It was with a heavy heart that we took to Return to PopoloCrois this week, for our fourth and final entry of everyone's favourite diary series. We've had our ups and downs - from our first entry, where we tried to explain the somewhat complicated story without really spoiling anything, to our adventures in farming, and later in love, it's been quite an adventure. But as someone famous once said (but apparently not famous enough that we'll remember their name), all good things must come to an end - and this is the final entry in our diary series.
Pretty much our reaction at half seven last night, deadline looming.
Still, it's not over 'til the fat lady/little prince sings, and so, we return to Galariland, where our little thirteen year old prince Pietro is still stranded. We're currently searching high and low for the mayor of Cordan town, a big burly guy by the name of Berg, who, after a brief sighting on our way into town, we've not seen since. We're also well on our way to worming our way into the heart of the latest lady to cross Pietro's path, Lily, the insect-obsessed freak.
But lets backtrack a little, and talk about a few other things you can do in the world of PopoloCrois, when you aren't busy saving the world. You see, once your farm expands following the liberation of the first Farm of Light, you get a number of weirdos taking up residence in your immaculately tilled fields - and each one has their own 'reason' for being there.
First is the guy affectionately known as the 'Bug Nut', who's so into collecting insects he's even started his own rewards scheme. Dotted around the fields of Galariland, you'll sometimes find small patches of flowers with a glittery halo around them - standing in front of them and pressing A will net you a couple of insects to add to your collection. Standing in front of one of these flowers, slap bang in the middle of your farm, the Bug Nut sits, waiting for you to deliver the goods, like some really sad drug (bug?) addict. He'll pay you for his insect-y fix of course, and depending on the rarity of the specimen, you'll get a couple of stamps on your loyalty card - reach certain milestones of stamps and you'll get free gifts, such as seeds or, healing items and the like.
Desperate, much?!
A tad more sophisticated than the Bug Nut's open air abode, is the Synthesiser's house, which appeared south of Pietro's own home one day. Letting you combine two random items into a brand-spanking new one, it's a good way of turning all the freshly mined ores, farm produce or random bits and pieces you scavenge from battles that otherwise gather dust in Pietro's backpack into something useful - whether it's a much better sword or a pastry present for one of the female folk. For example, that cumbersome Claudia who turns her nose up at my turnips can't get enough of my Vegetable Flan, which I whip together from carrots or potatoes and an egg, although we kind of wish we could slip a stealthy turnip in there to get our own back.
We also found the aforementioned ores to be especially handy, which can be mined from any of the glittering boulders scattered around Galariland - whack one with Pietro's hammer and you'll get a couple of ores, which can be combined into new weapons for the low, low price of nothing. Of course, without having a recipe, there is an element of trial and error involved, but the helpful synthesis guy will let you know whether your combination is likely to work beforehand, saving you from wasting raw materials.
In other news, our barn has exploded - what began a few weeks ago with a single solitary chicken has now morphed into a semi-reasonable farmstead. Joining Muffin on the chicken front is Razorbeak, who's thankfully much more productive on the egg front than our first, often sending us egg laying updates the second we decide to leave the farm to continue our adventure. We also adopted a couple of cows - the brown and white Mittens, identifiable by the heart-shaped splodge on her side, and the black and white milk-making machine, Swaglady. The newest addition to our farm is a little bit more out there though, in the form of Sasuke the 'Pacapaca' (alpaca/llama beast) - a reward from helping someone or other with a quest, she's theoretically supposed to produce pacapaca fur, but we've yet to harvest any, the slacker. We wish we could take credit for some of the more out-there names for these farm animals, but alas, they're all auto-named, although there is the option for changing them posthumously. It would probably have just been an extension of our Pokemon nicknaming game though, naming them after whatever we were eating at that moment in time - which was how we ended up with Jalfrezi the Oddish.
Hangin' with the girls #nofilter #justfarmerthings
Generally though, we've been focusing more on playing our way through the game's story of late, liberating all the Farms of Light from Galariland's tainting darkness - thereby leaving our farmland fallow for the time being. Along the way, we've come across our fair share of crazy characters, with a specific shout out going to the amnesiac Pumpkinman and his loopy assistants/assailants/we're-not-quite-sure-what-ants, who are currently on a mission to construct a giant drill to help remove his pumpkin mask. As you do.
And so comes the end of our diary series. If you have a distinctly PopoloCrois-shaped hole in your life, why not check out our review, or read our previous diary entries, 1, 2 and 3?
