A scene from the relentlessly chirpy platformer Locoroco.
A scene from the relentlessly chirpy platformer Locoroco.
The remastered version of Locoroco might cause Playstation controller rage.
My hands clutched the controller, refusing to let go. My son, sitting next to me on the couch, was screaming: "Give it back to me!"
It was a fair call. I'd offered my help to get him past a tough bit in the game. But I wouldn't give it back.I couldn't. I was having far too much fun.
A scene from the remastered version of LocoRoco.
First released in 2006, LocoRoco is about as simple as a game can get. You're a blob. You push a button to roll one way. Push another button to roll the other.
If you want to jump, you push them together. Sometimes, the circle button lets you do things. They're all your options. And that's about it.
But along the way, there's so much fun to be had. At its heart, Locoroco is a platformer, but one that is fully interactive. Eat tomatoes, your blob grows bigger so you can bust down walls. Get sucked into a blowhole, and you'll break up into an assortment of smaller blobs so you can fit into tiny places.
Your job is just to travel around, eating and growing and breaking up and checking out the sights and sounds and just being happy. And the soundtrack to all this is music that sounds like an EDM festival for chipmunks. Jarring? Nope. I love it.
A scene from LocoRoco.
That LocoRoco is so ridiculously upbeat and entertaining here in 2017 is somewhat of a surprise. When it comes to a game deserving of being ported on to the PS4, it would have been well down my list.
But Tsutomu Kouno created a game that's so relentlessly chirpy, so ridiculously upbeat, and so overwhelmingly charming, it deserved to be celebrated all over again.
