LocoRoco Review (PSP)

Age rating: 3+ (PEGI)

What is it?
Platformer with singing blobs that bounce and roll.

Is it fun?
Yes, yes, yes!

Is it worth the money? £29.99
Yes!

Why?
Simple. This game brings a smile to your face and you might even find yourself singing along to the in-game music!

It’s just so cute! Cute, cute, cute… whilst also being downright crazy from start to finish. The game itself is incredibly simple, which is one of its major strong points, as after the first few minutes of game time you will have grasped all intricacies of the gameplay and the controls. This is a good thing as you can then concentrate on just playing and having fun, which is what it’s all about at the end of the day.

The game involves you controlling a little (at the start) yellow blob who must eat all the berries and bee-type things (Pickories) whilst avoiding all the nasty black spikes (Burrs) and Moja’s (flying monsters…eeek!) and looking for the 3 Mui Mui’s – sleeping, crazy little grey people – on each level. Err, that’s about it. The more berries you eat, the bigger you get (max of 20 berries per level). It all seems so simple at first, but in reality it’s not.

The levels are well designed and reasonably big with each one taking about 10-15 mins to complete. The replay value stems from trying to find that last berry or Mui Mui on each level with most of them located in bloody awkward locations! You will frequently complete a level only to find out you’ve missed a huge section packed with Pickories. But since you’ve had so much fun, you don’t mind replaying the level again. Also each level has its fair share of hidden areas, airstreams (which carry you about bits of the level – super fast as well!) and monsters that just love to eat you adding to the fun mix of madness, cuteness and catchy music.

Mmm, writing this review makes me realise that LocoRoco is proving to be a difficult game to get across just how much fun it is to play. Ok, here are some of the comments I’ve heard whilst watching people play LocoRoco:

• Awww, he’s (yellow LocoRoco) so cute.
• Is he singing, he’s singing! Err, why are all these blobs singing?
• Aggghhh, get off, get off. Crap, what’s happening? What are those spiky things? Eeek!
• What’s going on?
• How do I jump on those flowers?
• I’m slug shaped. Eww, I’m so ugly. Being round was much cuter, I want to be round again. Damn owl!
• Bloody game, if I wasn’t slug shaped I wouldn’t have lost that LocoRoco.
• Why is the sun sad? Oh, all my LocoRoco’s are singing to the sun. The sun’s all happy now. Yay.

LocoRoco really is a game worth buying a PSP for. The only downside is that there are only 40 levels – split into 5 worlds – which works out to be about 10-15 hours of game time (10 hours in my case).

Go buy this game, I guarantee it will put a smile on your face.

Firmware version: 2.60 and above.

Screenshots:

Related posts:
LocoRoco merchandising cutness
LocoRoco sing-a-long
LocoRoco Halloween Demo

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