[PSP] Pon Pon Patapon!

bruin

It's a rhythm game by Interlink (Loco Roco) where you control an army by essentially playing war drums. Or the vocal equivalent. Or something, you're going to have to watch the trailers for yourself to see.

Out now in Japan, February of next year in North America, and I can't find a dates for elsewhere.

Wallpapers on the official Japanese site

Here are some screens, spoiler'd for 56k

This is a 1478.26 KB animated GIF, check the speech bubble

Trailers

Tokyo Game Show 07 trailer
New trailer from last week
TV ad from Japan
CES '08 trailer
"Rainstorm rhythm gameplay"
"Dirty eyeball gameplay"


Articles

MTV Multiplayer blog preview
Joystiq preview
Impressions from our very own sonictk
And his review

Zetetic Elench

I just want to say, I've been following this game since TGS this year. Looks bloody gorgeous, and is one of a handful of titles tempting me to take a second look at the PSP.

I was surprised by the RPG-like-elements that surfaced in that recent trailer, though. Surprised, and aroused.

randombattle

Looked super awesome great up until you said rhythm game. Seems like it would be so much cooler if it was more strategical like shadow of the colossus or pikmin and not a rhythm game.

Doesn't look half bad.

Behemoth

Looks pretty awesome. The rhythm part looks very simplistic, just an interesting way of controlling your little guys.

AJR

Err, spoiling isn't going to help someone with 56k. The images still load inside the spoiler tags.

Gorgeous looking game though. I don't have high hopes of it selling well though, since Crush and Loco Roco were both unsuccessful.

Unco-ordinated

Weirdly enough, it's one of my most anticipated PSP titles. I just hope it's released at a cheap price since LocoRoco, from memory, was actually one of the more expensive PSP games when it first came out.

AJR: Depends what the budget was. LocoRoco had a pretty small team developing it so they wouldn't really need 100k to make a profit.

Glal

AJR wrote: »

Err, spoiling isn't going to help someone with 56k. The images still load inside the spoiler tags.

Not if they use Opera. Shill shill.

Lunker

randombattle wrote: »

Looked super awesome great up until you said rhythm game. Seems like it would be so much cooler if it was more strategical like shadow of the colossus or pikmin and not a rhythm game.

Doesn't look half bad.

But ... this looks like it still has the strategy of a Pikmin-esque game, just with really like rhythm elements.

This has definitely been on my radar, and February is going to be fucking plugged up with games I'm interested in. I love rhythm games and I love games that cross-breed genres in absurd ways (see: Puzzle Quest, Bookworm Adventure), so it's right up my alley.

bruin

New preview by Stephen Totilo that explains the gameplay better than any I've read before.

It’s a rhythm game, but not one that requires the player to follow musical cues, the way “Rock Band” or “Elite Beat Agents” do. Instead a thin light rectangle pulses at the perimeter of the screen and a beat plays through the speakers. But the characters you control — a small army of little critters with swords and spears and the like — don’t do anything. They stand still, until the player stars pressing buttons.

The PSP’s square button is assigned to a chant of the word “pata!” The circle button is “pon!” Create the chant “Pata! Pata! Pata! Pon!” and the little guys march forward. The chant: “Pon! Pon! Pata! Pon!” and the guys attack, shooting their bows and arrows, sending their horsemen in. The triangle button is “Chaka!” so that “Chaka! Chaka! Pata! Pon!” can make them defend. The X button is “Don” which somehow triggers miracles (I was told these are handy in, say, a desert level where the miracle of rain is needed).

Sounds really cool

Khavall

So it's a rhythm game in the same way Okami is a painting game?

In that there's no "DO THIS NOW FOR POINTS" but instead a set of things you can do to get different reactions?

Cool

Airan

Glal wrote: »

AJR wrote: »

Err, spoiling isn't going to help someone with 56k. The images still load inside the spoiler tags.

