Pocoyo Racing

Pocoyo Racing is a 2011 kart-racing video game developed and published by Zinkia Entertainment for the Nintendo DS and Wii on November 25, 2011 and November 30, 2012, respectively. The game was only released in Europe. The game was initially planned to also have a US release, being published by SouthPeak Games, but was canceled.

Pocoyo Racing
Protagonist(s): Pocoyo Genre(s): Kart-racing Platform(s): Wii Nintendo DS Release Date: Wii November 25, 2011 Nintendo DS November 30, 2012 Developer(s): Zinkia Entertainment Publisher(s): Zinkia Entertainment Country: Spain Series: Pocoyo Predecessor: Hello Pocoyo! Successor: Pocoyo Party

The game was made to serve as a finale to the Pocoyo television series until it returned in 2016.

Good Qualities

1. Unlike many other licensed kart-racing games, it is very faithful to the television series that it is based on, given that it was made by Zinkia Entertainment themselves, and several of the vehicles that the characters drive in the game have also appeared in the show.
   • One of Pocoyo's karts is the Mini Vamoosh, which is the vehicle that he and his friends use to get to certain locations in the show, such as space and underwater.
   • He also uses his red racing car just like in the show as well.
2. The game (except for the cutscenes) no longer takes place in a white void unlike in the show, as the tracks are set in three different worlds: a toy world, a beach world, and a space world.
3. The game features all of the characters (at the time) from the show as playable characters (except Baby Bird, with the latter only appearing in the cutscenes).
4. Unlike Mario Kart, the game has a story mode titled the "Motor Olympics", divided into 10 levels with three different types of challenges. The completion of the levels allows you to unlock a picture card and/or a cutscene, with the former being stills from the show, in addition to early concept art for the show and game as well as scrapped ideas.
   • Championship: Race on a certain track repeatedly until you or another racer has reached 24 stars.
   • Time Trials: Race alone on a certain track twice to get the best time possible, and afterward race against your ghost/past self to try and get a better time. Depending on your time, you will receive either a gold, silver, or bronze medal. However, unlike the other modes in the game, you have an infinite amount of turbo.
   • Balloon Bursting: Pop as many balloons as possible by simply driving into them, and depending on your score, you will receive either a gold, silver, or bronze medal.
5. Good, yet simple controls for the most part (despite accelerating automatically), as you use the D-Pad to steer rather than having to tilt the controller, and the 2 buttons to use your turbo (if you have any that is). The DS version has the same controls.
6. While they can be unresponsive at times (especially during the jumping segments of certain tracks), the motion controls are quite decent for the most part, and thankfully, the DS version only requires you to press a certain direction on the D-Pad, making the segments easier.
7. Decent-looking graphics for a Wii game with detailed and colorful-looking environments and backgrounds.
8. The Balloon Bomb behaves almost identically to the infamous Thundercloud item from Mario Kart Wii, but unlike the latter item, it is easy to pass it to another racer, which you must do so before it pops/explodes and slows you down.
9. Good soundtrack, with several of the music tracks being based on existing soundtracks from the television series. For example, the song that plays during the opening cutscene of the game is the main theme of the show.
10. Speaking of the cutscenes, they are well-animated and look just like the show that they are based on.
11. A 100% completion of the game (collecting all 60 medals and 180 picture cards) will allow you to unlock an exclusive episode from the show.
12. Like the show, the game has a nice happy ending with all of the characters racing towards the finish line, but it turns out to be a tie. While they do argue over who won, when Baby Bird looks at the picture he took, it is revealed that Sleepy Bird won, so they all stop arguing and go to congratulate Sleepy Bird.
13. In the Party section, there are also two other modes named "King of the Track" and "Drive Laughing".
    • King of the Track is a 2v2 2-player race where you must race against your opponent on a certain track, with the loser having to pass the Wii Remote to the next person.
    • Drive Laughing is pretty much the same as the Grand Prix, except this time there is a TV with Pocoyo on it doing various dance moves, which is set as a distraction for the player.

Bad Qualities

1. The game was only released in Europe, meaning that if you bought the game in the US and tried to play it, it won't work unless you homebrew your Wii and install homebrew software to bypass the region lock.
2. The game's story mode (the Motor Olympics) can get repetitive like in the DS version.
3. The DS version isn't as good as the Wii version as it suffers from several issues that can mainly be blamed on the console's hardware limitations, and also because it was released in late 2011, in which the 3DS was already out in Europe at the time by EIGHT months.
4. The game can suffer from framerate drops during Grand Prix races and multiplayer races. The only time when the game reaches 60 FPS is during Time Trial levels.
5. Only 12 characters, with the aliens taking up 1/4 of the roster. However, this can be somewhat justified as the show did not have a lot of characters at the time up until Season 4 where more characters were introduced, and Baby Bird isn't a playable character despite literally appearing in the cutscenes.
6. It lacks in content, as there are only 12 tracks divided into 3 worlds. The other 6 are just mirrored versions of the original ones instead of having a mirror mode.
7. All of the karts feel the same. It is unknown if they have different stats or not due to there being no way to check their stats, unlike in most racing games.

Reception

The game received two positive ratings on Spanish website Foro 3D Juegos.

Trivia

• The game was initially planned to be released in the US as well, with it being published by SouthPeak Games, but due to some unknown issues with Zinkia, the US release ended up getting canceled, thus making the game a European exclusive.
• Several of the picture cards reveal early concept art for both the show and the game, in addition to scrapped ideas.
• The game was going to have a sequel titled "Pocoyo Circuits", an augmented-reality kart-racing game that was planned to be released in the spring of 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but it was canceled due to the developers moving to other companies/projects.

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