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At the tender age of 10, most kids don't worry about saving the world. In Agetec's PoPoLoCrois, the PSP RPG integrating the series' two games into a seamless whole, Prince Pietro gets to do it twice.
PoPoLoCrois's first story tells of Pietro and his quest to wake his mother from her decade-long sleep. Queen Sania lost her soul saving PoPoLoCrois from the Ice Demon shortly after giving birth, and now her son is determined to wake her up again. Setting off across the kingdom, Pietro runs into the usual varied cast of RPG characters and situations in the quest to save his mom.
While the plot ends up evolving into the usual "save the world" scenario, the presentation is utterly charming. The land and everything in it is beautifully 2D and filled with detail. People and animals are everywhere in the towns, making them feel vibrant and alive. There are even mutliple styles of cut-scene: the standard "sprites hanging out while text goes by", gorgeous illustrations complete with a styorybook-style narration, and some very nicely done anime scenes. All of it is drawn in PoPoLoCrois' unique art style, too.
 Cute and charming can only take a game so far, though, and it's in the gameplay that PoPoLoCrois starts to stumble. The battle system is a combination of the usual random battles seen in RPGs and turn-based strategy. Fights happen right on the field itself, with any rocks, trees, or other obstacles defining the shape of the board. The real innovation is in the battle grid itself, with each character taking up a 2x2 set of squares rather than the usual one per character. What this means is that it's possible to do things like standing off center from an enemy so another character can attack from the same side, or divide the power of an attack evenly between two monsters standing shoulder to shoulder.
It can be a fun battle system, but unfortunately there are some deep flaws in it. For one thing, PoPoLoCrois is amazingly easy. There's almost no fight in the critters at the beginning of the game, and while that does change as the story progresses, there's rarely anything that could be called a challenge. This is mostly because the magic attacks are so stupidly powerful that they'll kill most creatures with one shot, and spells have an area effect for nailing multiple opponents. All the strategic potential is lost when most monsters fall over if asked nicely, and the frequency of the battles eventually turns the early part of the game into sheer tedium. Later on, when the creatures have a bit of fight in them, it starts to be at least a little fun, but by then the damage is done.
Other, more minor annoyances abound as well. The translation is riddled with typos, not to mention the occasional villager talking about events that haven't happened yet. Load times are everywhere, even in mid-battle to cue up a spell effect. PoPoLoCrois even manages something I never thought I'd see in an RPG- Pietro moves too fast. While this can be tamed with the Walk button in the few places where postioning is important (doors, basically), it still leaves a nasty blur thanks to the PSP's LCD screen.
Despite all this, I actually still like PoPoLoCrois. I'll admit that I'd have dropped it after the first couple of hours if this review wasn't necessary, but I'm glad I stuck with it. After a slow start, the plot gets moving at a brisk pace with almost none of the usual fetch-quests too many RPGs like to pad events out with. The cast is likeable and fun, and I always wanted to know what would happen to them next. Not only that, but because this is actually two games integrated into one, there's a second story set a few years after the first. While it's true that, even with two stories, PoPoLoCrois isn't all that long an RPG, there's definitely something to be said for the tight pacing.
Basically, PoPoLoCrois is a mixed bag. A slow start turns into an engaging story with a decent, if easy, battle system. The technical flaws are unavoidable but not entirely unforgiveable. It just seems as if, with a bit more work, editing, and play-balancing, PoPoLoCrois could have been really good instead of a video game equivalent to cotton candy. |