Not if they use Opera. Shill shill.

I was wondering what people were talking about when they say spoilers didn't stop the image loading :P

bsjezz

oh man PSN port/spin-off please. this looks gorgeous - imagine it in 1080p, resounding through a home stereo

Six

Wow, never heard of this until now. Looks awesome.

The Wolfman

bruin wrote: »

New preview by Stephen Totilo that explains the gameplay better than any I've read before.

It’s a rhythm game, but not one that requires the player to follow musical cues, the way “Rock Band” or “Elite Beat Agents” do. Instead a thin light rectangle pulses at the perimeter of the screen and a beat plays through the speakers. But the characters you control — a small army of little critters with swords and spears and the like — don’t do anything. They stand still, until the player stars pressing buttons.

The PSP’s square button is assigned to a chant of the word “pata!” The circle button is “pon!” Create the chant “Pata! Pata! Pata! Pon!” and the little guys march forward. The chant: “Pon! Pon! Pata! Pon!” and the guys attack, shooting their bows and arrows, sending their horsemen in. The triangle button is “Chaka!” so that “Chaka! Chaka! Pata! Pon!” can make them defend. The X button is “Don” which somehow triggers miracles (I was told these are handy in, say, a desert level where the miracle of rain is needed).

Sounds really cool

I don't know, it sounds like it could get real confusing, real fast. Having multiple moves requiring multiple key sequences is going to be hard to remember on the fly.

Move: square, square, square, circle
Attack: circle, circle, square, circle
Defend: triangle, triangle, circle, square

And possibly more for even more actions. Made even more hard depending on how fast this beat is that you need to hit. I forsee many people going "Ok, I need to attack. Circle, square, circle circle... FUCK! What was attack again? Oh shit, I'm dead."

I have a hard enough time remembering stuff as it is now. Having to remember multiple 4 button combos to play is likely to break my brain real quickly.

bruin

New preview at Joystiq

Patapon isn't coming out to the US until early next year, but already we see it has the legs to be a winner. The localization of the title is superb so far, effectively capturing the game's unique spirit and mood. We're pretty sure that Patapon will get the same amount of love, if not more, as its LocoRoco predecessor.

Dracil

This'll be out soon in Japan. I guess we'll be able to get more info then.

bruin

Tomorrow, actually. I wonder if anyone's going to buy it. Anyone have numbers for Loco Roco?

Stormwatcher

I want this game really hard.

Dracil

Well it's out today in Japan now isn't it? Unless they have the stupid "release dates are not really release dates" deal like in the US.

GonzoBobH

ZE: I was surprised by the RPG-like-elements that surfaced in that recent trailer, though. Surprised, and aroused.

Oh my gawd, it's Craig Ferguson, hahah ;o)-)

/s/
GBH

Behemoth

The Wolfman wrote: »

bruin wrote: »

New preview by Stephen Totilo that explains the gameplay better than any I've read before.

It’s a rhythm game, but not one that requires the player to follow musical cues, the way “Rock Band” or “Elite Beat Agents” do. Instead a thin light rectangle pulses at the perimeter of the screen and a beat plays through the speakers. But the characters you control — a small army of little critters with swords and spears and the like — don’t do anything. They stand still, until the player stars pressing buttons.

The PSP’s square button is assigned to a chant of the word “pata!” The circle button is “pon!” Create the chant “Pata! Pata! Pata! Pon!” and the little guys march forward. The chant: “Pon! Pon! Pata! Pon!” and the guys attack, shooting their bows and arrows, sending their horsemen in. The triangle button is “Chaka!” so that “Chaka! Chaka! Pata! Pon!” can make them defend. The X button is “Don” which somehow triggers miracles (I was told these are handy in, say, a desert level where the miracle of rain is needed).

Sounds really cool

I don't know, it sounds like it could get real confusing, real fast. Having multiple moves requiring multiple key sequences is going to be hard to remember on the fly.

