Review: Patapon (PSP)

Patapon is a rhythm game for the PSP with an awesome art style. It offers an extremely entertaining and original experience. The game is a steal at $20, and is quite possibly one of the best games out for the PSP right now.

You play the game as The Mighty One, who can lead the Patapons to victory and triumph. The Patapon’s army is exhausted and hopeless from searching for a magical, godly drum that you bring to them. The game starts out on a battlefield where you revive the Patapon’s flag carrier. This Patapon will stick with you to the end!
I understand that this type of gameplay may frighten people, but it’s really very simple. The beginning is slow and lets you learn how to use the command system. You start with only one command, “Pata Pata Pata Pon” (Square, Square, Square, Circle) which is ‘move forward’. Then you’ll learn another basic attack, “Pon Pon Pata Pon” (Circle, Circle, Square, Circle) which is ‘attack’. As you progress through the game you learn many new commands, but at a slow enough pace that you can master them. The rhythm and beats become second nature and soon you forget about the button combinations and just perform the actions. Once you learn a few commands the game becomes very strategic.

There are quite a few bosses, each of which is replayable with increasing difficulty. Some of the later bosses get very tough and you have to upgrade your Patapons. You can create new, more powerful Patapons using rocks and sticks you pick up from your enemies or win from the fun (rhythm based, of course) mini-games.

Don’t worry! It will all make sense once you start playing it! And if you don’t take this review to heart, then check out the Playstation.com demo!

-M58