Pets play quite an important role in a lot of our lives. Along with being cute, cuddly and loyal, some can also be very protective which in this day and age is extremely useful.
Now imagine having a pet which was not only a threat to burglars but to the whole world, essentially an annihilation weapon. I’m sure there would be some people crazy enough to try and domesticate a fluffy weapon, whilst the chances of that occurring in real life is practically zero, luckily video games exist for a reason, for the sole purpose of allowing us to witness crazy and downright bizarre things.
MOCHI-O does indeed involve a pet which is a threat to the whole world, and the game as a whole is very peculiar, I mean when you make it about a hamster which wields guns and is a nuclear weapon in disguise then the word “normal” doesn’t immediately spring to one’s mind.
Your mission is simple. to raise, feed, and pet him before each destructive battle to protect the country from foreign enemies.
Over time you’ll form a special and rather interesting relationship with MOCHI-O, going from I’m locked in a room with an unstable nuclear weapon to I’m locked in a room with a fluffy ball I’d happily die for.
A game about a gun wielding hamster can’t be that crazy, right?
On the surface MOCHI-O looks like one of the weirdest and wackiest games you’ll ever come across but the truth is, it probably will be in all honesty. So much so that it will end up being one you’ll remember for a while purely because of how unique and just weird it is.
But that’s a good thing, not all games need to be made with Unreal Engine and have amazing characters, lore, and world-building to be a memorable title, which is exactly why I liked it.
It didn’t really need any of that, all it needed was a gun wielding hamster, some funny dialogue, and it instantly became a game that players will remember simply because of those two things. This is exactly why indie titles receive so much love, you’ll often come across one which has a mechanic or story that just stands out like a sore thumb for good reasons, and in this case it’s guiding a hamster to destroy and kill.
Around 75% of the game was purely chaotic, destructive combat, but the remaining 25% was visual novel, which focused on the handler’s bonds between MOCHI-O and the director (his superior). After each level a short cut-scene would occur where we’d learn more about the situation and improve our relationship with the two. The short, yet funny and amusing conversations were enjoyable and further highlighted the humour and bizarre aspect to the game.
The combat was by far the least bizarre aspect about MOCHI-O
Since MOCHI-O is a tower defence it’s no surprise that it’s focused heavily on combat, and the combat itself was probably the easiest you could probably imagine in terms of mechanics. You quite simply hover your crosshair over the enemies and the rest is done automatically. Not exactly the most exciting and groundbreaking combat, but the appealing 2D graphics and many abilities to unlock and try out quite comfortably made up for that.
Whilst it wasn’t particularly fun, it was still engaging because you had to stay focused at all times. Like most games you had a health bar and whenever enemies crossed your safe line then you would lose some depending on what type of enemy it was. A boss would knock off around 40 health whilst regular enemies cost you around 10. The catch is you didn’t have to actually kill all of the enemies, the game had you focus on prioritising enemies which was, well, up to your own interpretation.
You might go for the bosses/big enemies since they take the most health away from you, or you may go for all the smaller ones to stop hordes of them crossing the safe zone. Either way it was entirely up to you, though I’d recommend prioritising smaller enemies since if you take your eye off them for a few seconds, before you know it swarms of them are crossing the line.
To help with the sometimes overwhelming levels, you can upgrade him to improve his maximum health, critical rate damage, amongst other things. New powerful weapons were also unlockable along with some useful and strong abilities which were essential to beating the game.
Naturally they weren’t easy to come by and had some requirements, needing enough money and having MOCHI-O being at a specific level. Leveling him up was a mini game itself, involving having to accurately launch seeds into his mouth whilst the crosshair slowly moved. It was quite hard to miss, like really hard, but it did add a small element of risk to it.
