HoPiKo Review

Brutal is a convenient byword for "exceptionally tough." It fits the theme for HoPiKo well. Starting out seeming like all should be pretty fine, it soon ramps up the difficulty by requiring you to react with excessive speed. It’s well made, if not for everyone’s taste.

Your aim is to save gaming by flying though various stages to counteract the Nanobyte virus, while picking up special consoles along the way. It’s incredibly simply told but kind of appealing too.

Each section of the game is split into mini-runs of 5 stages. It’ll only take you a matter of seconds to finish each subsection, but the game requires you to complete all 5 sections in a row successfully. That means if you screw up on the last jump, you’re back to the start. While it might not take long to complete a section, the tricky part is timing everything just right.

You tap on the screen to launch your guy from platform to platform but you have to be fast. Besides having to time it just right so that you don’t smash into an obstacle, you also have to keep moving so that you don’t explode. It makes for a frantic experience as you find yourself having to almost get into a rhythm when it comes to reacting.

That means that HoPiKo is simultaneously exciting and infuriating. It’s great when you’ve got the rhythm just right but other times, you’ll be annoyed when you screw up on the last jump. At times, the slingshot style mechanism which affects your direction feels like it slows you down but really, you just need to be faster.

That’s the thing about HoPiKo - it’s gripping when it goes well, but once you screw up too many times you’ll find yourself casting it aside for a little while. It’s free of in-app purchase nonsense though, so it’s only ever your patience that restricts that ‘just one more go’ urge. For the twitchy gamer, it should appeal.