Nice Package! (PoPoLoCrois Monogatari, PlayStation)

I've looked upon PoPoLoCrois Monogatari, a role-playing game that was developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment and first released in Japan in the summer of 1996, with a curious eye for a number of years now.

I refrained from buying it, though, because of the language barrier. Although I was more than happy to attempt to play through Japanese RPGs as a teen, I've become less and less willing to do so as I’ve gotten older.

Or at least that’s how I felt until I returned to my Japanese studies earlier this year. Now that I’ve got the language’s hiragana and katakana syllabaries down pat (again) and I’ve started learning actual words and phrases and grammar, I’m feeling quite a bit more confident in my ability to tackle an adventure like this one.

Which should go a long way toward explaining why I finally picked up the copy of PoPoLoCrois Monogatari that can be seen in the photos scattered throughout this post a couple of weeks ago.

Although I’ve yet to start playing it, I’m planning to do just that soon. (Specifically, as soon as this night class I’ve been taking, on and off, for the last nine months wraps up in a couple of weeks.)

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few snapshots of the game’s packaging, which, in my humble opinion, is so pretty that it deserves every whistle and catcall thrown its way.



I find the game’s cover art especially appealing, I’ve got to say—although, really, only a person with a heart of stone would consider it anything less than stunning, wouldn’t you agree?



I decided to include the photo above here, by the way, because the sticker that is its focus shows that, at some point in its life, this particular copy of PoPoLoCrois Monogatari sat on the shelves of Tokyo’s world-famous Super Potato game shop.



There’s no need to explain the preceding shot, though, is there? After all, the art that’s splashed across the top side of this game’s disc is nearly as spectacular as the art that peeks through its case—or at least that’s how I see things.

I wish I could tell you why I failed to snap any photos of the interior of PoPoLoCrois Monogatari’s instruction manual, but at the moment I’m unable to conjure up any reasons. Don’t worry, I plan on rectifying matters this weekend, so look for some of the above to be published on my Flickr photostream within the next few days.

While you wait, you likely could do worse than waste a handful of minutes ogling the lovely sticker sheet that was hidden inside the manual in question.