LocoRoco 2 Officially Announced

The gaming world has known for a while that LocoRoco would be getting a sequel, thanks to Phil Harrison, who told people at DICE in 2007 that he was playing the next version of the title. Now, Sony is officially confirming that a new game featuring the cute characters is coming to the PlayStation Portable, with the director of the project, Tsutomu Kouno, offering some information on LocoRoco 2.

The gameplay will be essentially the same as in the previous release. You need to take charge of the Loco characters and guide them across the dangerous landscape of the game while searching for the alien looking Moja Troop, as they try and take the Locos from under your nose. Kouno says that "you'll also run into other enemies as the game goes on; not friends of the Moja, but there's a boss that has transformed these creatures and has them under his control, and he uses them to attack the LocoRoco", so the game will be a little more varied than the original.

The Moja are also getting the power of song, which only the Loco characters had in the first game. It seems that the aliens are not very good at singing and their songs are doing more bad than good so the player will have to undo the damage done by the Moja. In order for that to happen, the cute little guys you control will be able to do a lot more in LocoRoco 2 than in the first game. In addition to swimming, you will be able to dive. There will also be more situations in which the Locos need to work together and use their teeth to do some tasks in the game world. Kouno says that "We're being careful to keep it from getting too complex, and in addition to that, we're putting in lots of new features for people who played the first game to enjoy".

There's no date announced for the release, but Sony says that most of the game is done and that it might be launched as early as winter 2009.