Home Games Patapon

Patapon

Action
Releases: 02.26.08
SCE Japan
SCEA
ESRB: Everyone

Patapon

Two genres collide to create a refreshingly unique gameplay experience.

by Sarah Schutz

Patapon has equal potential to either charm you or woo you to death. Either way, you will be drumming in your sleep for the next week and mumbling “Pata Pata Pata Pon” every time you take a step forward. The game, from the same creators of the adorable Loco Roco, is a clever mix of rhythm and action gaming. You are the Great Patapon forced to beat the drum to lead the Patapon people into battle and onward to survival and victory.

Each PSP button correlates to a different drum, allowing you to create one of several drumming combinations inciting the Patapons to march forward, attack, defend or draw on the great power of Juju to create rain. While it sounds fairly simple (and technically is), the consistent drumming can get a bit complex especially when factoring in the necessity to make the right strategic move at the right time. Most surprisingly, the rhythm-based controls are actually a vehicle for a real-time strategy style game. As you and your Patapons move through levels you will collect increasingly better armor and weapons and other materials to bolster your army. Game levels consist of battle levels, hunting levels and the big bad bosses. Hunting allows you to gather troops to recruit more Patapons. Both hunting levels and boss levels are great for gathering more goods and the boss battles get harder with every defeat, offering more replayability.

Patapon is a simple game and at $19.99 I went into it not expecting much, but was so very pleasantly surprised. The melding of rhythm and action genres along with a liberally playful art style makes for a jaunt as cheery as Loco Roco, but with much more satisfying gameplay. You might annoy your friends and family with your relentless humming, but it’s well worth it.

Beautiful art, unique gameplay for $19.99

May cause lunacy

Pon pon pon pon?

Did I miss that one (or have I not gotten there yet?). Anyway, it's all about pon-pon-pata-pon. You'll never survive my massive influx of arrows and spears.

#1 - Brendon - 03/19/2008 - 16:38

blame the coder.

you can blame cin for that caption. didn't even play the damn game. my drumming is down to an art.

#2 - dot. - 03/20/2008 - 04:28

Name

E-mail (Will not appear online)

Homepage

Title

Comment

To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

Powered by Comment Script