Koi-Koi Japan is a Hanafuda card game called, you guessed it, Koi-Koi. The Hanafuda deck is 48 cards, with 4 cards for each month of the year. The cards are further divided in Plain, Ribbon, Seed and Light. The goal of the game is to make Yaku, or certain sets of cards. You do this by matching cards of the same month/type. If you cannot make a match, you discard a card face up on the table. If you make a Yaku, you can either continue(Koi-Koi) making Yaku or stop the round. Each Yaku is worth a point value. You and your opponent both have 30 points. Each Yaku point is added to yours and subtracted from theirs. Whoever has the most points after six rounds wins.
Koi-Koi Japan is a faithful adaptation of the game. It is well made, will loads of options and customization features. Cards and Yaku are available to view at any time, and there is a decent tutorial you can play. The issue is, you can steamroll the AI on the default easy difficulty. So turn that up, and the AI will start to steamroll you. You see, there is some strategy involved in choosing which cards to match and make sets of. On easy, it blunders. At higher difficulty levels, it doesn’t. That’s good! As an added bonus there are guide characters, who are mostly anime women with giant boobs.
Koi-Koi Japan’s single player is primarily postcard mode, where you travel around Japan to certain areas to get post cards by beating the AI. There is also online multiplayer, but good luck finding anyone on Quick Match. Your best bet is playing with online friends. Overall, I have no real complaints. Koi-Koi Japan gets a Recommended verdict with an eight back score. Not exactly begging to be bought, but if you’re looking for a Hanafuda game, can’t go wrong here.
Overall: Koi-Koi Japan is a well made Hanafuda game that you can’t go wrong buying if you’re looking for something like that.
Verdict: Recommended
| Release Date | 8/29/24 |
| Cost | $9.99 |
| Publisher | Sticky Rice Games |
| ESRB Rating | E |
P.S. Check out this Riichi Mahjong with big breasted women that was decent.
Zom
A videogame that lets you play and learn to play a card game from elsewhere is a good idea. The character art could use a little polish but, the backgrounds and card art have the right feel. I hesitate to buy at $10 and will think it over. However, I have added it to my wishlist.