dedicate many in-game days to doing one specific thing, but you'll still feel accomplished at the end of the day. The problem is making this enjoyable and satisfying to do. With Hokko Life, there are many time-consuming tasks, but they are almost too time-consuming.
There are so many basic objects (such as fishing equipment) that are locked behind multiple quest walls. You'll spend so much time harvesting and crafting just to unlock something that other life sims give you at the start, so this could use some rethinking.
1 Tighten The Controls
Life sims don't revolve around action or strategy, so their controls tend to be very simple. Still, whether you're farming or building, you want these controls to be smooth and reliable. This is one of the more noticeable things about Hokko Life which first comes across in its movement.
The character has a weird jog that moves them at an awkward pace while the sprint function makes it hard to navigate without crashing into walls. Since you'll be running back and forth regularly while trying to interact with specific points, the controls need to be patched up.
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