Move: square, square, square, circle
Attack: circle, circle, square, circle
Defend: triangle, triangle, circle, square

And possibly more for even more actions. Made even more hard depending on how fast this beat is that you need to hit. I forsee many people going "Ok, I need to attack. Circle, square, circle circle... FUCK! What was attack again? Oh shit, I'm dead."

I have a hard enough time remembering stuff as it is now. Having to remember multiple 4 button combos to play is likely to break my brain real quickly.

This is why it's also a rhythm game. It's easy to remember "pon pon pata pon" when there's aural feedback that so strong as those little voices and drums. It'll be fine.

Dracil

So miracles. You need to be in Fever mode first. Then it's Don DonDon DonDon. The spaces are half-beats. Then you enter a mode where they'll chant a rhythm that you must then follow. Get it all and the miracle occurs. At least I think that's how it works.

The RPG element is basically combining drops for new units and items I think. There's also a rhythm minigame to get more items, kinda similar to the miracle mode thing, except each sequence you succeed you get a chance of an item drop.

BTW, I don't think this trailer's been posted yet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUGsS1hTQGo You can see part of the miracle mode in this one. The part where the screen is on fire and you see the big Pon Pon show up.

Zetetic Elench

What Behemoth said.

bruin

This got 9/9/9/8 in Famitsu

And here's the 15 second commercial from Japan

Unco-ordinated

bruin wrote: »

Tomorrow, actually. I wonder if anyone's going to buy it. Anyone have numbers for Loco Roco?

It sold 170k in Japan and might've hit 300k worldwide (it's part of SCEE's platinum lineup), not bad considering the budget was pretty low.

Anyway, I really want Sony to release a demo already. They released a freaking ton of demos for LocoRoco, even 6 months after release, so it'd be pretty cool if they gave Patapon a similar treatment.

Grislo

It looks like King Arthur's World on acid. Which is very cool.

Velmeran

This game looks FUN, and I mean that in like the awesome way, in which I think anyone could enjoy this, which is the type of fun the PSP needs right now (too much cliq games, not alot of newbie friendly stuff, or child friendly)

Mahnmut

This is brilliant. Much as I love my DS, lately I'm really feeling like I ought to save up for a PSP.

Haha, I just love the way your army repeats the chant.

Khavall

Man, this game is going to be embarrassing to play in public.


Not because of the cutesy images or anything, but because I'll be sitting with a PSP and a huge grin on my face happily shouting gleefully: "PA-TA PA-TA PA-TA PON! PON PON PA-TA PON!"

Velmeran

Khavall, you need to change your avatar to those creatures in the game from the drawings it is now, would be all sorts of awesome.

Khavall

One could be yelling "PATA" and the other "PON"



Ok someone with skills in these image things make it happen!

sonictk

OK, after two hours with this thing, I can safely say that it's excellent, and anyone who liked LocoRoco (the original) will probably enjoy this offering as well.

I've written my iniital impressions of the game in the spoiler:

Patapon is something new from the wacky guys over at SCEJ and the LocoRoco team, the brainchild of Tsutomu Kouno and his wacky artist who shares my love of vector-based art, Keigo Tsuchiya. Whether or not you’ve heard of either of these two titles, know that they were intriguing enough to capture even my attention, a feat that could at best be described as difficult, especially so for games that involve minimal violence, gore and gorgeous beautiful anime-styled ladies. Released only yesterday in the land of the Rising Sun, I managed to get my hands on a copy, and I think I’ve played enough of it to offer my unlearned appraisal without feeling like a hypocrite.

When SCEJ’s follow-up to LocoRoco on the PS3 turned out to be Cocoreccho-ly mediocre, I had to force myself to cling to the slim hope that a PSP sequel would surface, as per the rumours abound on the Internet foretold. When it was finally announced that Patapon would be the next title to be released by the original team, the premise for the game didn’t exactly have me drooling with anticipation, if you catch my drift.

