PoPoLoCrois

A PSP Game Review

by Stately Elm

What Happens when Japanese Anime Makes Awkward Intercourse with Dr. Seuss

     Don’t let the title of the review fool you, I did enjoy the game. It was a good step in the right direction for the PSP; as Sony let this 3rd party, AgeTec, launch a decent RPG which seemed to be lacking on the PSP for me.

     I know what your thinking, Po… Po…LoCrois. It has crazy Japanese people written all over. This AgeTec RPG is based around the fictional kingdom of PoPoLoCrois and the royalty that rules it. Built similarly to a storybook, you follow the life of young prince Pietro, and his companions as they face one kingdom crisis after another. To be honest the game is decent and is worth a look at, I would say that you should rent it, but you’re looking at around 20-25 hours of game play. The game itself boasts 30 hours, but that is a very optimistic view.

     The graphics are interesting; you’re looking at a clean cut…storybook. The graphics are well-groomed and gorgeous, but child-like. To be honest, the graphics run relatively smooth. They are slightly reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, so if that is your cup of tea go ahead. There are cut scenes that appear hardly ever. Very anime based, these cut scenes are interesting, voiced over, and very clean. They are pleasure when they come, but they rarely do. It would have been nice to see more of them.

     One of the bigger problems is the load times. Not that there are long ones that drag the game out, it’s more of something I like to call the “machinegun” effect. The load times are very quick, but there seems to be a never ending amount of them. Load between areas, before fights, accessing your map, looking at your creature guide, and every time you use a special ability. There is no getting around this, and most likely you will learn to ignore it, but generally you’re going to find yourself twitching every time you hit a randomly generated fight. It’s my one main criticism of this game: the battles are too frequent. They just keep coming, and if you need to backtrack ever (which happens more often then not) you will find yourself extremely frustrated by the constant hang-ups. There is a solution to this problem though; Pietro gains a spell named Guardian just a few levels into the game. Casting this allows you to wander around the environments completely unharmed. It lasts for a decent amount of time, and has a very low magic cost.

     The music in PoPoLoCrois is fair, but tends to repeat in a very mind numbing way. At first all the songs are well arraigned being very environ-based, but they tend to loop pretty quickly causing a broken record feel in some areas. It has the ability to become annoying.

The Verdict: PoPoLoCrois is a game that can definitely get a gamer engrossed. AgeTec presented a well made game with crisp graphics and a large amount of game play. The characters are interesting and well developed, and in the end you can overcome the few drawbacks of the game to truly enjoy it.

+  Short load times

-  …but too many of them.

+  Decent music

-  …that can become horribly repetitive.

+  Great graphics

-  …for a storybook?

+  Excellent game play.

+  Great depth.

B-

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