Even in the busiest of seasons, smaller games deserve some attention. In that spirit, welcome to Month of Coverage Club. Come back each day in November for a full-length impressions piece based on a hidden gem you’ve probably never heard of. Hakoniwa Explorer Plus was a title that had an interesting visual style to me. I decided to play this game purely on the promise of cute monster girls and some kind of vaguely RPG-ish combat. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I found plenty of surprises. This game is chock full of easter eggs, amusing writing, and – quite unfortunately – a number of questionable design decisions. The game begins with asking you a few questions, ostensibly to calibrate the game’s difficulty. You begin in the aptly-named hamlet of Firsttown. This little village has less than ten residents and a grand total of three buildings you can access. Your home is occupied by Sukumizu, a swimsuit-wearing girl who will teach you the game’s mechanics, hold items, and kick your butt if you piss her off. Right off the bat, a number of mechanics in Hakoniwa Explorer Plus were pretty frustrating to deal with. You talk with people by walking into them, something that I found to be an annoyance when I was trying to move through a town. If you approach someone from behind, a running gag implies that you’ve groped them. If you happen to do it too many times while you’ve loaded into a town, you might… [Read full story]
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