Ikemoto in Nozawa Onsen

Room was very nice and staff were very friendly! However the onsen spa was very dirty and had not been cleaned for a very long time, mould all over the walls, grimey floor, objects floating in the spa. Otherwise good experience

I traveled by car to Matsunoyama and Matsudai to tour the rice terraces. There were no business hotels nearby, so I stayed at Ikemoto in Nozawa Onsen.
9,800 yen for a room only is a bit pricey. The Japanese-style room is about 10 tatami mats in size, and the sink and toilet are shared, so I don't think young people would stay there. It was a Showa-era retro inn with an image similar to a guesthouse.
The free-flowing hot spring in the indoor bath was too hot to get in. I went to the outdoor bath, Oyu, in the morning, but since Nozawa Onsen is a free-flowing bath, the water was too hot and I couldn't get in either. I guess Nozawa Onsen is a hot spring inn that caters to group ski and snowboard tourists in the winter, so it's viable as a hot spring inn.

The location is fantastic, directly opposite the tourist information centre, and surrounding by cafes, bars, restaurants, and shops. It's also right in the centre of the stamp collecting zone, if you are interested in doing the stamp collecting!
The staff are absolutely lovely. So smiley and friendly. Additionally, the breakfast was delicious, and you can get free coffee.
The rooms themselves are large, the views are just fantastic, and the heating unit is useful this time of year, but around and about the halls and waiting areas, it is very cold! The fish in the waiting area also need bigger tanks. And cleaner tanks. I feel sorry for these fish.
In the rooms, the bedsheets had very large stains! And we had to stack the mattresses after night 2, as I woke up with a very sore back...
Edit: I did forget to mention that the toilets are not so nice, and it's very cold in there. In the women's bathroom there were two stalls, one seemed to be out of order, and the other had a very awkward lock, I think there must have been a piece missing. I did go to the onsen-bath since writing this review originally though. It was nice, but when there are so many free onsens available, it seems odd for an onsen to be a required feature. Still nice, and had a shower space with shampoo and body soap available, which gives it a bit of a bonus over the free onsens in the area, but the room itself felt like it is not cleaned frequently enough... also, just outside of that onsen is a smoking area, without a door. I'm glad we weren't there during a busy period, as cigarette smoke often hurts my throat, and there was no divider between the smoking area and the other waiting spaces for the onsen, the vending machines, or the coffee machines. This seems like a major oversight. They could at least have a curtain there. Yukata were provided, as well as an over layer to keep you warm! The overlayer was nice, but my yukata had a massive hole, and since it was a little long on me, I kept getting my leg caught in it!

Pros and cons of this place really seem to balance out, but we had a reasonably good experience there and it's affordable and well located.