Hands On: LocoRoco PS3
The day after Tuesday's Sony Pub Crawl, I had the good luck to be able to get my hands on a SIXAXIS and play some LocoRoco Cocoreccho! on the PS3, and my first impression was a damn good one. The look of the game is more or less exactly what you'd expect: the abstract Matisse-cut-out style level design with simple but perfect graphics and the catchy nonsense choral work that's had us bopping our heads along with our PSPs.
There's a major gameplay change, however, that both curries the spirit of the original game and grows into its new stature as a downloadable title for the PS3. Naturally, SIXAXIS controls come into play - but not how you might think.
The PS3 iteration of LocoRoco does away with tilting the entire world - which makes a kind of intuitive sense, because holding the PSP in your hand lends itself to angling the whole screen as you manipulate the shoulder buttons. Instead, LocoRoco Cocoreccho! presents you with a little butterfly, controlled by the left thumbstick, that acts as a cursor allowing you to zoom around the level map at will. No longer do you need to fear losing LocoRoco as they fall behind; you've now got the freedom to explore and decide how you'll proceed. Hold or tap the circle button to call your Locos to follow the butterfly - they'll jump and roll on their own, and every sleeping LocoRoco they touch awakens and joins your merry band.
Make the jump for more!
Awakening sleeping Locos is the basic objective, and you'll find them sleeping in odd spots or dangling like peaches from delicate branches. Spy a branch filled with Locos but can't reach them? Shake the SIXAXIS and they'll all fall down. The SIXAXIS motion-sensing controls also operate little widgets wherever you see Mui-Mui - simple machines like levers, see-saws, pinball-style bouncers all help maneuver your Locos according to your whims.
Use a bouncer to shoot falling Locos rocketing up to shatter an enclosure above - and watch the sleeping Locos within come alive as they fall almost literally into the palm of your hand. Some flowers can be moved to create natural stepping-stones for your little sacks of sunshine, and the environment in general is more open to both exploration and exploitation than the PSP game.
Also new is the inclusion of multiple types of Locos on the same level - since the game is essentially one enormous level that you unlock (and revisit) in stages. Oh - there's also a handy "world map" that indicates your position and progress and lets you teleport your butterfly cursor and screen-view wherever you like.
The Locos themselves have gotten smarter, perhaps to suit their new console digs. No longer will you gather them manually into one giant loco or shatter them into their components - all of that they now figure out themselves. For instance, I'd reached a dead end - but the curled frond of a high branch, if touched by my Locos, would unfurl and form a new bridge. Still, the active end of the frond was way too high - by tapping the circle button, my locos formed a Loco Roco totem pole and pushed the branch's "button," thus opening the way and permanently altering the level's landscape for the better.
Sure, part of me wanted to simply enjoy the LocoRoco! I know and love - only on a bigger screen and with, ironically, the much-lighter-than-a-PSP SIXAXIS controller in my hand. But after a few seconds watching the gameplay - and certainly once I got my hands on the intuitive controls - I eagerly admitted that the PS3's LocoRoco has grown up and left the PSP behind. And it's for the better.
Look for LocoRoco Coccoreccho! to hit the PlayStation Store in late September! It will be a downloadable title, although pricing hasn't been announced just yet. Keep your eye out!
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 30 August 2007
Other stuff like this: loco roco cocoreccho, ps3, scea, sony