I am thus happy to say that after spending quite a bit of time with the game, my initial apprehensions were, well, initial apprehensions. Now, however, those apprehensions have been dispelled.

screen2In Patapon, you basically take control of a bunch of honorific misfits that are apparently at war with neighbouring nations (assuming my interpretation of the kanji is somewhat accurate), and help them to attain victory through taking command of your mini-minions and guiding them through the dangers of tall birds, large elephant…things and giant enemy crabs, among other surprises.

Patapon, at its core, is basically a rhythm-based game not unlike what you might find in Rock Band or Elite Beat Agents, utilizing the PSP’s face buttons instead of a plastic guitar controller or a stylus for input. For the uninitiated, this is basically akin to mashing the Cross, Triangle, Square and Circle buttons, but in a certain pattern, and with infinitely more elegance to advance in the game. In Patapon’s case, performing different rhythms will execute different commands, such as an attack command and a stop/regroup command among other unconventional instructions.

How this works is that each face button is bound to a certain drum beat, and drum beats must be performed in a rhythm, almost hypnotic pattern in order to initiate commands. For example, the Square button is bound to Pata, and the Circle button is bound to Pon. Executing a Pata-Pata-Pata-Pon move is equivalent to asking your army of misfits to MOVE UP, while a Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon move asks them to ATTACK like the pack of wild dogs they are. And that’s just two of the multitude of moves you have at your disposal, though I’m sure that for most people, those two will be almost impossible to handle at the later stages of this insane world. Seriously. screen3

In addition, there’s a combination system embedded into the rhythm game, as per the standard du jour for any rhythm game these days. Performing combinations in succession can result in your minions going into a fever mode, which sadly doesn’t render them weak, helpless and bedridden. Instead, your warriors become stronger, faster, and can throw their puny spears and fire their weak-ass arrows farther than usual, which is good, I guess, because when the screen starts filling up with targets, believe me, you want anything you throw to go farther than usual. It helps, then, that the D-pad on the PSP allows for you to shift the screen in the corresponding direction, increasing or decreasing your army’s field of vision as per your preference.

Patapon also features a quasi-RPG experience system that LocoRoco had in the form of collectible artifacts; while it may not feature cute ripoffs of Cactuar, it does have a sort of level system that borrows from the multitude of other RPGs out there, allowing your little critters to gain experience points based on their participation in battles. I’m not exactly certain how this system works (due to my inability to decipher the necessary kanji in the help files), so I’m not going to really elaborate on this much. I haven’t exactly died yet, though, so I’m hoping it’s not really that important.

The gameplay in Patapon may sound minimal and unbelievably basic, but remember that LocoRoco essentially had 3 buttons for controls, and its gameplay still outstripped many other platformers with its unique mechanics. After the time with this new release, I can safely say that Patapon follows this trend which seems to be more popular among platform games these days.

screen1Patapon’s graphics, while based on the same vector graphics approach that LocoRoco took, still somehow manages to retain a unique identity through some artistic chicanery or other, which is actually rather impressive, especially more so when you note that a lot of the interface elements have been adapted from its spiritual predecessor; the main menu still centers around being based on dynamic AI populating the scenery while the menu elements remain inconspicuous in the background. The ‘world’ element from LocoRoco, which mimics that of Super Mario platformers still remains, allowing old players to be immediately familiar with navigation, while allowing newcomers to enjoy a truly intuitive and unique UI experience. My only complaint was that with the large number of entities on screen in the UI, the PSP seemed slightly sluggish when I ran the game at 300 Mhz (For reference, the maximum CPU speed the PSP can attain is 333 Mhz), which begs the question of battery life performance with this particular title. I have not personally tested it, but my experience is that games that run at full speed tend to burn out the PSP’s battery a lot faster, so there’s a consideration some of you energy junkies may want to worry about. In any case, my PSP seemed fine (around 87% or so) even after 2 hours of play, so take that as you will.

