It seems that remakes are the future (or rather, the past) of videogames and films, Resident Evil on GameCube and The Mummy and King Kong on the big screen being just a couple of the hundreds of examples I could have chosen. Still, as long as the remake does the original film or game justice then milking a franchise seems like a good thing. PoPoLoCrois is a very popular series of games in Japan and so releasing the first two games in the series for the PSP seemed like a wise move. Unfortunately, popularity and quality do not always go hand in hand, and in this case I have difficulty seeing how it gained its popularity in the first place, let alone how it deserves a revival for PSP.

The story is both predictable and surprising at the same time; in the fantasy world of PoPoLoCrois, Prince Pietro is celebrating his tenth birthday and even though there is an awful lot of cheerfulness, he still seems sad. Later he is told that his mother is really a dragon and instead of being dead, she's just in an enchanted sleep. Of course, there is a way to wake her up and so young Pietro picks up his sword and marches out to save her. Along the way he is accompanied by a troupe of mismatched characters, including a forest witch, a wannabe devil and a samurai with a fear of dogs. None of the characters are really developed much along the way and they're really just there to provide a laugh from time to time. As he travels, Pietro confronts plenty of ancient evil, as well as having to rescue his entire family on numerous occasions. Most of the story is told in beautiful anime cut scenes that, as well as helping the story unfold, are the only times the characters show emotion, and these cut scenes really enhance the telling of the story.

Right from the first time you set out to from the castle, you come across one of the most heavy-weighing factors of the game and one that really pulls it down - the randomly generated enemies. The generally small areas in the game always take an awful long time to traverse, as you are drawn into battle every four to six seconds. Not only is this annoying, but it also quenches the wanderlust I usually get when playing games such as this, a factor that the complete lack of side missions does nothing to redeem. The developers have thought of several solutions to this problem, such as letting your characters fight the battles themselves, leaving you with nothing to do but watch, or using Pietro's Guardian skill, allowing you to cross an area without being harassed by monsters, but it seems odd that they didn't just cut down the number of battles instead. Still, we'll have to live with that.

With the sheer amount of battles the player is faced with, having a great battle system is extremely important. However, while it might have been new back in the Nineties when the games first appeared, now it seems like the usual turn-based system that classics such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Rifts: Promise of Power use, and while those titles did the system justice and were very compelling, PoPoLoCrois's usage of the same system becomes boring after the first few battles. Coupled up with the fact that the game loads every few seconds and playing it becomes a rather tedious experience; it wasn't until the last few hours of play that the game became truly interesting for me.

The graphics of PoPoLoCrois do not seem to have been updated since the original release for the first PlayStation, and even though maintaining the original look might be important for fans of the series, it does seem a bit low considering the graphics capabilities on offer with the PSP. The design is pure 2D, with a top-down perspective not unlike what is found in many of the early Legend of Zelda games, and while they're nothing special, they do manage to convey the cute anime look of the game remarkably well. Making up for the mediocrity of the graphics is the background music; featuring delightfully simple melodies that add to the entire feeling of not taking the game too seriously, the tracks themselves are a joy to listen to. However, after the first few minutes of the same track playing in the background it begins to grow old, and the fact that there is just a single track to accompany the seemingly endless battles does nothing whatsoever to enhance the atmosphere as you're faced with another easily defeated, randomly generated enemy. And since there are very few sound effects in the game, aside from the shrill battle cries shouted out when using a special ability, nothing is really done to make the audio stand out.

PoPoLoCrois is not the game RPG enthusiasts have been waiting for ever since the release of the system. In fact, I have some difficulty calling it a role-playing game at all; there are no side missions available and there's no real sense of wonder to sweeten the generally bitter experience of playing through it. The story is incoherent, the graphics are outdated and the battle system, the most important feature of the entire game, is also extremely boring. Playing through it I found myself hoping it would end soon, and even though 30 hours of gameplay seems a positive feature, here it's just another one of the many minuses. There are good sides to the experience, such as the constant attempts to entertain the player and the lovely anime style of the graphics and cut scenes, but it just isn't enough to keep anyone other than the most ardent RPG fan from letting it gather dust on the shelf. Sadly I still haven't found the game to justify buying a PSP in the first place and I think I'm going to go back to buttering bread with it.

Reviewed by Niels Jakob Kyhl Jørgensen for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).