Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first hour has a strong, instantly understandable joke behind it: household pests have beaten chemical pesticides, so you send in a tiny pink-haired robot maid with a weapon. More importantly, that joke is attached to a clean action-game loop. Missions ask you to hit pest quotas, avoid incoming attacks, and keep HoiHoi-san charged. You always know what needs doing, but the battery condition stops each stage from becoming a lazy sweep through a room.

Carrying two weapons at once gives the shooting a useful bit of decision-making. Long-range firearms make sense when you need room to breathe, while bladed options invite a more aggressive approach once enemies close the distance. Because new weapons are bought with money earned from cleared stages, the game has a practical reason to replay its extermination work instead of treating every mission as a one-and-done novelty.

That said, the structure is deliberately narrow. You are taking on mission-based pest hunts, not setting out on a sprawling adventure, and the central pressure remains targets, enemy attacks, and battery management. If the sight of a cute robot mercilessly clearing out bugs is enough to make you grin, that focus is a strength. If you need a shooter with broader ambitions, the repeated extermination premise may wear thin.

Graphics

HoiHoi-san is an immediately memorable sight: a tiny, pink-haired girl in a maid dress carrying miniature weapons against household pests. The third-person viewpoint keeps her and the enemies in view during each hunt, and the contrast between her toy-sized character design and the bug-killing job is the whole visual joke.

The optional filter that obscures the pests is an unusually considerate inclusion. It means you can keep the game’s cute robot-star look without having to stare at cockroaches if that is where your tolerance ends.

Story

The setup is knowingly ridiculous in the right way. A near-future pest crisis has made ordinary chemicals useless, and the consumer answer is a customizable robot built to hunt and destroy bugs. It is a premise that understands exactly how silly it is, then commits to it.

Aburatsubo, a lonely young man, buys the latest HoiHoi-san model from Mars Pharmaceuticals. Her maid-like appearance and the promise that she will serve his every whim are deliberately undercut by the condition that those whims need to involve ruthlessly exterminating pests. That contradiction gives the game its personality.

Do not come in expecting the premise to turn household extermination into heavy drama. The story’s value is its manga-derived absurdity and its commitment to a world where tiny armed domestic robots are a normal commercial solution. For this kind of licensed action game, that is a much better foundation than a generic excuse to shoot targets.

Overall Experience

Ichigeki Sacchū!! HoiHoi-san earns attention through specificity. Plenty of action games ask you to clear enemies from a stage; far fewer make you manage a miniature robot maid’s battery while she exterminates pesticide-proof cockroaches with guns and blades. The premise is not merely window dressing—it directly shapes every mission.

The strongest part is the way the simple goal structure, two-weapon loadout, unlockable purchases, and battery pressure all point at the same compact arcade-style routine. You clear pests, earn cash, alter HoiHoi-san’s gear or clothes, and go back out. It is a focused loop with enough customization to make the next mission feel like more than a reset.

Give it a chance if you enjoy eccentric anime-licensed games and prefer a concise, mission-led shooter to a huge campaign. The optional pest filter makes the recommendation easier, too: even if cockroaches are a hard no for you, you can still enjoy the strange charm of HoiHoi-san herself.

Retro Replay Score

7.1/10