Play Hototogisu (Japan) Online
Pick a clan, push tiny armies across feudal Japan, and pray you guessed the right menu option—those pixelated cavalry charges feel weirdly good once you figure out the jank.
Game Overview
Hototogisu is one of those weird, deep cuts from the NES era that never made it out of Japan—which is a shame, because it’s a surprisingly solid war sim for an 8-bit game. You pick a clan (I went with Takeda because their cavalry looked cool) and try to conquer feudal Japan through a mix of turn-based strategy and real-time battles. The menus are all in Japanese, but after some trial and error, you start figuring out which numbers mean "attack" and which mean "retreat."
The battles are chaotic in that classic NES way—tiny sprites clashing on a grid, with terrain actually mattering (archers on hills wreck everyone). It’s janky, but there’s something satisfying about slowly expanding your territory while managing food and gold between fights. Just don’t expect modern conveniences like tooltips or undo buttons.
If you’re into retro strategy games and don’t mind some pixelated guesswork, this one’s a hidden gem. Or at least a hidden pebble worth kicking over.
Download Hototogisu (Japan) ROM
You can download this ROM to play Hototogisu (Japan) offline using an Nintendo (NES) emulator (Top Emulators).
*This ROM is provided for backup and educational purposes only.
