PoPoLoCrois is considered a bit of a RPG hidden gem and while I personally might not completely agree with that label after playing it, I do see some very positive things about this somewhat obscure PSP game.

You play as a young prince named Pietro whose mother has fallen into a deep, unwakeable sleep. The journey begins this way but PoPoLoCrois' story is a bit different from the typical RPG.

The main story that starts the game is not the only "main" story that unfolds in this game. Once you figure out the reason behind your mother's sleep, the characters and area are returned in game a few years later with a new conflict popping up around the kingdom.

An over-arcing story does start to emerge as you progress through a few of these stories but the general setup is pretty interesting. Being able to see minor improvements around the cities, like an Inn going through renovations or a forest losing trees as the town chops more down are very minor but very great additions that really make the world and cities feel real and organic. That applies to Pietro and the various party members you'll meet in this game as well, though because of the graphics these changes are fairly minor.

Because of this multi-story format that takes place over the course of multiple years though, the party members you get for each of these chapters will vary. Since the party members you can use aren't just living in the main city of PoPoLoCrois, they won't always be free or aware of the conflict going on. Characters you can control almost always return at some point so you won't really lose anyone forever but it's another minor touch to help introduce new playable characters that changes up strategy in battle, which is needed.

The game's biggest flaw really is its battle system and overall gameplay and because the story and characters are so good, this makes these flaws that much more disappointing.

The actual battling isn't bad on its own, it's just incredibly bland and fairly basic no matter whose in the party. The game uses some turn based things and some tactics things for its battle system. Each character has a meter that charges up, the more agile your character is, the faster it charges. Once that meter charges, that character's turn starts. All battles take place on a grid map though that you have to move around on. So, once your turn begins, you'll have some options in terms of where your character moves, who they attack, or what you setup for them to do.

The biggest downside to this system is because battles just pop up at random, they begin wherever your character was on the map when the battle begins, so you really can't plan that much in advance to help make character movement easier/quicker. So if you have a slower knight that can't move around as fast but is a prominent attacker, you'll be wasting time getting them up to the heat of battle. This extends these bland battles out longer than they probably should be.

On top of that, the random encounters happen way too frequently. It felt like every five-six seconds I was running into another battle. That many battles over and over and over and over of a fairly bland battle system just makes it a chore the more I played, especially if I played over long periods.

Luckily you can run away without issue. Unfortunately, if you decide to run away from any battle, you are punished by having your gold go down. Given the frequency of battles, this can quickly add up. It just adds to the tiresome nature of the battles in this game since it kinda forces you to do it or risk losing out on money for upgrades/items.

Overall, PoPoLoCrois does some really interesting things with its storytelling and has some great characters and world to explore. Unfortunately, it just gets bogged down in some very bland fighting mechanics that pop up far too frequently and take away from the big positives this game possesses. I'd still recommend playing this since the story is so good. It's not too long by RPG standards and maybe the fighting won't bother you as much as it did for me.

An interesting setup that gets bogged down by poor fighting mechanics and some quality of life features that are noticeably missing.

Vampyr is a game where your decisions matter. This is nothing new or novel but the overall setting and the setup to the game do make these types of mechanics feel a bit different.

You play as a newly turned Vampire at the height of the flu outbreak that moonlights as a world famous doctor. As a doctor vampire, you'll be making decisions throughout the game about who lives and who dies.

Want to kill a character to gain a huge amount of XP? Well that can effect side quests or even the morale of the neighborhood you're in. Decisions you make will also effect the literal lives of people in some of these neighborhoods. Though I never discovered the problems that can occur if the wellbeing of a neighborhood drops below a certain threshold, the game makes your decisions feel weighty.

One decision involved a nurse that left the hospital to start treating people in a more underground fashion in one neighborhood of the city. You can choose to help her, you can choose to shut her down or you can threaten her, all have a different outcome that leads to that part of the neighborhood shifting.

These neighborhoods and their morale changes happens whenever you rest, which is the only way to get stronger in the game, so these shifts are more forced since getting stronger and more skilled is very important in this game. This setup never feels unfair or difficult per se, but some key quality of life functions are missing that make this an absolute chore.

Like I said, the only way to level up in this game and get stronger is to rest. But resting causes the neighborhoods to shift. So whenever you rest, these neighborhoods can drop in quality unless you're keeping tabs on all of these sections.

The only problem though is, you can't fast travel. So if you want to make sure the neighborhoods aren't getting worse, you'll need to travel around to each one which takes time away from the actual gameplay missions.

Want to level up before a boss? Well, better slog through more bad guys that you've already killed a whole lot (they respawn each time you're going through areas of the city). Everything takes so much time and effort and because the combat isn't fun and is a slog, it just puts the games issues right up front constantly.

A lot of the nuance in the storylines and side quests gets completely lost underneath the weight of the crappy gameplay pressing down on you at practically every part of the game. I would've dropped this game a long time ago if it wasn't for the interesting storylines (obviously this eventually broke in the wrong direction).

The game uses a stamina bar that's tied into your attacks and dodging. If the stamina is completely depleted, you won't be able to dodge or attack until you have enough stamina to do either, so you'll have to not only time your attacks and dodges, but make sure you leave space in between at times to make sure you're not completely empty and a sitting duck for anything and everything.

As a personal preference, these types of stamina meters have always bugged me. Throw in a poor targeting system and poor camera don't help either. Since you'll have to be learning attack patterns on the fly too, death will occur and unfortunately, restarting after dying is also pretty unforgiving.

If you use any items or blood attacks (your special vampire powers which are all pretty dope) during a fight in which you've died, you lose these items upon restart. Since many of these boss fights are not near work benches (the place necessary for creating more health potions or other items) and since there is no fast travel, slogging back to find these things to get back to a good level of preparation prior to a fight after every death is just so tiresome after a while. Luckily refilling your blood meter isn't too tough (you can snack on some rats which are usually nearby boss areas) but also having to do that every. single. time. on top of the items leaving, it just adds to the annoyances.

Overall, if you can connect to the gameplay, you may like Vampyr. It was just a large deterrent from an overall enjoyable story that eventually was not good enough to make up for the playing frustrations I was encountering frequently.

Kentucky Route Zero is a haunting dour game that has some truly stunning moments backed with some really great music. The only problem is that the weird obtuse-ness of it's style can bleed over into the gameplay being tedious and a chore to get through.

On longer playthroughs, the walls of text and strangeness can get grating and a slog to read through. It is a truly bold and interesting game though that is still worth trying for the experience, the moments of this game that are an absolute home run are worth getting to if a David Lynch visual novel appeals to you in any sort of way.