LocoRoco (PSP) > Reviews (12)

I first heard about LocoRoco from a friend who told me I could download a demo game from the internet. The demo was in Japanese and I could not understand the instructions fully but I managed to get my way to the end of the stage and I was instantly hooked and knew I would be buying the game as soon as it was released in the UK.

The game is very simple but extremely entertaining. The story is that further than the very best telescope can see there is a very content planet, home to the very cheerful LocoRoco. They live in harmony with the planet, look after the plants and sing and dance all day. That was UNTIL the Moja Troops came down from the stars to take over.. The LocoRoco have no idea how to defeat invaders and that's where the player comes in.

A LocoRoco is a kind of squishy blob that has eyes, a tuft of hair and a mouth which is very important as they never stop singing. This is the first part of their appeal. They sing total nonsense, and there is a very Japanese-y style to their nonsense but after a while it is almost like you can understand them.

The game itself is very easy to play, and in fact only has a grading of 3+, but is already very popular with people of all ages. It is a 2D platformy- type game and the idea is to get as many LocoRoco home as possible in each stage. For the most part while it might feel like you are causing the LocoRoco to jump and bounce about, what you have to do is actually tilt the "World" left and right which causes the LocoRoco to go in the direction you want - hopefully.

As the LocoRoco tears through the levels there are things to collect on the way. You can finish each stage as long as you only get home one LocoRoco, which is what you started with. However on the way, the LocoRoco eats berries and every berry he finds causes a new LocoRoco to be born. There are 19 berries to be found so a perfect stage means bringing 20 LocoRoco home. There are usually 200-300 pickories which look like juicy fly creatures to be eaten and 3-4 Mui Mui (blue men) who unlock key pieces for the LocoRoco house. The stages are all timed too. The LocoRoco start off as a yellow species but as you work your way through all the levels there are five more colours to discover, and they all sing differently, from Operatic to pop music to some very gruff male choir types

The only other button you need to use is the circle button. LocoRoco can move about as one big blob, size depending on how ever many there are, or as individual LocoRoco. This can help them navigate through tight spaces, but they are harder to control and if one strays too far then it will be eaten by the Moja Troops.

The backgrounds and screens are very colourful and very simple and extremely appealing. Each stage is different to the last one, as you explore the world, and you can feel the difference in the movement of your LocoRoco through the Ice stages for example, compared to the sticky, fatty insides of some giant creature the LocoRoco need to escape through. The background has a definite effect on the ability to get through the level; I found the darker backgrounds and more sinister music were the ones where I was having difficulty getting through without losing all my little friends.

My disappointment with the game, is having waited about 8-10 weeks to get the full version, I was able to get through all the eight stages in each of the five worlds in well under one day (admittedly with a deep imprint on my left forefinger from the metal on the LHS of the PSP, when you know you have been playing a game too long). It is very unputdownable, and as the stages are all quite short, you find yourself playing another and another one. There is usually one more difficult level at the end of each world, but while I didn't complete these with very good results, I was able to get through them quite easily.

The other main disappointment is that there are a lot of areas where the running water or air streams take over, and while the adventure looks exciting if you were a LocoRoco, you are not actually doing anything. While this was an attractive use of graphics, I felt there was just a little too much of this in the stages, especially when some of these felt quite short as it was.

There is still a lot of play left in the game even after the initial run through, as you can go back to all the levels and try and obtain 100% success in finding all the Mui Mui, pickories, and making sure all 20 LocoRoco are brought home safely. THat is 800 you have to save in total, as well as thousands of Pickory. You can also do time trials on any level, providing you have brought 20 LocoRoco home first, to try and beat the original time and gain another 1000 pickories

LocoRoco is very simple to play, but it takes a bit more effort sometimes to be able to make the jumps and bounces and discover all the areas where you can break walls to find secret hidey-holes sheltering the things you need so you can properly complete the level. Perfectionists will probably take a few more months to get 100% on as many levels as possible.

I think the game could have been developed a bit more in that while there were subtle increases in difficulty, most platform-games would take me weeks or months to get to the final levels, and would be noticeably more difficult to master.

There are some mini-games, which get unlocked at certain points in the game but I don't think these would hold anyone's interest for very long. The Mui Mui crane is a bit like an arcade crane game where you have to grab an item and hold on to it. You can then use the item in your LocoRoco house. The Chuppa Chuppa game is a little more interesting but only marginally so The Loco House was very disappointing, and I found it very difficult to place more than one of the objects I found on the house at once, but that wasn't very exciting either. This is a shame for a game which is so playable otherwise.

Overall the graphics were great, the LocoRoco themselves are adorable, the music is catching and very happy (although I got told to put the headphones on after a while.) and the game is very original and very suited to the PSP screen. It is just a shame that it can be completed so quickly and the mini-games were not a bit better.

I have given it four stars, which is less than the other reviewers, but for the price I would have liked it to have lasted a bit longer, and have better mini-games included. The best deal I found was Amazon at £29.99 including free postage but they advertise 1-2 week delivery. It was going on EBay used for a similar amount, and the shops tend to be over £30, slightly discounting the £34.99 RRP. It is also bundled with a new black or white PSP for around £180. You can download the demo game from the following link:

http://uk.gamespot.com/psp/action/locoro​co/downloads.html

You can also get demo UMDs (Universal Media Disc) of the game from EBay for about 99p and it was included as one of the playable demos from PSP magazine about 2 months ago, so they are also available that way. The game does not make a lot of use of the PSP features but if you know someone with the game you can use the Game Sharing feature to play the demo stages. You can also share stages with other users, share house plans and take snapshots of your play and download these to your PC - although I don't think I would bother, as this isn't a game like the Sims where you can create something very different to everyone else, and one screen shot from Locoroco will look just like another..http://www.jp.playstation.com/s​cej/title/locoroco/ try this Japanese site just to hear the addictive music and get a great idea of the graphics. You can download it from here too, if you can read Japanese.