Welcome to Gaia! ::

I don't do much handheld gaming these days, largely because they have become so console-like, I'd rather just play something like it on a console. However, Patapon is one of those rare games that come out that are so addictive, and fun that I actually get saddened by there not being more games like it.

The game comes from Sony's Japan Studio, the same group of acid-dropping dudes who made the creative Loco Roco for the PSP and the half-assed PSN title under the same franchise (and other titles like Folklore). This game follows Loco Roco in the respect that the game play is straight forward and simple, the music is neat, and that some greater strategy is necessary, and that's about it.

The main gameplay revolves around hitting the Circle, Triangle, Square and X button in a systematic rhythm that commands your cute little army to march, attack, defend, dodge and so on and so fourth. Each of said buttons make a certain "drum" noise to urge your Patapons forward. While this sounds straight forward and everything, as I said earlier a greater strategy is necessary to make it through the levels.

The great thing about this kind of game play is that all you have to do is keep to the beat and keep to the sequence that will actually command something. This allows you to pay attention to what's going on in the screen which is entertaining to say the least, but this also allows you to adjust your tactics appropriately to what's coming up ahead (you can use the left and right arrows to see what's a head of your army a little bit.)

As with the fashion of this group of developers, they clearly spent a good amount of time to make some music that is really catchy. It's easy to coordinate your movements to the beats, and it the music picks up and gets livelier when you are in "Fever" mode (which is what you get after getting so many strings of commands in a combo). It is also diverse sounding, every map seems to have a different sounding beat to it, and when the song picks up it is also different.

There is also a variety in terms of play to this game, there are several rhythm based minigames to play, there are hunting levels, boss levels, and then battle levels. Each of them require a different kind of strategy and troop placement, which adds a lot to this game. There are also new weapons that you can pick up throughout the game to allow your growing army to use, this will make them more powerful as well as resistant to fire, and other elements like that, so there is a lot of troop customization available with this game.

What I am most surprised by with this game is the story, it's a simple tale that is rather engrossing at the same time. What's going on here is that you play as a Patapon God (The Mighty Patapon), you've become lost and at the beginning of the game the flag carrying Patapon rediscovers you, and you now have to lead your growing numbers of Patapons against an other army to reclaim your pride and your land. As I said, it's very simple, but all the same it's got me snagged and paying attention.

If I had to describe Patapon is a simple familiar way, I'd say that it's like a brilliant cross-breed of Advance Wars and Parappa the Rapper. But there is too much to this game to give it such an analysis.

Also, just to add a little bit more here, this is one of those games where I had found that I had spent three consecutive hours staring at the screen without noticing it. All of those reasons are my justification for giving it the rating I did, I know that this kind of game isn't for everyone, but this is a fantastic title by handheld standards, not just by PSP standards.

Patapon: 9 out of 10

That's pretty much what I was getting at...


Patapon video