For this week's iPhone Friday i tried MOCHI-O from zxima on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I had previously played Flat Machine, https://youtu.be/Hob5TyE_BWE, and really enjoyed it so i was looking forward to trying something new from these developers. the app store page did make it look like the game was going to be very busy so i was also curious how the game would handle things when it got chaotic.
The answer to that question came immediately as when you start the game you're thrown into the action. it took a second or two to understand what to do, i would've liked it to pause, highlight what was being said in the bottom left, then the top right, and then started the action. but ultimately, the game takes over fairly quickly as we're not as yet playing as our character. from this bit we're introduced to our monster Hamster weapon and that's it.
Our character comes in and things are slower and much more manageable. we're introduced to the characters better and what our goal is. the menus are mostly clear to understand and so is how the upgrade mechanics work. but i didn't realise that the upgrade menu was scrollable, so perhaps that needs to be made a bit clearer. but other than that, the game looks great and even among the chaos things are still legible, with things like health big and clear in the top left, and the danger zone clearly labeled.
the gameplay and what you have to do is simple, but the controls may take a bit to get used to. thankfully, you're able to replay levels if you make a mistake or go back to them when Mochi-o is leveled up and has more weapons and abilities. this is a rail shooter game. we can move left to right and our goal is to aim a reticle at the enemies and Mochi-o will attack that space. when you defeat an enemy, or use an enemy's explosion to take out other enemies, sunflower seeds will be dropped. you need to take time out of shooting to suck these seeds up. regular black and white ones give Mochi-o experience and when it has enough you're able to pick from 3 upgrades. picking up the pink ones help level up Mochi-o back at base. and there are other items dropped you can suck up like money, health, and blueprints. each run i did were different lengths of time and had variations of enemies to defeat.
I really enjoyed my time playing MOCHI-O. it doesn't take itself too serious and yet built an interesting world. it looks great, sounds good, and the English translation seems fine. i would recommend this game, it's one of the best free to play mobile games i've played this year so far!
Version 1.43 Played
