PSP Review: LocoRoco
Let me tell you about an interesting game from last year for the Playstation Portable. It's called LocoRoco, and at first glance it's so simplistic a 3 year old could pick it up and play it. It has a grand total of three buttons and five functions - more on that later.
This game features a simple cartoon feel, which the PSP's graphics hardware renders absolutely flawlessly. You play the planet on which the LocoRoco and various other animals live. Some aliens invade, and the LocoRoco and friends can't fight them, so you - the planet - guide them by tilting.
Watch any video of this game, or pick it up for the first time, and you're almost put off by the childish look and feel of it. The game has so few functions that you almost feel like you're too old to be playing it.
However, this game's concept works, and works famously. The L+R shoulder buttons individually tilt the world either direction, and pressing them both together "flicks" the world, causing the LocoRocos to jump. The LocoRocos will absorb fruit and other stuff in order to grow in size. Need to make it through a tight spot that you can't fit through (despite a LocoRoco being quite malleable)? Press circle quickly and all the LocoRocos you've assimilated will split apart, usually with hilarious consequences.
Holding circle will cause them to join back together, amid a child-like chorus. Oh yeah, did I mention the absolutely infectious soundtrack? It's in a ficticious language, performed by various artists and absolutely gets inside your skull. The LocoRoco on screen are singing along with these various little repetitive ditties, and before long you will be too, feeling like an idiot as people avoid you walking down the street.
The feeling you had of the game being ridiculously easy soon dissipates, as the difficulty rises almost to frustrating. The puzzles are ingenious, the world design is fantastic with constantly changing themes and wickedly loopy levels.
Overall, this is a fantastic little game. It's not frustrating in the slightest to pick up, but it can get pretty difficult towards the end. It's simple, it's refreshing, and it's quite addictive. The minigames provide a little extra something as well. Honestly, I personally think a multi-player mode where you race for fruits would be immense fun, but you can't win them all.
The best part about this game is it's a few months old now, the price has come down substantially. Mean price at the moment on eBay is about $10, plus another five for shipping. It was worth $40, and it's definitely worth $15. I actually dusted off my PSP and pulled it out of the filing cabinet for this game, it's that good.