PoPoLoCrois

The newest RPG from Sony Computer Entertainment is PopoloCrois. As you can see, the graphics are richly detailed, but maintain a cool, goofy look that puts it above earlier releases like Beyond the Beyond.

The Battles are your traditional menu-driven battle, viewed with your line of guys against theirs. Sony is bringing over its more popular titles from Japan, so I'd be very surprised if they were to pass this one up. If all goes well, I'll have a preview for you in an upcoming issue.

PoPoLoCrois is probably unfamiliar to many of us but it's reasonably popular in Japan. Based off the established TV series, PoPoLoCrois is actually two games smashed into one from the Playstation. The good news is that it'll take plenty of time to get to the end but the down side is that PoPoLoCrois definitely feels like an old Playstation game.

It can almost be considered a retro RPG game these days where you have a top down view and walk around in the cities buying items, talking to citizens, and furthering the story and getting attacked constantly by enemies once outside the cities. You have the classic character upgrade system in place and a story that revolves around saving the world and rescuing a damsel in distress. All that said however, I enjoyed playing though it partly because PoPoLoCrois pulls all these elements together and makes them work and partly because the PSP isn't exactly overflowing with RPG options.

As you might expect, graphically isn't not close to taxing the PSP's abilities and the sound effects aren't worth mentioning either. The cutscenes are fully animated however and do a great job of telling the story. It is basically a port of an old game but because it's on a handheld, I didn't find myself wanting more. I certainly would be extremely unimpressed if it was on a console.

If you've been frustrated with the lack of RPGs on the PSP, PoPoLoCrois is certainly an option for you. Otherwise it's a tough call. Other games take better use of the PSP's resources along with new types of gameplay but don't be surprised if you get drawn in by PoPoLoCrois.