Patapon’s audio experience, however, is where this game has its strongest point, and may also, in my opinion, be its Achilles heel, or its greatest weakness. As a rhythm-based game based on audio commands, delivering a satisfactory aural experience is almost a requirement here, and Patapon delivers brilliantly on that front. The chants made by your little black warriors as they trudge across the terrain will have you nodding your head as you struggle to keep to the beat with your pudgy sausages that you refer to as fingers, while the background music alternates between the cheerful, lighthearted tunes that accompany general exploration and the slightly more tense tones that transition well to battle sequences, complete with war drums in the background. It’s very reminiscent of the singing in LocoRoco, only with more bass and more spears flying through the air.screen4

However, the problem with this is that somehow, for some inexplicable reason, Patapon’s default audio volume seems a little soft, and jacking up the volume is almost a neccessity if you even want to hear any prompts in the game, let alone perform any successful beats. When playing without headphones, the drone of my nearby fan was actually a hindrance to hearing the damn beats. I had to actually grab my earphones from the other side of my desk because setting the volume to full wasn’t really helping much. Also, even though the in-game volume seems a little off, the PSP’s UI still seems to have the volume set to normal, which resulted in an unpleasant shock when I finally decided to quit the game and heard the confirm tone from the PSP. I could see this being a real problem when playing on the train, as I loathe wearing headphones outside, and even with them, the surrounding noise could be a potential issue.

While this is certainly a niggling issue and definitely nowhere near game-breaking, the significance of the fact that I mentioned this as the worst problem of the game merely indicates just how awesome this title is. It’s definitely no Crisis Core or even Killzone: Liberation in terms of depth, but it’s definitely one of those games which I’d whip out on a bus trip or when I’m waiting to respawn after being blown up in Team Fortress 2, because of its simplicity, its presentation, and most importantly, its ability to make me nod my fucking head in time to the fucking rhythms. Seriously, I had to consciously restrain myself from doing that in order to avoid looking like a lobotomy patient.

Highly recommended. This means, of course, that even if you’re a honest-to-god Yankee whose xenophobia extends to flying birds of prey above Pearl Harbour, you should still import this game.

Along with Crisis Core. No, I’m not kidding; I don’t care if you don’t understand Japanese, you’ll find a way.

Or you can read it over here complete with some of my own screenshots of gameplay.

.la1n

I'll go ahead and second the idea of creating a version of the game for PSN, I would be infinitely happy.

bruin

sonictk wrote: »

OK, after two hours with this thing, I can safely say that it's excellent, and anyone who liked LocoRoco (the original) will probably enjoy this offering as well.

I've written my iniital impressions of the game in the spoiler:

Patapon is something new from the wacky guys over at SCEJ and the LocoRoco team, the brainchild of Tsutomu Kouno and his wacky artist who shares my love of vector-based art, Keigo Tsuchiya. Whether or not you’ve heard of either of these two titles, know that they were intriguing enough to capture even my attention, a feat that could at best be described as difficult, especially so for games that involve minimal violence, gore and gorgeous beautiful anime-styled ladies. Released only yesterday in the land of the Rising Sun, I managed to get my hands on a copy, and I think I’ve played enough of it to offer my unlearned appraisal without feeling like a hypocrite.

When SCEJ’s follow-up to LocoRoco on the PS3 turned out to be Cocoreccho-ly mediocre, I had to force myself to cling to the slim hope that a PSP sequel would surface, as per the rumours abound on the Internet foretold. When it was finally announced that Patapon would be the next title to be released by the original team, the premise for the game didn’t exactly have me drooling with anticipation, if you catch my drift.

