Locoroco

When I first saw the name Locoroco surfacing on the internet, I instantly thought it was going to be just another PSP game, like a dozen more, meant to fill somebody's pockets. Even when I got a copy, I wasn't too enthusiastic about it, thinking that this is just a chore I'll have to eventually overcome. 10 minutes later, I was laughing like a small child with a shiny toy. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Locoroco is the Half Life of shooters, the Need for Speed of racing and the Red Alert of strategy. Despite what some might think, I'm not wearing a white jacket with sleeves tied to my back and I'm not on any medication. This simple arcade (although calling it just a simple arcade is almost an insult) is simply mind-numbing. I actually started talking to myself, recognizing the ingenious idea behind, what I believe to be, one of the best games I have ever played on the PSP.

Story

The game has been created by the Tsutomu Kouno, apparently a big legend in the games community, with his contribution to one of the best games ever developed by Sony for Playstation, Ico. The idea of this game came to him while on a train and in fact most characters in today's game are based on the drawings he made that day.

Any great game must have a big, Hugo awarded writer behind it. Well not in this case. The facts are quite simple: the main characters are the Locoroco of course, and their friends, the Mui Mui. They are making sure that the planet is protected, the nature is cared after, but this state of fact comes to an end when the vicious "Moja Troop" arrives to conquer the planet. Unfortunately, the poor Locorocons aren't capable of fighting so it will be up to you, by controlling the planet, to guide and rescue them from the slaughter (I've just added that because it sounds so barbaric; in fact they are going to be ok.) More details regarding the story or the background would have placed the game into an entire different category.

Concept and Gameplay

I'm placing these categories together, because they are so intertwined they can't be set apart and, frankly, this is a quality I would enjoy finding in many more games. I've always regarded the PSP platform like a universal support for ceaseless arcade games, with no substance and just mind-flattening gameplay. Nonetheless, there are some exceptions and Locoroco is certainly one of them.

As I was saying before, the player plays the avatar of the planet and this method of control reflects perfectly in the gameplay. The controls are not complicated and, in fact, only three buttons are used. There are no combinations and no lists of actions you can perform, but even so, the player's actions will require some skill.

Contrary to the common practice of assigning the usual buttons to the main actions, in Locoroco the main controls are L1 and L2. Pushing them will tilt the world in either side, left or right, and holding them will cause the usually adipose Locoroco to jump. His main goal is to gather berries (don't ask why) so he can grow larger and multiply inside the same individual. The levels are filled with secrets and parts that you have to discover for their home (this makes perfect sense if you stop to think about it).

Some other puzzles will require just a little attention. For example there are places where you just have to stay still for a while and the Locorocos will start to sing in a rhythm unlocking a secret. The mini games also have their place too and you'll recognize immediately some of them, such as the machine where you can pick up a teddy bear with a small crane. No stone has been left unturned, making this game complete. Another bit of information I found is that the A.I. was written by the creator of the game a few years back just for the fun of it. Anyway, we won't complain about the A.I., because this is the beauty of an arcade-like game; you don't really need any.

Graphics

Some of you might think that we can't really talk about graphics in the PSP, but I believe that, proportionally speaking, it looks just as good as a PC game. Locoroco's graphical quality is at its best in such a small console. The first thing that struck me was the cartoonish look - almost as if it were handmade - of the entire game world. The attention to details is exquisite and the characters fit right in. And yet, this is not its finest feature.

Locoroco benefits of a physics engine. Everything seems to have mass and a friction coefficient and even the environment reacts to these parameters. Some surfaces even use this attribute to hide certain secrets and house parts. For those of you who play way too much, the gelatin structure of the Locoroco will remind us of Gish, a unique game in the arcade segment, developed for the PC, but the resemblance stops there.

Sound

This is my favorite part of the game and right from the start I liked the music and the unintelligible language of the Locorocans. I eventually found out, in my research for this review, that Tsutomu Kouno wrote their language and also the music so that it rhymes. The music itself is quite psychedelic and dynamic, because the more habitants you collect the more voices start singing in the background choir and there is at least one song that will make anyone laugh out loud.

Multiplayer

It doesn't have one and I don't think it could have, giving the nature of the game, so it won't be a minus.

Conclusion

This is by far one of the most interesting games tried on the PSP and in my top five arcade games on any platform. Locoroco is an example of what a little imagination can do without quadruple video cards, using just three buttons. I might not have followed the carrier of Tsutomu Kouno, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to miss any of his future games.