LocoRoco
The name says it all, doesn't it? No? Well, um, then here's some hands-on impressions.
Published: April 24, 2006
A game like Katamari Damacy couldn't have happened without the PlayStation 2. I don't mean it wouldn't be possible on any other system, just that there's no way it would have been a commercial success without being released at $20 on a platform that had an install base of nearly 100 million consoles. With that many people with PS2s, the game's inimitable charm, and the impulse buy price point, Katamari carved out a niche that wasn't available to Sony gamers previously.
LocoRoco lacks two of those very important points; it probably won't be dirt cheap when it comes out, and the PSP hasn't even approached 1/10th of the install base of the PS2. Luckily, it does have that very important third factor: it's charming as all hell. It's also unmistakably Japanese -- even without the characters actually speaking it (they just talk -- or, uh, sing -- gibberish), echoing some of the kitsch that helped sell people on the idea of rolling stuff up.
Here, it's even more simple. Since you're actually controlling the entire planet You just tilt the world with the shoulder buttons and guide your little adorable lip-synching amorphous yellowish-orange blob to the other end of the level. Since you can only tilt the world so much, holding and releasing both shoulder buttons will cause the blob to hop, while tapping the Circle button will zap your pal, reducing him to a half-dozen or so little versions of himself that can filter into smaller areas, and holding Circle will wiggle the little guy like Jell-O until he's pulled back together.
Scattered around the level are flowers that the locoroco can eat to grow bigger. Get him big enough, and he'll be able to slide into hidden passages to gobble up more little berries used to unlock stuff. Though there are enemies in the game the "combat" thus far just involves jumping into them. A couple other animals in the level are less aggressive and will actually launch you up into the air or long distances, both to reach areas that were otherwise impossible to get to.
That's it. Seriously, that's all there is to the game. And it's effin' awesome. The level we played through recently at Sony's pre-E3 event was simple, but used quite a bit of the environment to create the puzzles; small hills required hops, many small sluices in the ground forced us to break up and reassemble the locoroco, little tunnels jettisoned the little smiley mass of color along winding, high-speed paths in a little homage to the old Sonic the Hedgehog games, and through it all the little guy just kept singing along and wiggling here and there.
The way the locoroco moves, or rather the way it bounces and jiggles is almost hypnotic. Because of the innately simple nature of the world, there's not much to look at beyond large chunks of solid color (at least in the levels we've played so far), so you're drawn to the way the blob wobbles and rolls, and it's adorable.
We still have much, much more to learn about the game, but our initial impressions were so good that we actually went back and played through the level again just for kicks. It's an addictive, simplistic puzzler, that perfectly distills the kind of approachable charm that made stuff like Katamari such a runaway success, and we're hoping the same happens here.
LocoRoco lacks two of those very important points; it probably won't be dirt cheap when it comes out, and the PSP hasn't even approached 1/10th of the install base of the PS2. Luckily, it does have that very important third factor: it's charming as all hell. It's also unmistakably Japanese -- even without the characters actually speaking it (they just talk -- or, uh, sing -- gibberish), echoing some of the kitsch that helped sell people on the idea of rolling stuff up.
Here, it's even more simple. Since you're actually controlling the entire planet You just tilt the world with the shoulder buttons and guide your little adorable lip-synching amorphous yellowish-orange blob to the other end of the level. Since you can only tilt the world so much, holding and releasing both shoulder buttons will cause the blob to hop, while tapping the Circle button will zap your pal, reducing him to a half-dozen or so little versions of himself that can filter into smaller areas, and holding Circle will wiggle the little guy like Jell-O until he's pulled back together.
Scattered around the level are flowers that the locoroco can eat to grow bigger. Get him big enough, and he'll be able to slide into hidden passages to gobble up more little berries used to unlock stuff. Though there are enemies in the game the "combat" thus far just involves jumping into them. A couple other animals in the level are less aggressive and will actually launch you up into the air or long distances, both to reach areas that were otherwise impossible to get to.
That's it. Seriously, that's all there is to the game. And it's effin' awesome. The level we played through recently at Sony's pre-E3 event was simple, but used quite a bit of the environment to create the puzzles; small hills required hops, many small sluices in the ground forced us to break up and reassemble the locoroco, little tunnels jettisoned the little smiley mass of color along winding, high-speed paths in a little homage to the old Sonic the Hedgehog games, and through it all the little guy just kept singing along and wiggling here and there.
The way the locoroco moves, or rather the way it bounces and jiggles is almost hypnotic. Because of the innately simple nature of the world, there's not much to look at beyond large chunks of solid color (at least in the levels we've played so far), so you're drawn to the way the blob wobbles and rolls, and it's adorable.
We still have much, much more to learn about the game, but our initial impressions were so good that we actually went back and played through the level again just for kicks. It's an addictive, simplistic puzzler, that perfectly distills the kind of approachable charm that made stuff like Katamari such a runaway success, and we're hoping the same happens here.