Patapon (PSP)

Quite a unique game this, I'm sure it would be a Moopy friendly title. If you were to pigeonhole the genre, it would be "2D strategy rhythm game" which sounds like a mess, but actually works like a dream.

The premise is that you are a returning god to the tribe of Patapon's and you given the task of guiding the Patapon's across the land to find IT. Between you and your goal are animals, huge monsters, rival tribes etc. What makes you special as The Almighty is you are in possession of the tribal drum, some sort of mystic weapon that once guided the Patapon's to world domination in the past.

The aim is simple on each stage, start on the left and make your way to the right. Every single action you take is dictated by the tribal drum, you'll hear a tambourine counting a 4/4 beat (while the frame of the picture flashes on each beat) and you play different rhythms to do things like move, attack, defend or cast spells. Luckily its not a memory game so the rhythms are easy to remember and you're not swamped in the fuckers.

To get the best out of your bods, you need to keep banging out moves every bar to build combos and send your little eyeballs into fever mode. As you progress along to fever, the music rises in a crescendo until your guys kick off in a funky frenzy! In fever, javelin Patapon will throw more javelins, cavalry will ride harder and faster, archers will shoot further. Losing the beat will bring your guys out of the frenzy, while having bang on timing will bring them up quicker.

I love the bright backgrounds set against silhouette foregrounds, a nice visual treat coming off like some ancient lantern puppet show. The animation is free and flowing, quirky like Locoroco (which you should all be checking too really). I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the same developer because the little endearing touches with your guys bantering about the previous fights exploits over the camp fire, the in game commentary bubbles that pop up as you progress through the stage and the frankly awesome syncing in with the music. Be warned, you WILL find yourself chanting "PATA! PATA! PATA! PON!" in the days following playing this.

If anything, the only downer is that a fair amount of grinding is needed to bolster your ranks of Patapons, which may frustrate some players, and something I hope will be addressed in the recently announced Patapon 2.

A worthy title, one of a rare batch of unique IPs that surfaced on the PSP at the beginning of the year along with God Of War and Final Fantasy. As nice as it is to see a sequel in the works, lets hope the recent domination of the PSP in Japan (thanks to Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G) leads to some developers jumping on the machine to get some choice titles out.

If you like this, you'll like:

Locoroco (PSP)

Check the trailer here: