The Patapon are a tribe of cute warriors who have been driven from their homeland by creatures known as the Zigoton. Their 'almighty' leader disappeared, and so did his magical drums that make the Patapons strong. Playing as the new almighty for the Patapon, your goal is to find the magical drums that have been scattered across the land, and lead the Patapon back to their home. Using drum beats mapped to the four face buttons, you'll be able to lead the Patapon into battle, and reclaim their home.
Even this beast is no match for the cuteness that is the Patapon.
During gameplay, your Patapon will react to your choice of drums as long as you keep in time with the beat known as the Pulse of the Earth. By tapping a different combination of buttons, your Patapon can march forward, attack, defend and other skills that you'll learn along the way. After chaining together several beats in a row, you'll send the Patapon into Fever Mode, which speeds up all of their actions and defend better. If you miss the beat, then you'll have to build up the Fever Mode again. If you miss the beat, then it's back to square one and you'll have to build up the momentum all over again. The Fever Mode is an integral part of the gameplay, especially at the more challenging points, where having to build up that momentum from scratch repeatedly can be your downfall.
While your initial army of Patapon may be small, as the game progresses you'll be able to create new types that have different skills, such as the strong Tatepon who are very effective in close combat and the Kitapon who charge at their targets on horse-back. There are eventually six different kinds of Patapon, but it's not as simple as just using everything you've got; you'll only have room for three different types of units to take into the battlefield at one time, so some tactical battle strategy comes into the mix. Where some missions may require a balance of ranged attacks with close combat, other harder missions need much stronger warriors to complete it. Each stage will have different numbers and types of enemies, so you'll need to consider which Patapon are the best combination for each situation.
You'll be battling some overwhelming odds.
As well as being able to choose your troops, you'll be able to outfit them with equipment that you can collect along the way, although it's limited to the type of helmets or weapons that each specific Patapon type wears. If you're not the type who cares too much about organising your equipment, you can also just let the game do it for you automatically. You collect these items by defeating enemies in each mission, along with Ka-Ching (Patapon currency) and other items which can be used to access mini-games outside of the missions and also resurrect defeated warriors. All of these elements combined create a fairly deep experience, which given its musical background, is surprising and very much appreciated.
Patapon is not without its flaws. Some of the more complex parts of the gameplay can be a bit difficult to grasp, and there isn't really any sort of explanation as to how everything works, although loading screens do lend a helping hand on occasion. It's not a huge issue, and after some experimentation you do eventually learn the ropes, but some people may find the lack of help a little perplexing. There is also unfortunately no way to pause the game when you're in a mission, which can be annoying as some of the bigger missions can take some serious time to complete. We understand that keeping the beat is important, but a simple pause screen would have been appreciated for those times when you do get distracted by that pesky thing known as real life.
If the tree is happy, everybody's happy!
The art style is gorgeous, and the entire game looks like a bunch of paper cut-outs. The animations are from the 'cute' category, even when the Patapon are in their attack mode, glaring evilly at their foes. They'll bounce and spin with celebration when you complete a level and punch their arms in the air to the beat of the drum. The soundtrack itself is one of the main draw-cards, and the simple repetitive notion of 'Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon' can make you want to keep repeating levels and drumming over and over again, the Patapon chants are catchy, and Fever Mode causes the chants to musically explode into a soundtrack that has to be heard to be appreciated.
Successfully combining the best parts of the music rhythm genre with some interesting and addictive strategic combat, Patapon is hard to put down, and even when you do, the chants of the Patapon warriors will still be stuck in your head. Creativity and intuitive gameplay are things that should be seriously admired in this day and age, and Patapon is as fresh a game as has been seen in some time.
at the end, for (massive damage) added effect.
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