Clocking in at a very reasonable 8 Megabytes, this method demo distribution is something that we hope will become a lot more common, though we could see how size may be a factor with more demanding games. However, the game required us to update our PSP’s with the latest 2.70 patch – which was another 19 Megabytes. Once that was quickly and painlessly out of the way, we proceeded with the game. The game is entirely Japanese (with quite a lot of it), so it was a bit of a challenge to get into but there have been no plans for an English demo yet.
Meet your new friends
Thankfully, you’re pretty much thrown into the first level of the game. From what we could gather, you play as a small yellow blob – though they will come in different colours – and there are a lot of them. Whether they are Locos, Rocos or LocoRocos, that’s anyone’s guess at the moment. However, they are a slightly unfortunate bunch, as it seems that their world has been overrun by these creatures that look like Medusa heads and the Earth (well, that’s what it appears to be) is sad.
Obviously, one of the unique aspects of the game is its visual presentation. The only way that it can be really described, is as out of a kid’s scrapbook. It was full of cutesy blobs and colourful geometric shapes that look like they’ve been pasted on top of one another. However, if you took the time to really observe what was happening, you’d see a lot intricate animations and little details. That, and this is one really crazy looking game. Some may say that the game reminds them of the Katamari series but once you get into it, you’ll see that it’s quite distinguishable. If the graphics weren’t weird enough, the music is set to match. There was a track that was sung by a kid but we couldn’t make out whether it was in English or Japanese. The sound effects were crazy and the blob noises were completely out there.
There is only one level that you’re given to play, but it is fairly sizable in it’s own right. You take control of a solitary blob and are initially instructed by some dude that looks like Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants. We didn’t really know what he was saying but there appeared at times an L, R and Circle, the main buttons that you’ll use. It makes for a very simple control scheme. You’ll soon find that you don’t really need any more. The core of the game is to tilt the level roughly 30 degrees either way using the L and R buttons. You can then let your blob roll or, while holding either shoulder button, pressing the other one will let the blob jump down the slope that’s been made.
Who left those blobs lying around?
As simple as this sounds, there are many obstacles in the way that will require not only skill, but wit to get around. The blob has one more trick up his sleeve though. Through the level, there were red flowers that when touched by the blob, would make him fatter. It then became clear, that the objective of the level was to “recover” other blobs from the flowers in the level. With each flower consumed, the blob got bigger. However, that meant that there where holes he couldn’t get through. This is remedied by the fact that in certain places, you can press the Circle button. Lightning will crash, the blob will “roar” and split into however many pieces you’ve collected.
Pressing circle again would reunite the blobs as simultaneous shouts of what sounded like “LOAR, LOAR, EVERYBODY LOAR” (Apparently, they’re meant to be saying join. So, with a combination of level tilting, jumping, splitting and reuniting, you and your blobs make your merry way through the level, collecting oddments, including plankton type creatures, defeating nefarious owls and avoiding the medusa thingys. At the end of the level, you success is based on a score consisting of your time to complete and all the blobs and items that you were able to collect.
One very commendable aspect of the game was that it was intuitive enough to transcend the language barrier, and that’s some feat, given that it was far from English friendly. It came somewhat naturally, just exactly what you had to do and didn’t need to be moving all the time. You could just sit back and watch as you blobs frolicked across the landscape. Despite a simple control scheme, from what we saw, there are a myriad of opportunities for puzzles and complexities – to core aspect to the success of most of these kinds of titles.
A mob of angry blobs
For all the craziness and unlikely complexity that it may provide, LocoRoco is a work in progress. It took us only ten minutes to complete the level but it was made clear to us that we missed a lot of collectables and fair chunks of the actual levels. So whether it will actually be all that it’s cracking itself up to be, is far from being known. That, and personally, I don’t see myself actually putting down money to buy this. However, Katamari was able to prove that there is more under the weirdness, so maybe LocoRoco can as well. This may be one of the few occasions that the PSP can show off some of the uniqueness that can’t be found on the DS.
For anyone who is interested in downloading the demo, a link can be found in our forums. Don't forget, you need the PSP firmware update 2.70 as well.
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