The first LocoRoco is still one of my favorite PSP games of all time. I remember buying the game the day before I left for a trip to Vegas. I played the game the entire plane ride from New York, almost daily while out there, and the entire plane ride home. Up until a few weeks ago, I was still throwing it into my PSP every once in a while to help out my MuiMui friends; then I got LocoRoco 2. How does the sequel stack up to the original? You’ll just have to read on to find out.
The same graphical style of the first LocoRoco applies here, which is a pastel bliss that’s very pleasing to the eyes. The sound is great as well, with catchy tunes being sung by each of the playable LocoRoco as you roll through the various stages. A few new additions are there, but overall, not much has changed in either area, which isn’t a bad thing.
The evil Moja are back and trying to take over the LocoRoco planet and it’s your duty to stop them and save your MuiMui friends. You control the perspective of the world with the left and right triggers of the PSP to tilt the ground in either direction to get rolling, while hitting both buttons allows you to jump. As you go through and collect fruit, your LocoRoco will grow. To get through tight spaces, you can hit the circle button to break up your mushy fellow into smaller LocoRocos. Getting them all back together is as simple as holding the circle button. Simple, yet effective controls that carried over from the original game.
Where LocoRoco 2 differs from its predecessor is in a few new abilities and mini-games. The LocoRoco can now grab onto things to swing and reach new areas, pull items out of the ground, or take down enemy Moja with long tails. Your LocoRoco can now swim and a few underwater stages are available to show off that ability. These stages are also interspersed with various mini-games to break up the monotony of rolling down hills. You’ll be dragged behind a plane in a 2D shooter style game or play a Wack-a-Mole style event. There’s also a new rhythm mini-game where you have to hit a button to timed notes on the screen to extract more music from the world. Each provide a bit of fun, but I still prefer the core gameplay. Some of the mini-games have ad-hoc multiplayer for up to 4 players, but this requires you to have friends around with PSP systems and the game, so your mileage may vary here. It’s still mainly a single player game.
While LocoRoco 2 made strides to vary the gameplay and add new abilities, it somehow got cut down to only twenty stages. You’ll only need about four to six hours to get through everything this time around compared to the eight to ten hours of gameplay found in the first LocoRoco. The game is a good deal at $19.99, but I would have liked to have seen a few more stages to round things out and extend the gameplay. Even still, LocoRoco 2 is a lot of fun. If you enjoyed the first game or haven’t seen the LocoRoco in action yet, it’s well worth your purchase.
Overall: 8.5 out of 10
That tree looks like my pubes and my penis