Patapon Review

Oh I love this game! It is so cute! It’s also a music and rhythm game, which is right up my alley. For only $20, Patapon is a great deal for a well-designed, cute strategy game for the PSP. I pre-ordered the game from GameStop so I received a demo UMD. It allows you to play through several of the beginning stages, gives you the spear of protection, then allows you to save and import your saved file when you get the real game.

I won’t discuss the story here as the gameplay is the main focus of this post. It is necessary for you to have sound when playing this game as you must time your button pushes to the beat of the music. The game basically uses the four shape-buttons (triangle, square, circle, x) for different percussion sounds, where the different combination commands your army to do different things.

Aren’t they cute?? I love how the button shapes form their mouths.

When you play the game, listen to the background music to hear the beat. Each cycle consists of eight beats - you give your command for the first four beats, and the Patapons respond for the next four beats. This means there’s a four-beat pause (and delay) as Patapons are standing around and listening to your command before they take action. The game will slowly teach you command/songs for you to learn. For example:

- patta patta patta pon - march forward
- pon pon patta pon - attack!
- chakka chakka patta pon - defend

You’ll notice that for these three basic songs, each start with a different shape. That means at the start of your cycle, you should figure out which command you want carried out. This can be hard to coordinate with how your enemy behaves. Once you’ve started playing a song, you can’t change your mind (unless you want to lose your combo - then your Patapons trip over themselves, it’s not worth it). There were times when I commanded my army to walk into the enemy because I thought it was leaving. That’s part of the strategy of this game though - predicting your enemy’s movements four beats ahead of time.

If you’re off-beat, the sound you make is noticeably quieter than if you’re perfectly on the beat which sounds less muffled, rather sharp and echoey. After your four-beat cycle, you pause for four beats while the Patapons sing and carry out your command (if you press a button during their singing phase, you’ll mess them up), then you give your next four-beat order, they sing, and so on.

You can also chain your commands into combos - if you make several legit commands in a row, your Patapons will hit FEVER mode. The closer you are to perfect rhythm, the faster your Patapons get fever. They start singing along with the background music, their morale is higher, they attack harder and defend better. The moment you mess up on your beats or commands, your Patapons will trip, and the chain will reset to 0. Sometimes I notice if you’re a bit off-beat, you can lose your fever but not trip up your army.

Later, you can gather resources through the stages or by playing mini-games, which (so far) reminds me of Space Channel 5.

This baby mountain wants you to play with its toes! In return, it’ll shed happy tears of <insert random metal part>.

This tree wants you to play the trumpet so it will dance and shake branches/cherry branches/wood parts from itself. Oddly enough, I’ve gotten small metal ore as well as red titanium…from a tree. Go figure!

Later you can use these resources to create your different units such as warriors (tatepons), spear throwers (yaripons), archers (yumipons), and so on. I haven’t played enough to understand the differences between the different colors of the units, which can be created with higher level materials. You can also collect equipment and gear up your army to improve damage or defense, but I don’t think you can create the equipment.

I haven’t experienced enough of the different units to talk more about the strategy portion, but so far, warriors lead the pack (they can carry shields and help protect the others during the defense song), yaripons can attack a short distance away, and archers have a far reach so they bring up the rear of the formation.

As I’ve said, it’s a music and rhythm game, so it can be challenging to those who are beat-challenged. The stages were straight-forward until I got stuck on the desert stage. If you simply walk your Patapons through, the fires of the desert will start burning your army. You must first find the miracle of rain. Start by going to the Patata Plain, you will see a totem pole with . Get your Patapons a bit closer, and while you’re not in fever mode, hit , wait four beats while the totem pole moves in response, and then keep repeating this until it gives you an item.

Finish the hunting stage and returning to town, where the oracle will tell you about a new location based on the item you just found. Head to that location - it’s called the Miracle of Lostdon. There you will fight a red and black dragon, and it will give you the miracle of rain. You will also get the X drum, DON.

Now you’re ready to challenge the burning desert. To use the rain miracle, make sure you equip it before venturing on. Have your Patapons guard until they’re in fever mode, then hit X.XX.XX and follow the instructions to complete the dance and make it rain. Here’s an example of someone who’s successful with the rain dance.

I love this game! It’s so innovative and well-designed. I’m quite addicted and have replayed the beginning stages many times. I have to admit though, even a long while after I’ve set down my PSP, I keep saying “pata pata pata pon” in squeaky, Patapon voices.