Mokoko

Developer: NAISU | Publisher: NAISU | Release Date: 2020 | Genre: Action / Casual / Indie | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

With so many anime-themed adult games flooding Steam, it can be really difficult to figure out which ones are actually worth your time and money. This, unfortunately, means that most people simply ignore the whole mess, which results in games like Mokoko getting overlooked. Unlike other low effort titles that combine pretty visuals with lackluster gameplay, the developers of Mokoko actually used a fairly solid base for their game. Mokoko was inspired by arcade games like Qix and more specifically Gals Panic that sees you dodging enemies while trying to conquer as much territory. Players who are not old enough to remember those titles may also have played more modern titles based on the same idea, such as the Fortix series.

Mokoko presents players with 24 levels that are split between eight different girls. Each of these girls is under siege by a plethora of absurd bosses and it is your job to “save” them from the cretins. As each level opens you are presented with a silhouette of the girl in the background and a boss along with his swarm of minions wandering about. Your character, who bizarrely looks like the disembodied head of Robocop sporting a mustache, must then “conquer” as much territory as possible by drawing lines. If any enemy or projectile touches your character in the act of drawing a line then you lose a life. However, if you are successful in connecting at least two points of your line to the borders of the screen or already connected territory, it will fill in to reveal the picture while also restricting the movement of your enemies. Once you conquer enough territory your enemies are vanquished and the whole picture is revealed. Depending on whether or not you have the free adult DLC installed, the images will also progressively become lewder.

The gameplay is very simple, but just like the games that inspired it, Mokoko can become very addictive. The game requires you to stay on the move as enemies can also kill you in areas that you have already conquered if your shield is depleted. Your shield constantly drains and the only way to refill it is to capture more areas, so sometimes you are forced to make risky moves in order to survive. Unfortunately, while Mokoko does feature power-ups and traps, it lacks some of the strategic elements of Gals Panic. For example, it doesn’t matter which parts of the background image you choose to uncover and there are no penalties for playing it too safe. Having said that, some levels are a little less straightforward than others, such as the cannon gauntlet you’ll face when playing one of Julia’s stages.

The game also has three difficulty settings to choose from, which influences elements like your enemies, your shield and how much of the level you need to conquer for victory. Also, you unlock an Arcade mode after completing the story mode, which challenges you to see how far you can get in the game with limited lives. To help motivate you the game also features Steam Achievements as well as online leaderboards.

Mokoko is not the best looking game we’ve seen in this genre, but it looks decent enough. The action is restricted to a window in the center of the screen while notifications are displayed on the right and information such as your shield level displayed on the left. The boss of the level you are playing also has its own window where you can see it close up while on a portrait of the girl you are saving appears on the opposite side. It’s a pity that even though each girl has multiple levels they each only have a single pose. Different poses for all the girls would have made the game a lot more interesting, but at least the price of the game was kept very affordable. It’s also great to see that the nudity patch for the game is available for free on Steam and doesn’t cost extra like in other adult games.

One of the things that we love about Mokoko is the completely over the top enemies and their bizarre back-stories. These guys range from “Norman the Useless Gyroscope” and “Mr. Fyodorov the Imaginary Spider” to “Albert the Wonderful Sea Creature” and our personal favorite “Ali Baba the Piece of Crap.” Before each round, you are given a short description of the girl you are trying the save, the boss that is tormenting her and what their relationship is. We actually looked forward to each new level just to find out what weird boss we will be up against and what their motivations are. Every level that you complete also reveals more about the origin of the game’s title, but we recognized the joke long before the end, so others might already know it too.

NAISU didn’t just put a lot of effort into coming up with weird and wonderful stories for the girls and bosses but provided all of them with voices too. Once again these are surprisingly good considering the budget price of Mokoko. Then there’s the soundtrack, which while not exactly catchy, is a good match for the game. The music and sound effects volume can also be adjusted independently if you prefer one over the other. The game is easy enough to control via a keyboard, but as it only has partial controller support you’ll need to navigate the menus with a mouse.

It didn’t take more than a couple of hours to get most of the achievements in Moko, but we had a lot of fun along the way. The different difficulty settings and leaderboards also provide an incentive to return to the game every now and then, so there’s no question about the value for money. We know that the theme is something that will deter some players, but if you have fond memories of the lewd arcade titles from the eighties and nineties, then Mokoko definitely belongs in your library. The fact that it features actual, fun gameplay also elevates it above the sea of adult anime-style titles on Steam.