

Unlike Hokko Life Early Access, the pace is smoother, and you get into the action early. Who needs words when you can emote? When it comes to interactions, it’s all quite lovely and welcoming.

Your customisable character doesn’t have a speaking part – if you do reply, it’s always something upbeat like “Great!”. When entering a dialogue with the locals, if you ever get the option to reply, it won’t impact the outcome much. How you arrived here is irrelevant – the point is, you’ll never want to leave (IRL, too). Much like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you arrive in town and can put your ideas into action, tarting up the place with various items, donning fashionable clothes and introducing (and evicting) residents to your humble little village. It’s sharper than the Nintendo and perhaps a little slicker? I was actually hoping to play a game with my kids using crossplay, but I may have misunderstood the feature and instead went solo. The portability of the Nintendo Switch is a winner, but because the Steam Deck is taking up too much of my sofa time, it was refreshing to play Hokko Life on the PS4.
