Patapon - YAY
Welcome to the wonderful tribal world of Patapon! The world in which you must press buttons to match the beat of the ambient music during game-play to control your tribe of tiny eyeball warriors in a quest to reach the end of the world! Sounds fantastic already. You must hunt for food and currency (Kaching), players are able to play trumpet for a dancing tree for items, battle with your rival tribe as well as giant monsters all while collecting equipment and special materials used to birth more colorfully powerful Patapon warriors with special stats! You also get to play trumpet for a dancing tree!
If that isn’t good enough it’s also only 20 dollars and comes out next week for the PSP! Did I mention the tree? The fucker dances for you and gives you shit for free. If you haven’t experienced it’s musical wonder yet, go to your nearest Game Stop and pre-order a copy to receive the demo for free (trumpets not necessary)! Every so often a group of developers and game designers will get together at a secret meeting in a cave surrounded by molten fiery lava and dragon piss (also harmful to the skin) in order to come up with a game that could possibly bend gamer’s views of what is the gaming industry is capable of. Such games sometimes get a bad rep because they may not look as good visually as other first party titles (the Katamari series), or they are left on shelves to collect dust because they weren’t given a chance due to lack of a forward advertising (PS2’s Okami, PSP’s Loco Roco), and that makes me sad because such titles are usually oozing with game play delight. These games are crafted by what I hope will be the future minds of the gaming world. I’m hoping these people’s tactics in design will spread like wildfire - a plague of genius and individualism will spread, killing millions in the process, but for a higher cause.
A game like Patapon brings a smile of glee on my face because it just happens to be another one of these whimsical games that tend to stand out from the rest of the bleakly grey titles we get fed continually by most developers. The thing is, this game is great fun, it provides the gamer with a uniquely special way of playing a normal rhythm based game that you don’t often see. It seems to cater to a variety of gamer tastes, if you don’t like musical rhythm games you still have a deep strategy element, if you don’t enjoy strategy you can enjoy the fun character birth and equipment/formation customization aspect, and if you don’t enjoy customizing then you are a Nazi.
If you own a PSP you should check it out, even if you don’t fully enjoy the demo - the game is only 20 dollars. Be happy you are spending your money on a game in which it’s developers are people that actually want to think outside the norm to provide a special gaming experience. The success of these sorts will hopefully guarantee more games with vision on the horizon and the game industry will continue to blossom into a creative medium where minds can be driven and financially stable enough to try new things, go out on a limb with a new game dynamic that they feel could change people’s ways of gaming and be absolutely unique without the fear of going under (The Neverhood, Oddworld Inhabitants - to name just two of my favorite misunderstood deceased wonders). That means you drop 5 for the pre-order, check it out, and if you don’t like it you can give it another try in the full game which I’m more then sure will provide a deeper experience in case the ridiculously long demo wasn’t enough, or you can just shove the demo in your ass and switch your 5 dollars to another game that you may enjoy, like whatever new Madden game is coming out.
B-Rod