I am thus happy to say that after spending quite a bit of time with the game, my initial apprehensions were, well, initial apprehensions. Now, however, those apprehensions have been dispelled.

screen2In Patapon, you basically take control of a bunch of honorific misfits that are apparently at war with neighbouring nations (assuming my interpretation of the kanji is somewhat accurate), and help them to attain victory through taking command of your mini-minions and guiding them through the dangers of tall birds, large elephant…things and giant enemy crabs, among other surprises.

Patapon, at its core, is basically a rhythm-based game not unlike what you might find in Rock Band or Elite Beat Agents, utilizing the PSP’s face buttons instead of a plastic guitar controller or a stylus for input. For the uninitiated, this is basically akin to mashing the Cross, Triangle, Square and Circle buttons, but in a certain pattern, and with infinitely more elegance to advance in the game. In Patapon’s case, performing different rhythms will execute different commands, such as an attack command and a stop/regroup command among other unconventional instructions.

How this works is that each face button is bound to a certain drum beat, and drum beats must be performed in a rhythm, almost hypnotic pattern in order to initiate commands. For example, the Square button is bound to Pata, and the Circle button is bound to Pon. Executing a Pata-Pata-Pata-Pon move is equivalent to asking your army of misfits to MOVE UP, while a Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon move asks them to ATTACK like the pack of wild dogs they are. And that’s just two of the multitude of moves you have at your disposal, though I’m sure that for most people, those two will be almost impossible to handle at the later stages of this insane world. Seriously. screen3

In addition, there’s a combination system embedded into the rhythm game, as per the standard du jour for any rhythm game these days. Performing combinations in succession can result in your minions going into a fever mode, which sadly doesn’t render them weak, helpless and bedridden. Instead, your warriors become stronger, faster, and can throw their puny spears and fire their weak-ass arrows farther than usual, which is good, I guess, because when the screen starts filling up with targets, believe me, you want anything you throw to go farther than usual. It helps, then, that the D-pad on the PSP allows for you to shift the screen in the corresponding direction, increasing or decreasing your army’s field of vision as per your preference.

Patapon also features a quasi-RPG experience system that LocoRoco had in the form of collectible artifacts; while it may not feature cute ripoffs of Cactuar, it does have a sort of level system that borrows from the multitude of other RPGs out there, allowing your little critters to gain experience points based on their participation in battles. I’m not exactly certain how this system works (due to my inability to decipher the necessary kanji in the help files), so I’m not going to really elaborate on this much. I haven’t exactly died yet, though, so I’m hoping it’s not really that important.

The gameplay in Patapon may sound minimal and unbelievably basic, but remember that LocoRoco essentially had 3 buttons for controls, and its gameplay still outstripped many other platformers with its unique mechanics. After the time with this new release, I can safely say that Patapon follows this trend which seems to be more popular among platform games these days.

screen1Patapon’s graphics, while based on the same vector graphics approach that LocoRoco took, still somehow manages to retain a unique identity through some artistic chicanery or other, which is actually rather impressive, especially more so when you note that a lot of the interface elements have been adapted from its spiritual predecessor; the main menu still centers around being based on dynamic AI populating the scenery while the menu elements remain inconspicuous in the background. The ‘world’ element from LocoRoco, which mimics that of Super Mario platformers still remains, allowing old players to be immediately familiar with navigation, while allowing newcomers to enjoy a truly intuitive and unique UI experience. My only complaint was that with the large number of entities on screen in the UI, the PSP seemed slightly sluggish when I ran the game at 300 Mhz (For reference, the maximum CPU speed the PSP can attain is 333 Mhz), which begs the question of battery life performance with this particular title. I have not personally tested it, but my experience is that games that run at full speed tend to burn out the PSP’s battery a lot faster, so there’s a consideration some of you energy junkies may want to worry about. In any case, my PSP seemed fine (around 87% or so) even after 2 hours of play, so take that as you will.

