LocoRoco will soon be making a welcome return to PSP; what new delights have our happy-go-lucky heroes to share?
You still use the buttons on your PSP to tilt the LocoRoco's planet left and right, rolling the loveable heroes around, and now the developers at Japan Studios have woven new games and features into this colourful mix. You can now conduct your LocoRoco's singing, swim underwater, roll in shells and other items, and play a mini-game with your friends.
A major new slant to their tilting world is the importance of music. LocoRoco 2's cheery theme songs now take centre stage alongside the simple and ingenious gameplay, as the LocoRoco quest to save their planet from destruction by bad music.
Your foes are once again the evil Moja, and this time they've brought with them a terrible song that sucks the life out of living things. Guiding the LocoRoco you must search high and low for musical notes and conduct choirs of your colourful chums in rhythm action-like sequences to counter this evil din and unlock bonus features, such as viewing maps.
Searching for notes will take you and your LocoRoco to 25 playful stages, requiring the LocoRoco to adopt new skills and ways to travel. You can climb inside shells and other items, using momentum to roll and smash through obstacles and foes, or swim underwater, diving down deep and floating gently with the currents as you tilt the world back and forth.
Letting you share the fun with friends is a major new addition, as you and up to three others can play at once in a mini-game battle - Loco Rider. The aim is to push your opponent onto the thorns in order to reduce the size of their LocoRoco.
With the storyline that runs strongly through this second outing - thwarting Bonmucho, the Moja's leader, and his evil mum's terrifying plan - you control the pace at which it unfolds. With each level of LocoRoco 2 full of hidden surprises and bonuses, including a whole new host of characters to meet, revisiting a level again and again is a joy.
LocoRoco returns November 2008, offering you even more ways to explore and share their charming world, but if you can't wait, more fun and games can be enjoyed at locoroco.com.
