i'm not going to lie, the further i 'progress' with this game, the more of a love-hate relationship i develop with it. too many aspects are left totally in the dark for my taste. for example, i had to go trawling through the steam guide to find out that you can't actually decorate your exterior until you've earned a specific mayor merit. so, why let me buy exterior options i can't actually use yet? i can't even drop the roof i have on me, i just have to sell it or wait until it's actually usable. similarly, i can't drop or place the shoes my villagers have gifted me; they're just stuck in my inventory unless i sell them, which i don't want to. (similarly, i also can't drop or place anything handheld. i don't need my axe, shovel or balloon on me 90% of the time, but it's either sell them or let them take up inventory space.) all of this leads into (for me, at least) an inventory issue. i don't know when backpack upgrades become available (i've no doubt that's locked behind a mayor merit they don't tell you about, too), but i haven't seen one in the shop, or any kind of furniture item i could use to store items in the mean time. my inventory is filled with crafting materials that i don't necessarily want to sell because... i'm going to need them? but the game so far hasn't given me much of a choice, and while it's nice that you can drop items without them despawning, you can only (in my experience) drop them individually. so, it's a useless solution for my stack of 40 something stone.
other complaints, because i need to get it off my chest lol: the mine is obscenely dark. even with my switch lite at full brightness, i would need to place a mining torch every three squares to traverse the place without squinting and/or holding the screen up to my face. not being able to talk to villagers while holding anything is... a weird choice. what about my balloon is stopping benny from speaking to me lmao? the steam guide says the fishing npc appears on the east of the beach, but east of the beach is the ocean. i've been assuming it means the pier, but i haven't seen them at all yet, and i don't know if they're only available at a certain time and/or day because nothing even insinuates it. decorating inside... i can't move anything left or right. sometimes, it won't even let me move it up or down. is this another feature locked behind mayor merits, is it completely absent, or is my game bugged six ways to sunday? doesn't tell you.
in ac, you find out pretty quickly that your house is able to be upgraded. in this game? i've no idea if that's even an option. am i stuck with the one, like, 10x10 room, or will rosa eventually give me the option to have additional rooms or at least a bigger single one? it's another thing i wish the game was more upfront about. i know most people will like the ability of being able to decorate everyone's homes at will, but i would've preferred it if they at least had interiors less akin to a shack in the woods to begin with. my two starter villagers have fully decorated homes while the two i've had move in since only have a mattress and old tv to their names lmao. i'm not the decorating type, but at least ac has them come with pre-furnished homes and lets you re-decorate freely. in hokko, you (presumably) have to craft or buy all their furniture yourself. so even if i ever feel so inclined, it's not going to be a long time for that reason alone.
the game is really cute. i do like running around gathering resources and unlocking the new areas, but it's really difficult for me to play sometimes when the most guidance you tend to get is, "can you build/get x for me?" (and sometimes, even that doesn't cooperate. i built someone two benches and placed them in town but then had to go collect them again because the quest refused to progress until i showed him the benches in my inventory first.) a lot of the features are just too unclear for me, and i feel like i'm missing out massively because i've seen the bug npc twice but no sign of the fishing one, and moss doesn't sell a rod in his shop. (or hasn't so far, anyway.) it's not a game i regret getting for the price i paid; i do spend a few hours a day playing it, but i think it suffers from some quality of life issues imo.
