Video Game / LocoRoco

LocoRoco is a Platform Game game developed by SIE Japan Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation Portable in 2006.

On the peaceful planet of Euphoria, the titular LocoRoco, a race of colorful blobs, spend their days singing and playing with the various creatures they coexist with. But one day, an evil legion of aliens called the Moja Troop invade Euphoria to take it over. Since the LocoRoco don't know how to fight or defend themselves, the player takes control of Euphoria itself and must tilt and shake the planet to move the LocoRoco around and help them vanquish the Moja Troop.

A sequel, LocoRoco 2, was released in 2008. The Moja Troop return to Euphoria once more, this time with designs on beating LocoRoco at their own game with a song of their own. But unlike the songs the blobs sing, the aliens' song drains flora and fauna of their lifeforce. It's now up to the player to yet again take control of Euphoria and defeat the Moja Troop, which is stronger—and has more allies—than ever.

Both LocoRoco games were eventually remastered and re-released on the PlayStation 4 in 2017.

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This video game contains examples of:

• Adipose Rex: The MuiMui King is notably chunkier than his subjects.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: In the sequel, the BuiBui will infrequently attack the MuiMui House. Building a cannon to fend them off makes up a plot arc.
• All Just a Dream: Cocoreccho! is simply a dream that Bonmucho was having.
• Asteroids Monster: The LocoRoco species can split themselves into several smaller versions, with the amount of LocoRocos depending on how many berries they've eaten in the level.
• Astral Finale: The fight against Galamar in the sequel takes place in outer space.
• Background Music Override: If you bring a LocoRoco to their favorite habitat, their theme music will play instead of the normal music for that stage. This was a wild guess in the first game, but the sequel gives a hint as to what their favorite stage is in the character select menu, which are as follows:
  • Kulche - Perculoka
  • Priffy - Franzea
  • Tupley - Chapo-Wahr
  • Pekeroné - Tropuca
  • Budzi - Dolangomeri
  • Chavez - Shamplin
  • Viole - Kelapton
  • Their theme music will also play when doing a challenge in the sequel, regardless of the stage's habitat.
• Big Eater: The LocoRocos will eat a number of different foods across the stages, including berries, nuts and tufts of grass. Tupley in particular is described as the "Voracious Fella" who will "leap at anything edible".
• Blob Monster: The titular characters are a species of round, colorful blob-like creatures that roll around the stage, grow by eating berries and can squish themselves through narrow gaps.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": A lot of Euphoria's wildlife strongly resembles various Earth animals, most evident with Domingo, who are penguins in everything but name. Despite that, they are seen not as those animals, but as their own distinct species.
• Cartoon Bomb: Buibui's most common choice of projectile attack in LocoRoco 2.
• Catapult to Glory: Run out of ammo while defending the MuiMui House in the sequel, and the MuiMui will fall back to this as a last resort. They're slow to climb the ladder leading to your cannon and don't have the best aim compared to the stones you were using. Unless there's only a few enemies left, you aren't likely going to survive without losing a piece of furniture to damage. It is also heavily implied to be painful, as checking on them inside after a battle will have them feeling sore.
• Checkpoint Starvation: More like Fruit Starvation. BuiBui Fort 3 gives you only 2 additional fruit for 80% of the stage, with the other 17 fruit locked away in a room guarder area at the end of the level. Same can be said for most levels in Midnight Carnival.
• Cheerful Child: Kulche, the yellow LocoRoco, is implied to be the youngest one of the bunch and is said to be the most cheerful of all.
• Chest Monster: The Cappulicho, and that enemy disguises itself as a berry. If a LocoRoco tries eating said "berry", they will get stuck as the Cappulicho prepares to eat them, and you'll have to try shaking them off.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: When Bomucho first transforms into his mutated form at the end of the first boss fight in LocoRoco 2, he doesn't get to use his full powers. He grows too large for the cave arena he's currently in and gets injured by the falling rocks. He then flees to fight another day.
• Color-Coded Characters:
  • Kulche - Yellow
  • Priffy - Pink
  • Tupley - Blue
  • Pekeroné - Red
  • Budzi - Black
  • Chavez - Green
  • Viole - Purple
  • Mui Mui - Navy Blue
  • Bui Bui - Dark Red
  • Bonmucho - Dark Green
  • Majoline - Dark Purple
  • Moja - Black
