PoPoLoCrois Reviews

It's sort of heartbreaking to make this review for multiple reasons. You've probably already seen the score I've given this game which is just average. I really wanted this game to become one of my favourite PSP JRPGs, or JRPGs in general, but unfortunately it did not accomplish such a feat. I'll start with the story and characters and slowly work my way down, giving both the positives and negatives their spotlight. The story as a whole is.. good enough. I would rather call it a cutesy story than an actual deep story, because whenever something ''deep'' happens, it's brushed off almost straight away. Villain deaths just happen, and emotional issues are resolved a few dialogue lines later. As a cutesy story it does the job well though, as I was a fan of the love story between Pietro and Narcia. The other characters have their moments, but are not really as fleshed out as the main protagonists. The same could unfortunately be said about the world building. PoPoLoCrois puts you in the same towns and cities more often than not, and while every villager has changed dialogue every revisit, they often just mentioned something that it happening right now in the story and then talk about the same thing they've been doing throughout the whole game. While I love changed dialogue, I eventually just gave up talking to every villager because I could predict their dialogue, and they didn't have anything else to offer. I will compliment the game for trying to evolve the world during time-lapses however. Even though some villagers would still be doing the exact same thing, at the same time new houses were built or improved. It also tried to make me familiar with every city and villager by having me revisit them so much, but the problem with that is the world itself. You could see the world of PoPoLoCrois basically as a straight line, with cities and dungeons branching off of it. There is pretty much no fast-travel throughout the entire game, and it's more of a chore than an actual journey to go from town to town. What's even worse is that the enemies, for the most part, don't change between towns, which means that you'll still be fighting the same weak enemies near the capital city that you've been fighting since the very beginning. The worst part about this whole paragraph however, is that the very final chapter of the game actually allows you to fast-travel to towns AND encourages sidequests. This would have been great if it happened earlier, but at that point I was sort of done with the game.

The combat is good overall. I did find it odd that the game puts me on automatic by default, but I found it to be satisfying overall. PoPoLoCrois is a pretty easy game but it played well and that's good enough for me. It's a hybrid tactical/turn-based combat system, with four controllable characters in battle. Most characters felt unique, and to add to the flavour, you can also summon enemies into battle which function as a 5th character. The characters themselves have a unique playstyle, but like fast-traveling you don't really get a choice which character is in your party until the very end. During random encounters I mostly just attacked or charged up an attack for the next turn, but skills can make the battles last far shorter. Skills also have their own level, but they are levelled automatically alongside normal experience so you don't have any influence over that whatsoever. The dungeons are fine overall as well, and I found some of the secrets to be pretty cleverly hidden. Chests usually only peeked out slightly, and only the observing player will find them all.

Overall I found PoPoLoCrois to be a just-above-average game, which pains me to say. There are some very archaic design decisions, and it didn't manage to indulge me into the world it tried to build. At the same time, it is a very charming game with cutesy graphics and music, and a love story that's more sweet than anything. I recommend trying PoPoLoCrois out yourself regardless of what my review might have made you think.