LocoRoco Coccoreccho review (PlayStation 3)

I think we were all a little taken aback when playing Loco Roco on the PSP last year. A simplistic but clean looking game that saw you using the shoulder buttons to tilt the entire level in order to guide your Loco Roco to the end of the level. Those hoping for the same thing will be disappointed, and then pleasantly surprised by the differences. Reinventing the franchise in a simplistic but addictive manner, the self-proclaimed interactive screensaver is a surprisingly addictive game that will confuse onlookers and anyone within earshot.

LocoRoco Coccoreccho gives you control of a butterfly which the LocoRoco tend to want to move towards. Holding the circle button lets off a large aura that attracts them even more, and hammering down on the button makes the LocoRoco in the area consider reaching the butterfly their top priority. The objective, starting with your single Loco is to wake up as many of the other Locos (there are 200 in total) by bumping into them with one you already have collected or shaking them from the branches (with the sixaxis no less). Left to themselves, they will follow a simple route around the world being shot out of cannons, squeezed through chutes and blown around in gusts of wind in a Lemmingsesque fashion, with the added bonus that they will not bring themselves into any specific harm without your intervention, cleverly returning to the start of the area until you have a chain of Locos constantly moving around until you decide to pluck one away with your Pied Piper of a butterfly.

Collect them all

While the real test will be to collect all 200, to progress through the large map you must fill containers with a set number of Locos in each area to unlock gates and see the next part, where the number invariably goes up. Various tricks are employed to gain extra Locos, with branches growing if a Loco touches it, and Mui Muis (little blue helper people) firing Locos into opportune positions when you flick your Sixaxis controller up like a pinball flipper. It all adds up to a unique but very solid game design, and an experience that is both relaxing and refreshing to finally reach the new Loco.

While there are only five gates to open, only two of them can be found in the first play through, limiting the number of Locos you can find. Once you pass the final gate and play a strange boss minigame, completing your objectives, a new one is slotted in place for your next play through, should you choose to explore it (activated by wiggling the controller like a steering wheel when you are in position), giving at least four play throughs if you want to see everything the game has to offer. Each new section has another minigame to experiment with to release more Locos, replayable to the max of 15 extras for each one.

Different LocoRoco!

While the graphics are simple but sharp in full 1080p, they look stylish for what they are, with smooth fluid animation adding to the pleasantry of the experience, despite the 2D imagery. On an audio level (the original PSP game was praised for its music), it remains as limited as the single (but expanding) level. One song plays through the majority of the game, which would normally start to grate, especially due to the style of it, but as a strangely appealing addition, the Locos sing along with the music, each humming or vocalising a different part. Different types of Loco have different voices, creating quite an harmonic finale when you bring all of the types together, or just have plenty on screen at once, their mouths moving as they stare out of the screen at you.

It was a truly crazy moment when I realised that they were singing, but it endears me to the game in a way that complimented by its approachable yet expandable control method (you’ll be getting more Locos when you get used to it and realise the extent of your control,) completes a very fulfilling game experience.

Boiling it down to its raw parts

In an essence, LocoRoco Cocoreccho is a very unique puzzle game that combines elements of other games, and expands the franchise in its own way. The ‘rules’ of the game don’t seem to make sense, but they do not have to when the player understands what they must do.

Now to be honest, what you must do is buy this game, because it could have sold at double the price and still been a good deal. £1.99 by anyone’s standards is a ridiculously good value price for something that will give you an hour of fun (yes, thankfully it is fun!) before you’ve even got all of the Locos in the first two sections, and then it’ll dawn on you how long you’ve really spent. I dedicated an evening to the game through choice when I first downloaded it, and on my last check have managed 8th in the world for overall score. Now if I can just figure out how to get the last few Locos, I’ll be nearly there!