Midnight Carnival<\/em> has many of the characteristics that have made the first two games fan favorites, and the basic gist of the gameplay hasn\u2019t changed. You use the same Left and Right Shoulder button world-tilting mechanics to roll, bounce, flip, fling and shoot your LocoRoco through 16 different (though recycled in theme) levels as fast as possible, picking up as many Pickories and other collectibles as you can along the way. And as usual, the graphics, sound effects and music are delightfully whimsical.<\/p>\nBut there\u2019s one huge difference here. Midnight Carnival<\/em> introduces a new \u201cBoing!\u201d mechanic to the series by which you hold down both shoulder buttons to bounce off the ground and continue ricocheting off of other surfaces to clear obstacles \u2013 it\u2019s the same control mechanism used for jumping in previous games, only now your LocoRoco pings around like a bouncy ball. This seemingly beneficial gameplay addition morphs the game into more of a twitch platformer, and it doesn\u2019t quite come together.<\/p>\nEarly on the change in play style is easy to adapt to and quite fun. Getting into a rhythm and chain-bouncing through stages can be very satisfying. However, as the stages become more challenging, the bouncing controls fall apart. If your \u201cBoing!\u201d timing is even a fraction off, your LocoRoco bounces off in an unpredictable direction, usually leading to your doom. Also, since you have to tilt the world and bounce at the same time, it\u2019s far too easy to overcompensate in one direction and, again, meet your demise by falling off a ledge or hitting some sort of spiked obstacle (which there are many of). This leads to A LOT of \u201cdie and retry\u201d trial and error and more aggravation than any LocoRoco<\/em> game should ever have. I play LocoRoco<\/em> games to relax, not get stressed out to the point where I want to smash my PSP to pieces!<\/p>\nMaking matters worse, the checkpoint system only seems designed to make your life even more difficult. Around halfway through each stage you activate a checkpoint marker, and from that point on whenever you fail you can buy a three-life continue with Pickories you\u2019ve collected and spawn at the checkpoint rather than going all the way back to the beginning. However, with each continue you buy the price increases, and whenever you continue from a checkpoint you also lose any of the extra LocoRoco you may have collected in the first half of the stage, leaving yourself vulnerable to one-hit deaths and even more frustration as you get stuck into a situation where you can\u2019t make even one minor mistake. The game does have a BuiBui Store where you can buy an item that protects you for one hit (and various other collectibles like different hats to customize your LocoRoco), but it still doesn\u2019t help much.<\/p>\n
I also have to call into question Midnight Carnival<\/em>\u2019s value. At $15 it\u2019s only $5 cheaper than LocoRoco 2<\/em> was at launch, yet it offers only a fraction of the longevity. The game\u2019s 16 stages only took me around two hours to complete compared to the five or six hours it took me to finish just the story portion of LocoRoco 2<\/em>, and at least half of that time was spent dying and retrying my way through the brutal last few levels. There\u2019s no MuiMui House in Midnight Carnival<\/em> either, and the two new mini-games, LocoBall (a quirky play on Pachinko) and BuiBui Crane (like those cranes at arcades and carnivals you use to try and grab a toy), don\u2019t hold any long-term appeal. Some replay value can be found in playing stages over again for posting high scores on the online-enabled leaderboards and competing in multiplayer races with up to four players, but sadly the multiplayer only supports Ad Hoc so it\u2019s a useless feature if you\u2019re without someone local to play with… like I am.<\/p>\nI could have accepted LocoRoco Midnight Carnival<\/em> as sort of a cheap experimental PSP minis release, but as a true successor to the previous LocoRoco<\/em> games (which is what it\u2019s supposed to be) it falls flat. I appreciate the concept and certainly wouldn’t be against seeing the “Boing!” mechanic worked into future titles with more fine tuning, but as is I just can’t come up with a reason to recommend this game, and that really is hard for me to say as such an adoring LocoRoco<\/em> fan.<\/p>\nA playable demo is available if you\u2019d like to try it out and judge for yourself, but quite frankly, I\u2019d be cautious about doing that. A small demo sampling of this game is likely to woo you into a purchase, and I have a feeling you\u2019d wind up regretting doing so after the fact. <\/p>\n
![\"SkipIt.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/ReviewRatingGraphics\/SkipIt.jpg\" "\\"SkipIt.jpg\\"")
<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong>
\n+ Same catchy music and charming graphics LocoRoco is known for
\n+ New “Boing!” mechanic is neat in concept<\/p>\nCons:<\/strong>
\n– New “Boing!” mechanic is too imprecise and inconsistent
\n– Way too much trial and error
\n– Annoying checkpoint system
\n– Not enough game to warrant $15<\/p>\nGame Info:<\/strong>
\nPlatform: PSP via PSN download
\nPublisher: SCEA
\nDeveloper: SCEJ
\nRelease Date: 10\/29\/09
\nGenre: Action\/Platform
\nESRB Rating: Everyone
\nPlayers: 1-4
\nSource: Review code provided by publisher<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sony, what have you done with my loveable, FUN LocoRoco? With LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, the new download-only installment in the popular LocoRoco PSP series available tonight on the PSN store, what is typically such a fun, carefree gameplay experience has been turned into one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[180,576,53,3,61],"tags":[1855,737,6096,699,6100],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"LocoRocoMidnightCarnival.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.vgblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/29\/LocoRocoMidnightCarnival.jpg\" "\\"LocoRocoMidnightCarnival.jpg\\"")
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