Pata-Pata-Pata-Pon!

While I just complained about the method in which I was forced to download it, the recently released Patapon demo is really fantastic.

A lot of people were hyping up the game quite a bit beforehand, but I had heard very little about it and had no idea why.  Now I understand.

It’s hard to really pin down what kind of game it is.  If I had to give an overall description of it, I’d say it’s a combination of a rhythm game, Simon, the tank battles from Rocket Slime, an RPG, and a bit of a strategy game.  Yeah, that sounds confusing as hell, but I’ll try to explain as best I can.

The goal in the game is typically to move your Patapons from the left side of a level to the right.  You essentially play the game by hitting a specific sequence of buttons in rhythm to create a sort of drum beat.  Each button is associated with a different sound, and the sequence you press will determine what action your army of Patapons will take.   For instance, the title of this post is the sequence for marching your Patapons forward.  In the demo, you get another sequence for attack and another for defend.  I assume in the full game there will be even more.

So the game essentially has you tying together strings of these sequences in order to advance through the stages.  Enemies and obstructions will pop up, so you’ll need to advance carefully and then attack as necessary.  Stringing together several sequences in a row will give you a combo bonus, and if you get more than 10 in a row, you’ll enter “Fever” mode, and all of your actions will be more effective.  If I had a complaint about the game, it’d be that once you get “Fever” mode it becomes a lot harder to focus and keep up with the sequences, but I suppose that’s part of the point.  If that were all the game was, it’d probably be fairly shallow and fun, but it so happens that there are a few extra layers to it (which I assume will only get a bit more complicated in the full game).

In the game, you have the ability to create 3 different subsections of your army.  In the demo, it essentially boils down to the front range melee attackers, the mid-range spears, and the long range archers.  The resources that you acquire during the game will let you build up the different pieces of your army to how you see fit, and for each level you can choose how you want to customize and arrange your army. Not only that, but you also pick up equipment that you can equip your patapons with, similar to an RPG.

It all comes packaged in an incredibly charming package with colorful graphics and adorable sound effects.  After completing the demo (which, I should add wasn’t horribly challenging, but I still died a couple times), I immediately logged onto Amazon.com to order it.  The best part?  It’s only $20. Even if it’s relatively short, this is a no-brainer.

We should only be so lucky to have this kind of creativity available for $60, let alone $20.