Patapon

Is it just me or are new, original, exiting games a rarity? There are games like Okami, Loco Roco and Ico that can breath new life onto a console. You don’t get many games like that anymore, you get sequels and new IP’s that can end up bad. Not that sequels are bad, just look at God of War 2 and Call of Duty 4. And new IP’s can be really good aswell just look at Bioshock and Uncharted Drakes Fortune, they were phenomenal. But then look at TimeShift and Kane & Lynch, which aren’t that good. So why all this mindless blabber? Well because I’m here to talk to you about one of the most original, artistic and damn right crazy games ever. And it is know as Patapon.

The Patapons were a mighty tribe, until they were defeated by their arch enemies the Zigton tribe. They were driven out of their home by the Zigtons, and now live in a desolate frontier. They waited for years for their god the ‘Almighty’. You play the role of the ‘Almighty’, hitting mighty war drums that command the Patapons. The Patapons hear the mighty war drum and search for it. The Patapons are reunited with the ‘Almighty’ and try and restore their former glory. There is also a subplot that the Patapons will go to Earthend to look upon ‘it’, an object which the Patapons know nothing about.

In combat, there are really only 4 controls. And they control the centre point of the game, the drumming rhythm. Square is the Pata drum, Circle is the Pon drum, Triangle is the Chaka drum and circle button is the Don drum. You put those four drums into various four button combos to command your Patapons like, Pon Pon Pata Pon for attack and Pata Pata Pata Pon for Advance. There are 6 combos in all, including the miracle command. Miracles are used to basically alter the weather or use spells. So, you use these combos, or songs as they are called to control your Patapons. If you can keep up with the tune and keep the rhythm up by not missing any drums (10 correct combos at the most are needed ) you get Fever mode. Fever mode is basically where your Patapons get stronger and faster. You have to keep drumming out the combos without missing any drums to keep the Fever going, if you loose a Fever it could seriously affect the turnout of a battle. The right and left arrows are used to move the camera forward and back and the start button is used to surrender. And that is all you need to know really.

From first sights Patapon looks like a Rhythm game. And if you thought it was, you would be right. Well, Sort of. Inside of Patapons, cutesy, musical exterior lies a very deep RTS game. You would think you just have to use the attack and the advance commands. But you would be thinking wrong. There is much more involved to it, you have to defend and retreat, learn your enemies tactics and even use the weather to your advantage. And it can get very, very hard. Sometimes you will have to face giant bosses 20 times your size, you will have to learn what command to do at the right time or a few of your army will die. And you will have to make strategies. If you can’t beat a level you might either have to retry, or go and train your troops by going hunting or defeating bosses. There are 6 types of Patapon they are -

Tatepon

Yaripon

Yumipon

Kibapon

Dekapons

Megapon

When you first start you only have Yaripons, but along the quest you will acquire memories. You get these memories from defeating bosses or completing certain missions . These memories allow you to birth new Patapons. So say if you find Tatepon’s memory, you can birth Tatepons, and so on a so forth. And to birth these Patapons, you have to go the tree of birthing. When you first start you will only have basic items (Leather Meat, Stone and Banal branch) ,but later on you get rarer items like Hinoki (wood) Dream Meat and Tytanium Ore (Rock). You use these items to create different Patapons, which look pretty deformed. These materials make your Patapons much stronger, faster and they can endure more. You start off with rubbish wooden weapons, but by defeating enemies and bosses you can find more. But that is one of the games biggest faults, the fact that you can’t buy any weapons. Which is a pretty bad design choice. The fact that if you want to get a weapon, you need to go out and find it. It could take ages to get that weapon.

The graphics are artistically beautiful. Very simple, but they look gorgeous. The PSP’s big screen compliment the graphics well. The Patapons themselves look like silhouetted eyeballs with little arms and legs, but when you start using rarer materials the Patapons get more and more deformed. There are some with angel wings, some with horns and even some with curly antenna things. The levels design is very simple, a black floor, and a colourful background, and sometime with trees and the like. Some times there will be castles and forts, these all look very good.

In a game with music being it’s biggest selling point, you would have thought that the music will have to be good. Well it is. It’s more than good, it’s infectious. Every time you play the game you will be singing or humming along to the tune. And when your not playing, you will be singing the tune. It gets into your brain and stays their. You see, this is the thing with this game, it’s infectious. All the time you will be thinking about your strategies, what troops you are going to choose. While singing the tune.

If it is one thing that the game lacks it is online. Online could have been great. Trade weapons and battle with people. As I said about the broken weapon system, it would have so much better if you could trade, so you can complete sets and just get better weapons.

Patapon could be called the PSP’s saving grace, it is a shining light in a patch of darkness for the system. Just the shear simplicity mixed with a deep complexity is just phenomenal. Loco Roco was a great, but this is just something else. This game is a strong contender for Game of the Year already. And is without a doubt the single greatest game ever to grace the PSP, and it will take near perfection to beat it.