Patapon’s audio experience, however, is where this game has its strongest point, and may also, in my opinion, be its Achilles heel, or its greatest weakness. As a rhythm-based game based on audio commands, delivering a satisfactory aural experience is almost a requirement here, and Patapon delivers brilliantly on that front. The chants made by your little black warriors as they trudge across the terrain will have you nodding your head as you struggle to keep to the beat with your pudgy sausages that you refer to as fingers, while the background music alternates between the cheerful, lighthearted tunes that accompany general exploration and the slightly more tense tones that transition well to battle sequences, complete with war drums in the background. It’s very reminiscent of the singing in LocoRoco, only with more bass and more spears flying through the air.screen4

However, the problem with this is that somehow, for some inexplicable reason, Patapon’s default audio volume seems a little soft, and jacking up the volume is almost a neccessity if you even want to hear any prompts in the game, let alone perform any successful beats. When playing without headphones, the drone of my nearby fan was actually a hindrance to hearing the damn beats. I had to actually grab my earphones from the other side of my desk because setting the volume to full wasn’t really helping much. Also, even though the in-game volume seems a little off, the PSP’s UI still seems to have the volume set to normal, which resulted in an unpleasant shock when I finally decided to quit the game and heard the confirm tone from the PSP. I could see this being a real problem when playing on the train, as I loathe wearing headphones outside, and even with them, the surrounding noise could be a potential issue.

While this is certainly a niggling issue and definitely nowhere near game-breaking, the significance of the fact that I mentioned this as the worst problem of the game merely indicates just how awesome this title is. It’s definitely no Crisis Core or even Killzone: Liberation in terms of depth, but it’s definitely one of those games which I’d whip out on a bus trip or when I’m waiting to respawn after being blown up in Team Fortress 2, because of its simplicity, its presentation, and most importantly, its ability to make me nod my fucking head in time to the fucking rhythms. Seriously, I had to consciously restrain myself from doing that in order to avoid looking like a lobotomy patient.

Highly recommended. This means, of course, that even if you’re a honest-to-god Yankee whose xenophobia extends to flying birds of prey above Pearl Harbour, you should still import this game.

Along with Crisis Core. No, I’m not kidding; I don’t care if you don’t understand Japanese, you’ll find a way.

Or you can read it over here complete with some of my own screenshots of gameplay.

Sweet preview. I'm not sure if you should have recommended an import so strongly, it comes out in the US in 2 months.

sonictk

I say the same thing for every Japanese game that I love and isn't available as an English release yet.

Besides I need to enter the army in like 2 weeks so I can't afford to wait for a mere translation. Besides fun is a universal language.

Dracil

It'll probably still be fun playing it again on the English version after playing it on the Japanese version. I mean, rhythm games are meant to be played over and over again anyway.

Also, no other game makes me go head-nodding and feet-tapping like this. That's one of the things you get for having a constant beat, unlike other rhythm games.

Houk

So this looks shit-fucking-hot, and may be the last straw in me picking up a PSP finally. I mean, what an awesome concept and art design.

bsjezz

man, cocoreccho wasn't mediocre. for the like two bucks or whatever they charged it was a bloody fun few hours of entertainment

bruin

sonictk

man, cocoreccho wasn't mediocre. for the like two bucks or whatever they charged it was a bloody fun few hours of entertainment

I don't really like to decide about a game based on its price, how fun a game is should be the key factor in forming my opinion about it imho. I didn't really enjoy the spin-off because I felt it deviated way too much from the original concept of LocoRoco, and wasn't even much of an improvement in the end. I understand a lot of people prefer the butterfly concept, of course, but for me it feels like a step back rather than one forward. Anyway that is another story altogether.

And if I don't end up in some snow-xmas-themed level later on I'm going to be very disappointed. =\ So where's the US demo of this thing anyway? It might help me understand the skill/level system a bit better.

Unco-ordinated

bruin wrote: »

images

Is that a UMD demo? If so, a big 'fuck you' to Sony. UMD Demos suck, get that god-damn thing online.