Mokoko is as niche as they come, having been developed by a team of two and its shoestring budget crowdfunded by less than one hundred backers on Kickstarter. Its premise is an oddly fitting combination of retro action puzzlers like Volified and Qix from the Atari 2600 era, in which a player avatar must slice into a hostile 2D plane and claim enough "territory" to win, and adult puzzle games, where the goal is usually to reveal explicit images by clearing levels. It's probably the first of its kind (at least outside of Japan), and the genre blend developer NAISU was going for makes mechanical sense for obvious reasons. Overall, Mokoko's core gameplay is inexplicably compelling, but it's far too repetitive when viewed in the context of its coexisting level, sound, and art design to escape mediocrity.
Players inhabit the strange floating sprite of a disembodied, mustachioed RoboCop lookalike in their noble quest to uncover character graphics of increasingly unclothed women, who are drawn in a slightly unrefined ecchi anime style. Surprisingly, there's quite a lot lore in Mokoko, but these intentionally absurd dramas are innately obscured behind a thick layer of mechanical simplicity. Each of the game's 24 levels feature a dangerous boss enemy and several less powerful minions that are bothering the cast of distressed damsels, and the goal is always to capture a sufficient amount of onscreen territory in order to send the boss enemy packing. It's worth noting that none of Mokoko's inspired arcade gameplay revival targets centered around graphic content, but it works well enough here.
Players move around the edges of the polygonal space shielded from enemy contact until they venture out to draw lines, which must touch at least two points of their own territory to capture enemy space. That's complicated by the presence of enemies, who instantly take one of the player's lives when they touch the player sprite. If they touch a player's unfinished line, a life will only be taken if the line is still incomplete by the time a pulse sent along it at the point of contact reaches the player, and either form of enemy attack will cancel the player's current move and force them to retry. There's really not much more to Mokoko's gameplay; the player's shield degenerates over time and is recharged by territory capture, trapping minor enemies in player territory kills them, and capturing mystery blocks induce a half-baked handful of score-modifying power-ups and debuffs.
To its credit, some players are bound to find this unique set of rules and mechanics vaguely entrancing and addictive, and it really carries more than its fair share of the experience forward. It's unfortunate, then, that it's so thoroughly undermined by the presentation that surrounds it. Although enemy sprites are varied in design and impressively well-animated and the detailed score counter and onscreen character dialogue on either side of the action enhance the arcadey feel NAISU is going for, almost every moment of Mokoko's gameplay is interrupted by an endless cacophony of lackluster sound effects and ear-grating voice acting, the low quality of which seems to have been intentional despite the maddening repetition generated by how frequently characters' lines are recycled.
Of course, many people seeking out Mokoko are probably here for one thing only: anime boobs. Luckily for them, those are here - eight pairs of them even - and nudity can be unlocked by downloading a free patch. With nudity enabled, the eight women in need of saving are undressed piece by piece in each of their three levels. However, once unclothed, the character graphics make it clear that the artist essentially drew the same female figure eight times over and only made noticeable changes to their face shape and eye and hair color. Far be it from this review to shun anyone's preferences, but the artwork isn't exactly breathtaking or anatomically conscious whether or not the women are decent. Additionally, the few extrinsic rewards here are wholly absent for players who opt to keep things PG, and there's no in-game indication of the nudity patch's existence.
That aside, Mokoko's purposefully ridiculous enemies and contrived scenarios that bring them, the girls, and the protagonist together are mildly redeeming. Players fight bosses ranging from fidget spinners to demon-possessed headphones, and the flavor text accompanying them all is a nice and self-aware surprise. It doesn't vaguely approach the level of charm needed to excuse the ever-present and abhorrent voice acting, but it's something. Thematically, though, Mokoko does not impress. It's never clear why these young women, some of whom are heavily implied to be under threat of sexual crime by their assailants, want the intimate company of the player immediately afterward. For many, that won't be a problem, but that gross misrepresentation of sex and adult relationships is sure to turn some players off.
Truly bizarre and not all that sexy, Mokoko is not the best softcore hentai puzzle game that anyone familiar with the genre will ever play, but it doesn't really seem set on earning that title. What it severely lacks in presentation, it makes up for with an inspired revisitation of a unique gameplay style long bygone. Some will play the game to completion to get access to all of the character graphics and their configurations (and more power to them), but those who find themselves oddly captivated by the frustrating yet ultimately engaging action puzzle mechanics might also find themselves seeing the game through to the end, nudity patch or no.
Mokoko is available now on PC. Screen Rant was provided a code for this review.