LocoRoco 2 PSP Review

This is a guest post by Elle, who you may remember from the old City In The Clouds blog.  She now blogs at elle87.wordpress.com

I have finished the entire game, and very surprisingly I feel extremely let down, despite it giving me hours of entertainment intermingled at times with severe frustration, especially as I had big expectations for it. Why, you ask…?  Well read on!

LocoRoco 2 is very much similar to the original LocoRoco, but has been advanced, in many ways… for there is more interaction.  The first noticeable difference being the annoying world map, where you literally, at times, have to go the whole way round the world to find where your next point of adventure lies.  Each level within its own planet section has a theme, whether it be a snowy setting or a jungle.

The second difference is that the LocoRocos can swim.  It’s hard to figure out at first to get the LocoRocos where you want/need them to go.  My top tip though is to beware of the creatures you meet, and remember the saying: never judge a book by its cover!

Next is the fact there are crevices in the worlds where your LocoRocos can go, and obtain either more of the red flowers, or the blue flying star things.  The Moja’s return as your foremost enemy, and annoy you at times when you wish they would go away.  But they can now sing, and they sometimes bring black clouds with them which you need to bounce into, to disperse them.  Is this Sony trying to tell us about our O Zone layer?  I do wonder!

The fundamental parts of the game are still there; eat the red flowers to increase your LocoRoco numbers, while collecting everything you can including the Pickories (orange things) as well as the nuts.  A new big feature of the game is the fact you need to collect musical notes, and sometimes conduct a tune using the O button.  The more you collect the more surprises you will release, but I will come back to the surprises later on.

Many of my favourite little characters return in this game, including MuiMui’s (and a new character BuiBui’s, same as MuiMui’s but are red.)  But the BuiBui’s fly around in their rocket ships, whilst trying to launch bombs at your LocoRocos.

Most levels look similar to those featured in the first game, but I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, what do you think?  A further new feature to this game is the LocoRocos’ ability to climb into various stone bits, and then rolling yourself and the stone into various features to smash your way through.  But not forgetting one new LocoRoco to join your little friends, which is one of the features I like in the LocoRoco games, you can choose which one you play with, who have their own little unique characteristics.

The levels you play can be upgraded (if you get the correct specifications to do so, which vary at each level, on how much you have collected so far) which makes Pickories easier to find.  There are further mini-games to play, but most of all I like the new MuiMui house.  This is where you can tell your MuiMui’s to build specifically placed chambers, and equipment for the chambers, dependant on having the correct equipment needed to build them, where the game wants, and not the other way around.  I almost feel we have gone backwards since the last game, where you were allowed to put stuff where you wanted in the LocoRoco house with the Editor.

I originally bought my Pink PSP for this game, as I enjoyed playing it on my friends PSP, so it’s enjoyable to play such a game which is still simple, but frustrating at times.  It is also one of very few games I own as a girl, there needs to be more like this and Patapon. Overall, despite slight disappointment from the game and its lack of levels, it still brings a big smile to my face playing and singing along.  It is definitely worth a buy, it will suit anyone and everyone, even the younger generation.

I rate it: 8/10 🙂