• Copy Protection: (Sort of) with Randomly Drops and Level Grinding - If you want to access half the downloads on the website, you'll have to get a code in LocoRoco 2 after you finish building the MuiMui house. Not to mention those things are exclusive to that website and aren't on Play Station Network or whatever.
  • There is a code out there on the Internet, but it only works on the UK regional setting, although when used, it unlocks those same items on the other regional settings.
  • Unfortunately, said link that the game gives you is now dead and redirects you to the main PlayStation site.
• The Cutie: Kulche, the happy-go-lucky yellow LocoRoco.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Apparently, blowing Galanmar off the planet is easier for the player character in cutscenes than in game.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The black LocoRoco, Budzi, is, despite looking a bit like a Moja and being native to the dark spooky land, Dolangomeri, just a friendly "loose cannon".
• Dinner Deformation: Happens in Womb Levels. The LocoRoco are rather small initally and don't cause a lot of bulging at first, but as they collect fruit the effect becomes more promiment when moving across deformable terrain.
• Evil Counterpart: The mischievous BuiBui in contrast to the friendly MuiMui in LocoRoco 2.
  • Evil Knockoff: When Majoline kisses a captive MuiMui, it turns into a BuiBui.
• Fertile Feet: The LocoRoco can make berry plants grow on surfaces when rolling or jumping into places where they grow.
• Fungus Humongous: Kelapton, a world filled with giant mushrooms that can be used as platforms or trampolines.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Galanmar, who initially serves as the host of the Loco Race minigame. Get rid of all the muck in each level, including the secret levels, and it is revealed that she's been collecting the muck to launch a final attack on the planet, setting her up as the True Final Boss.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Anyone actively causing physical pain to Euphoria is met with lightning. It sends down a bolt of lightning to a BuiBui that attempts to tug on the ground of Tropuca with their fishing rod in a bonus cutscene.
• Gaiden Game: Midnight Carnival, and LocoRoco Cocoreccho, side stories set roughly in the same time as LocoRoco 2, but following LocoRoco's adventures in BuiBui's carnival base and the titular Cocoreccho butterfly's quest to gather LocoRoco, respectively.
• Genius Loci: The planet the LocoRoco live on is one, complete with facial expressions. It is a rare player-controlled example where through using gravity alterations, lightning and earthquakes, you can affect the life of the inhabitants of the planet akin to SimEarth. There are also a solar and lunar body with facial expressions who often react to sound waves of the inhabitants of the planet. It's more cheerful than it sounds though.
• Giant Mook: Oja and Ojaja are giant Mojas, and take several hits to defeat as opposed to regular Mojas.
• Gravity Screw: The game is controlled by tilting the world left and right, so the blobs can move.
• Green Hill Zone: Perculoca, both literally (being a green mountainous area) and figuratively (as one of the first levels introduced to you in both games). Franzea, the flower field level you start the first game in, would also qualify.
• Image Song: In the manner of characters singing their own themes both in game and in the soundtrack.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The fact that the LocoRoco don't even know how to fight the Mojas until you take over. In fact, they seem completely incapable of even THINKING of doing any harm.
  • Even if their companion is devoured or disappeared, the remaining ones will continue singing if it's the song they can sing to.
• Instant Bandages: Any Moja Troop enemy that takes multiple hits to defeat will show damage this way. Bomucho and Majoline also acquire bandages when damaged.
• Jungle Japes: The Jaojab jungle; full of tight corridors, ancient MuiMui ruins and numerous rapids.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The word LocoRoco comes from the reverse characters of the Japanese word "korokoro" (コロコロ) which means "round and rolling" which fits the LocoRoco's attributes very well.
  • Kulche's name literally comes from the Japanese word "kurukuru" (クルクル) meaning "round and round." Notice the first two Japanese characters on Kulche's name is similar to the first two characters of the word "kurukuru".
  • Viole's name obviously comes from the word violet.
  • Chavez's name is of Spanish origin. Which explains his Spanish accent.
  • Priffy's name sounds a lot like "pretty", no wonder why she looks so cute.
  • The Moja's name is derived from the Japanese word "mojamoja".(もじゃもじゃ) which means shaggy; hence their hairy appearance.
  • The Nyokki's name comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia "nyokinyoki".(にょきにょき) which means "plants shooting up."
  • Hohoh's name is derived from the Japanese word "ho" (歩) which means "step."
