Patapon
Score: 86% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment America Developer: SCE Japan Studio Media: UMD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Rhythm/ God Games/ Strategy
Graphics & Sound: Patapon is somewhat of an "ungame," in that it doesn't conform to most of the standard assumptions about what makes a game fun to play. At least in the gameplay department this is true, but the Patapon Front Office is very welcoming and makes you immediately comfortable with the tasks set before you. By all appearances, this could be a side-scrolling Action title. The visuals will draw comparison to any of the Japanese titles that use bold, graphic elements that look as much like cut paper as traditional sprites or computer animation. Solid colors and silhouettes are splashed against backgrounds that create a lot of depth through simple shading and perspective. The characters in Patapon seem inspired by Jim Woodring's work for Fantagraphics... funny bordering on quirky, bordering on disturbing. We often get original characters in games that are still formed in the people/robot/animal mold, but they're nothing to point to as an easy precedent for Patapon. Sound and music play a huge role in the game. It's like a traditional rhythm game, but completely different. Instead of watching the screen and jabbing at the buttons that match a bunch of scrolling symbols, the interface for Patapon is 100% clean. You'll actually have to listen and "play" in time with the beat. There is a flashing frame that serves as a visual metronome, in case you have difficulty following along by ear. There are definitely moments where the game throws you a curve ball, either with some event in the background (lightning/thunder) or exhortations from your Patapon warriors. In these moments, it is easy to lose track of the beat, which is a big handicap. Keeping the beat going is key to succeeding in the game. Proficiency in performing the different rhythms is really your interface with Patapon, but you'll often feel like you are just a spectator on the action while manning the drums. Through much of the game's early stages, only a few unique beats are available. Until you have opportunity to mix the beat up and control your Patapon army with more precision, you'll feel like a cheerleader with only a few cheers at her disposal. It doesn't take away from the fun, because you still feel like you're controlling the action, but it grates on people that aren't actually playing the game. Get your headphones ready for this one!
Gameplay: Imagine a combination between Black and White and PaRappa the Rapper and you're well on your way to understanding what Patapon is all about. At the outset of this grand adventure, the once great Patapon tribe has been beaten down and left in a dismal state. Enter you, the Mighty [Your Name Goes Here], to beat the sacred drums and rouse every Patapon nearby to take up arms to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Controlling little soldiers is the God Game aspect of Patapon, while the Rhythm Game element provides your means of control. It is a brilliant twist for adapting the mouse-intensive model for PC strategy games to a console where screen real estate is limited and the control devices are greatly simplified. We've played PSP strategy games in the past and most of them felt denatured. The missing link between classic strategy gameplay and consoles has been bypassed completely in Patapon; rather than worry about finding smarter ways to combine a few functions on PSP, this game embraces simplicity. The four face buttons on the PSP form the entirety of the game's player control. You'll learn to beat out specific rhythms that cause the Patapon army to react. They'll chant back to you in rhythm, and the beat goes on. The game offers only one mode, a single-player story that follows the Patapon tribe during its return to glory. This is a lot of fun, since you are the cause of their success, from level to level. Within the single-player game, you'll find some mini-games that provide ways to earn items. Collecting items is so important that there are levels you'll replay again and again, where your army will hunt creatures that drop bones, meat, and other goodies. Weapons and armor you find can be equipped immediately, while other items are used to generate new soldiers for your army. Other than mastering the playing style of this unique game, the hunt for items and push to create bigger, better soldiers will occupy all your time in Patapon. Beyond just creating the soldiers, you'll learn that certain types are best used in specific situations. It's a shame that some online features weren't included, and that no multiplayer modes are available. Replay value is limited once you play through the main story, but you can prolong the game indefinitely while searching for those rare items needed to create super-soldiers.
Difficulty: There is a definite learning curve; the game's simplicity is disarming, so it takes you a while to realize that there is plenty of nuance and challenge under the hood. The first clue that Patapon will be a bit tricky is the lack of any obvious prompting on-screen that tells you what button to press. You'll see a pulsing line that frames the action; this defines the beat, but you'll need to pay more attention to what is happening in the game and use your ears to find the beat. While the beat tells you when to hit a single drum, you have full discretion over which rhythm to use as you march your army through a level. One four-part beat (pata-pata-pata-pon) will send your soldiers marching forward, while another (pon-pon-pata-pon) will send them into battle formations. As you earn new drums, you'll learn new beats, and the game will start throwing new scenarios at you. Using the wrong beat can mean the difference between success and failure in advanced levels, which means you'll have to carefully balance three things: building and deploying your army, mastering the timing of each rhythm, and knowing when to use a specific rhythm. Patapon has the kind of difficulty that sneaks up on you, and its safe to say that folks without good listening skills or no rhythm will find this a very frustrating experience. Like most everything else, practice does make perfect.
Game Mechanics: This is a case where the gameplay IS the mechanics, since you'll be introduced to all the controls required to play the game within the first few minutes of firing up Patapon. The subtlety of hitting the drum perfectly in rhythm isn't a control thing, it's a human error thing. The interface off the field of battle isn't complicated, but you'll need to work through some simple menus and screens to determine which items you'll select to combine as you create soldiers. The thumbs-down element in this design mini-game is that you rarely have enough money early in the game to actually combine the items you gather and create special soldiers. Collecting money is actually a much slower process than harvesting items, so there's a bit of a balance problem in Patapon's upgrade system. Perhaps this is an intentional move to keep players from maxing out their armies too early, but then it seems like the advanced items should have been saved for later. Even as you start amassing the coin to max your soldiers out, you'll find it frustrating not knowing exactly what type of soldier you are creating by combining one item or another. Apart from some slight gripes that are obvious areas for improvement, Patapon is a great advance in a genre that needs to be blown out or blown up. RTS or strategy games on consoles have not been nearly as successful as their PC cousins, and the God Game genre is too narrow. Rhythm games are fun, especially when they get you moving around as on the Wii or through something like Dance, Dance, Revolution but they are also a pretty narrow genre. Patapon takes a few genres as starting points to create something that isn't like anything you've played before. The experiment works well and will keep you happy and glued to your PSP for the handful of hours it takes to build up your army and complete the story. Players looking for more depth have the opportunity to scratch slightly below the surface with item collection and soldier upgrades, but the real opportunity will come from a sequel that checks off a few of the boxes missing in this release.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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