PSP Review- Popolocrois
Popolocrois The cell shaded RPG, who's name no one can pronounce hits the PSP with a whimper instead of a bang. The first time I saw this game advertised I thought to myself wow finally an RPG. This was long before anyone talked of the Legend of Heroes. It looked different and promised voice acting and cut scenes. Did the developers deliver on that premise? The answer is yes, but to the detriment of the game itself.Presentation C+
This game has some nice visuals, but the instances of them are few and far between. This game boasts a cell shaded looked and has the highest array of colors of any PSP game thus far. Turning on the game you will be treated to the cartoony-est world I have ever seen. Which is not a bad thing, just a style choice, but this leaves the game in a very precarious situation. The graphics and style is a love or hate type of thing, from the instant you turn it on. There is no in between either you love it and continue playing or hate it and your adventure in the world of Popolocrois is over before it had a chance to begin. This game also suffers from slowdown in random places. Certain effects tend to take the frame rate way down, bodies of water for instance, while at other times a person would expect slow down ( like when there are loads of people on screen) there is no slowdown. Loading in this game is a huge problem. Simply walking along a path requires a load, which draws the player out of the vibrant fantasy world. The game then further stutters by moving the characters further down screen. For example crossing a bridge and there is a load screen at the beginning of the bridge, when the load is finished, player will instantly be moved to the opposite side of the bridge. The whole trip through the middle of the bridge is gone. The voice acting in this game is great, but it turns out to be horribly excruciating having to wait for the game to load. The same thing with cut scenes. It gets to the point when a player can tell when speech or cut scenes are coming up because the game will load for about 3-5 seconds. The music in the game is fine, but is just frankly bland... Thank god for the mute button
+Cell shading-load times for everything-Music variety= C+
Gameplay C-
Popolocrois suffers from a disease I like to call "the same old". This game uses a mixture of "the same old" battle system from a combination of other games. It is a basic turned based fighting system, but allows the player to place characters where they want on the battle field. Add to that battles that are random and it becomes a huge snore fest, but at least the developers included and option for auto battle. Load times don't just plague the game's world and cut scenes, it plagues the battle scenes as well. Just entering into battle there is a slight load screen 1-3 seconds, it's not that bad in my opinion , but it gets much worse. When a player uses a character's skill, the skill is accompanied by a voice over (e.g. character casts and says lightning strike), this causes the game to load for such a long time that it's painful. The load times can be upwards of 5 seconds, especially if it is the first time you are using a move. My guess is the game cache's the voice acting that is frequently used in the PSP memory, but it doesn't really help all that much. Now just imagine a boss battle where a player is constantly using their skills, a battle can be stretched from 15 minutes to half an hour just on the amount of ridiculous load times. I have to say this fact alone will make the game very unplayable for everyone but the hardcore RPG enthusiasts. The AI in this game is fairly decent, opponents can and do change their strategy during battle to counter a players actions.
+AI intelligence-stale battle system-load times= C-
Storyline B
Popolocrois is based off a popular anime series in Japan of the same name. The structure of the story is set up in accordance to the series seasons. This is good and bad in a way. The story can feel jerky at times. Jumping from one plot line to another in rather short fashion, leaving the player scratching his head. On the good side of that, this provides plenty of plot twists and keeps the story interesting. The cut scenes do add a great amount of atmosphere to the game and in regards to the story is icing on the cake. The fun I have found in this game has only been in the story, so I won't give any of it away, but just be aware that this game has bestiality in it and you will find it out from cut scene number one.
+Cutscenes+interesting plot-jumpy plot= B(estiality)
posted by ljbad4life @ 2:56 PM
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