PoPoLoCrois was originally released on the Playstation One in Japan in 1996, spawning a long-running anime series, although it was never released outside of Japan - until now as it has now been localised and reborn for Sony's PSP handheld.
The game is an isometric RPG, which sees you taking the role of Prince Pietro in a quest to recover your mother's soul. After the introductory movie that sets the scene for the game, you take on the role of a 10 year old Prince. Finding out that your mother didn't die as you thought, but has been sleeping for the past 10 years because her soul was stolen, you decide to take it upon yourself to go searching for a way to save your mother.
Your quest will initially take you exploring the castle you grew up in, although very quickly you will find yourself out in the wider world. The game introduces you to the storyline quickly, and gives you pointers on where you need to go to move ahead. Along the way you meet up with a number of other characters who join you on your quest, adding strength and magic to your party, as well as helping to move along the storyline, which is pretty much linear.
Movement around the world is, unlike a lot of other similar RPGs very speedy, with the characters moving around the map at quite a clip. It is while moving around that you will encounter random monters, amd it is these that are perhaps the most jarring aspect of the game. Monster encounters in the wild cause the game to stop whilst the monsters are loaded, and the game then switches from a real-time movement and RPG interface to a turn-based fight. Unfortunately none of the animations can be skipped or sped up, so fights can often take a very long time to complete, especially when new animations must be loaded from disc.
There are other aspects of the game which show it's age, and show that this game is pretty much a straight port of the PSX version. For one, there's no pause button. You can force a pause on the PSP by hitting 'home' and not selecting anything, but whilst the game is playing there is no way to actually stop the action while you go do something else.
The game itself is colourful and bright, with lots of little animations going on in the background to help transport you into the game, and there are also a number of anime cut scenes that help to move the story forward, as well as a number of in-game scripted sequences that are part of the storyline.
PoPoLoCrois is a diverting RPG that will keep you going for hours on end. I've been playing it for a couple of weeks now, and have only just managed to get to the start of Book 2. It is, even without a pause button, a game that's easy to pick up and play for half an hour or so.
