Locoroco Micro Review

If you didn't own a PSP, you missed out. There was a ton of really great gems on the system, and surprisingly enough, the platform sold some 80 million units. If you did own a PSP and DIDN'T play Locoroco, literally what were you doing with one? Thankfully for you Sony rereleased it on PS4, in glorious HD, and it's as fun and colorful as ever.

Locoroco was a very simple and bright puzzle platformer, where you had to find and collect the namesake creatures across various levels. The main game mechanics however were rather unique: the locorocos could form together into giant masses or stay separated, and you tilted and bounced the entire world to get them around. The graphics are simple, bright, basic colors, gorgeously 2D-rendered, as if a child's coloring book came to life. The music is painfully catchy, and singing locorocos is a great highlight of the game.

The HD remaster is a delightful bit of work. It runs at a full 1080p, with optimization for 4k for PS4 Pro owners. The game utilizes the speaker in the controller when the locorocos sing, a wonderful surprise guaranteed to put a smile on your face. The cutscenes unfortunately were not redone for the game, but the gameplay itself runs beautifully.

The main game is not particularly long or even super difficult, unless you're collecting everything in each level. It's spread out over 5 "worlds", consisting of 8 levels each. There's a few dangers in the forms of Mojas and spiked barbs, but nothing too extreme. There's secret areas to find and items to collect in each level, and minigames to play back at your base. Each level gives you a score based on time and collection, but other than that there's not much to the game. It's a nice way to kill a few minutes here and there, or play with young children. What it lacks in depth it more than makes up for in charm, and I feel that makes it a worthwhile purchase.

-Janette G

Locoroco is available on the PSN for PS4 now

Graphics: A
Sound: B+
Gameplay: B
Value: B
 
OVERALL: B

Pros
+HD remaster brings the PSP hit beautifully to home consoles
+Packed with charm
+Easy to learn and quick to play, good for unwinding

Cons
-Not particularly hard or long
-Repetitiveness sets in quick for many levels/puzzles
-Minigames aren't particularly fun