There are times that some DSiWare or 3DS eShop titles don’t get the attention they deserve even it they are solid and fun games. I had Hakokoro from 2010 in my old Japanese dsi, and now I have it on my 3DS It’s one of the few DSiWare titles that I didn’t delete, and for good reason. I come back to it and I still get the same fun than before. But you search for internet and there is hardly any information or review about it.
Story: You take the role of a young magic apprentice called Astrina, who must learn the secrets of hakokoro to graduate from magic school. In her way she will face her teachers and the school director.
Gameplay: In the game you control a cube (hako, that means box) which has an empty side (Kuchi, or mouth). You can control it up-down-left-right, with the stick (3DS only) or the directional pad (touch-screen is not used). The cube will be rotating every time you move it. You can’t move or rotate your cube through walls or through monsters.
Speaking of which, in every stage there will be 2 to 6 of them on screen. You need to defeat all of them before time is over (or you get hit 3 times) to complete the stage. And how do you defeat them? By using orbs.
Orbs come in 5 different colors: red (fire), blue (ice), Yellow (electric) , Green (wind), and purple (dark). Every orb has a different magic attack when used. To unleash their power you need to “catch” them with your open side (mouth). If you rotate the cube near an orb but the empty side don’t get over that orb, it will just be thrown. Be careful, as it can rebound in a wall and come back hurting you.
Your magic will increase every time you use an orb, and decrease if you don’t use an orb in a while. There are 3 levels. The first one is a basic attack, second has higher attack and range, and in the 3rd level you will see your heroine spelling the words of an ultimate devastating spell with the highest range and damage.
Every time you use an orb, you get a seal in your cube which can be placed wherever you want (you need to put your empty side in the ground to place it). Those seals are activated when another attack touches them, increasing your damage and final score.
Regular monsters die by receiving just one attack. However, there are boss monsters which need more than one attack to be defeated. These situations are where combos get useful.
Lastly, you can find items that can help you during stages. Those items are inside boxes that will only open when hit by an attack. There are four different items: Sand-clock (restores a little time), Heart (restores 1 live, you can’t go beyond your initial three), Shield (you are protected against attacks), and time stone (you stop time for 7 seconds, use it to create a longer chain)
There are three modes unlocked right from the start:
– Stage mode. There are 40 stages with a boss monster every 5 stages. Every time you beat a stage you move onto the next one. You can replay them to obtain higher scores and receive platinum medals. Once you defeat all 40 stages, you will finish the story, watch the credits (very fun credits, as all programmers come to declare their love to Astrina only to get the cube on their heads as her answer), and a difficult mode will open up.
– Tokoton mode. You face regular stages, every time you complete one you move into the next. Difficulty will be increased every time you complete a stage, and lives will not be replenished between stages. Get the highest score possible before you are defeated!
– Boss rush mode. You will only face bosses. Every time you defeat one, you go to the next. Lives are not restored between battles, so take care of that. Once you beat all 8 bosses, you return back to the first one, but it will have deadlier attacks.
Graphics: They are not outstanding by today’s standard. However they are enough detailed to distinguish your cube, the enemies and the items. Remember that when you reach magic level 3 there are lots of explosions, and at least there is no lag when does happens.
Conclusion: There is plenty of content in this game, and more importantly, there is solid gameplay behind it. The only drawback is that you need some time to learn your box pattern movement and there is no Tutorial about it. But once you learn how to move it well, it’s a game very rewarding. The regular enemies are always the same, just in different colors to represent their difficulty (blue are the easiest, yellow , and red as the most difficult ones). It would have been cool to have enemies with different behaviors. At least bosses do have different patterns.
Perhaps if it brought some more attractive graphics it could have been a bigger success. Overall, if you have a Japanese DSi (or 3DS) this game is worth every single yen of its 500 price tag.
8/10
Review by Gabikun. For more information on Hakokoro go to http://www.amzy.co.jp/hako/
Japanese Nintendo 