Chaka Chaka Pata Pon

I have no problem with someone disliking a game, but Tycho’s Patapon-hatred seems a little irrational (bonus points if you get the title reference).  I have often had a visceral dislike of certain popular games, and as his post suggests, there’s a strong desire to rationalize that hatred with specific criticisms.  Unfortunately, his don’t make a lot of sense on their face, so it might be safer just to say that he doesn’t much care for the game and leave it at that. 

After the jump, I’ll critique the critique.

Tycho’s first line of argument seems to be that good rhythm games allow him to “express himself” within the context of the game, although what that means seems somewhat mutable.  Variously, it signifies:

• That Beatmania and DDR don’t penalize you for adding extra notes;
• That Guitar Hero does penalize you for adding extra notes, but allows you to hit the correct notes in different ways; and
• That Elite Beat Agents (ironically, a game that I myself despised) penalizes you for extra notes and doesn’t allow you to hit the correct notes in different ways, but compensates with good art direction and music

A quick application of logic suggests that if you like a game that lets you do X, but also like a game that forbids X but allows Y, X isn’t a particularly important variable per se in your evaluation.  So this entire line of argument seems like a significant red herring.

Version 2 of Tycho’s discussion is a bit more opaque, but starts out promisingly:  Tycho just doesn’t think there’s much compelling to do in Patapon.  Unfortunately, the rest of the paragraph fails to elaborate on this.  It splinters into a few more unconvincing lines of thought.  He views the game as lacking in immediacy, due to the call-and-response nature of the gameplay.  I can understand disliking that: at the same time, however, Tycho seems to attribute this to a flaw in the game’s construction as a “rhythm game,” rather than recognizing the distaste as a personal opinion.  In other words, it’s fine not to like call-and-response.  At the same time, there’s nothing inherent in rhythm games that makes that approach “incorrect,” in the same way that you don’t need a specific magic system to have a good RPG.

Finally, there’s a criticism that I think is simply wrong.  Tycho concludes that the game does indeed allow off-beats and customization, but that this changes when you reach “Fever” mode.  If this were correct, of course, it would run counter to his entire first line of argumentation to begin with.  However, I don’t think it is.  Rather, I believe he’s failing to understand that the game is just a little more forgiving of incorrect timing prior to Fever mode, whereupon it requires you to be more precise in your beat placement  This seems entirely understandable, and you’re not supposed to remain off-beat continuously - it just allows you to do so to avoid penalizing you unnecessarily.

The point of all this is probably minimal and boils down to the fact that Tycho just didn’t like this kind of game.  And that’s fine.  But there’s probably some instructive value here insofar as we should just recognize our personal preferences as such and leave the real criticism to games that are fundamentally flawed in some way.