Gameplay
Popful Mail is essentially a 2D platform game with some RPG elements. The controls allow the player to jump, attack, open doors or treasure chests, and speak to another character. Additionally, the player can summon a menu to change some of the game's attributes, the current character, the current character's equipment, use or activate an item, read the game's status, save, load and quit.
At the start of the game, the only playable character is Mail; however, as the game progresses, Tatt and Gaw will be available, and the player may switch between them at any time through the use of the "character" option in the menu (except in the middle of dialogues). Each character has different attacks and armours, as well as differences in walking speed and jump. Mail is the fastest character, but is the one whose jump is lowest. Tatt is balanced—slower than Mail but faster than Gaw—and his jump is similarly in between. Gaw is the slowest of the three, but his jump and attacks are usually the highest.
The character encounters enemies as well as non-playable characters. Often, when encountering an important character, dialogue begins immediately, with the player having no control over it. These important dialogues are by default always voice acted: however, text accompanies them, and the voiced speech can be turned off in an options menu if so desired.
The character has 100 health points, and attacks from enemy characters diminish it according to the strength of the attacker. Similarly, all enemies have a 100 health point bar that has to be brought down to 0 for the enemy to be defeated. How much damage is dealt depends on the strength of the character, although an attack always causes the same amount of damage to the same enemy. The character also has a blue-grey bar that is depleted as a distance weapon or a magical attack is used. When the bar reaches 0, the character can still perform the weapon motion, but often no actually useful attack is produced. The bar regenerates quickly if given time to do so (if the character uses no attacks or switches to a melee weapon). Use of a distance weapon or magical attack while the bar is regenerating halts the regeneration, which resumes if no attacks that deplete it are made.
Each character can acquire up to five different weapons and various items. Each subsequent weapon is stronger than the preceding one, although the player may switch to any weapons possessed at any time if so desired, through the menu. Weapons include a sword, dagger, boomerang, staff, fireball, and claw. Items, different from weapons and armour, affect either the health bar or the character's status, or are plot devices. They may confer invulnerability at a price, stability in snow, or replenish health, among other things. They can be obtained from other characters, treasure chests, shops, or bosses (in some cases- usually for plot devices).
The game has a practical save game feature. Games may usually be saved and loaded at any point in the game (except during dialogues and the animated sequences); if a game that was previously saved in a room with a boss is loaded, the game resumes just before the battle, before the character has entered the room. The state of the game, including the hours played and the level, will be displayed. Three save slots are supplied, for storing up to three different states.
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