  • Koona's name is derived from the word "kumo" (雲), the Japanese word for cloud.
  • The Cocoreccho (the pink butterfly creature) has the word "cho" at the end of its name, which comes from the Japanese word "chō" (蝶) meaning "butterfly".
• Mini-Game: There's several in both games, including a crane game, the MuiMui House (which is different in both games) and one in 2 where you guess which LocoRoco will be first place in a race.
• Musical Assassin - The Moja in LocoRoco 2 decide to make polluting clouds by singing their new song as a means of revenge.
• One-Winged Angel: Bonmucho and Majoline have access to stronger forms in the sequel. The first instance of Bonmucho transforming is a case of Clipped-Wing Angel, but the second boss fight is this. Majoline also transforms to fight the LocoRoco as the Final Boss.
• Palmtree Panic: Tropuca, a tropical island world full of palm trees and tropical waters.
• Personal Space Invader: Koja are tiny Mojas that, if touched, stick to your LocoRoco and weighs them down, making their jumps much lower. Thankfully, you can get rid of them by jumping into water.
• The Power of Rock: Both Moja and LocoRoco can affect reality by singing, with Moja's song creating black muck that makes plants or creatures sick, and LocoRoco's song healing and protecting Euphoria and everything that lives on it.
• Pulling Themselves Together: Holding down the Circle Button when the LocoRoco are split apart will cause the ground to shake. The LocoRocos will then make a long "nooooiiii!" noise to combine themselves back into one larger mass. The inverse can happen by only tapping the circle button, which will bring forth lightning and split them back into mutiple LocoRoco.
• Random Drop: In LocoRoco 2, the enemies drop items you can use to improve and expand the MuiMui House. It can get pretty frustrating at times.
• Rhythm Game: In LocoRoco 2, when the LocoRoco split up to form a singing group, the player shouldn't just sit back and watch them anymore, as this starts a rhythm minigame where you have to hit notes.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Most of the cast, some more than the others.
• Secret Level: Four of them in LocoRoco 2: Perculoka 2, Kelapton 2, Jaojab 3, and BuiBui Fort 3 can only be unlocked by piecing together 4 different maps.
• Shows Damage: Anything that takes more than 1 hit to kill.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Shamplin is a snow-covered world where most of the ground is icy and more slippery than usual.
• Snot Bubble: Sleeping characters do that.
• Speaking Simlish: Everyone, although it's easily mistaken for Japanese at first. Even if the song lyrics probably don't mean anything, they still manage to make it sound awesome.
• Stalactite Spite: Seen in LocoRoco 2. But they don't damage you.
• Sugar Bowl: Pretty much most of the worlds. Especially Franzea, a giant flower field filled with vibrantly-coloured plantlife.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: It's very rare to see a Blob Monster drown, and the LocoRoco series is not an exception. The blobs can stay underwater for long amounts of time, with some levels being set mostly underwater.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Viole is called the 'Confident Tomboy' while Priffy is called the 'Stylish Princess', which coincidentally fits their personalities.
• Traveling-Pipe Bulge: Pipes and other things in the series are flexible.
• Tree Trunk Tour: Yamboona Tree, a world with giant trees that pierce the sky. Most of a level's length set in this world has you navigating the wood trunks within, with little time spent on the flat ground.
• Variable Mix: In LocoRoco 2, when you start a stage, the vocal track of the stage theme consists of just a single voice corresponding to the LocoRoco you're playing. Once you accumulate 5 LocoRocos, the single LocoRoco voice becomes a chorus; at 10 LocoRocos a MuiMui chorus is added, and at 15 more musical instruments are added to the track to give the fully complete stage theme. (Except on the BuiBui Fort stages, of course, where 10 LocoRocos gives you a BuiBui chorus).
• Villainous Mother-Son Duo: In LocoRoco 2 Bonmucho is joined by his mother Majoline, who is every bit as villainous as he is, in addition to being far more competent.
• Villain Song: The Mojya theme from LocoRoco 2 is one of the best out there. But it can suck one's life force away.
• Wall Jump: Possible with the Boing! move in Midnight Carnival. Some levels are dependent on the player's wall jumping ability.
• Womb Level: Each world in the original game has a level where your LocoRoco gets eaten by some kind of giant creature, and have to make their way through said creature's insides - still presented in the cheery, cutesy style of the rest of the game.
• You ALL Look Familiar: Every single MuiMui, as well as their evil counterparts/knockoffs the BuiBui, look alike.

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