Este juego literalmente me hizo fan de un género.
¿RPG Rítmico?, Por supuesto que sí!!!

Un juegazo con una historia simple pero increíblemente impresionante, toda esta guerra este conflicto entre tribus que quieren conseguir el mismo objetivo que es proteger a su mundo pero de diferentes maneras, es impresionante, y aún más impresionante que esto fuera pensado como un simple juego para niños en la PSP, es fabuloso, su gameplay es básico y a más de una persona de seguro le va a costar conseguir ritmo a la primera para poder jugar, pero es un gameplay bastante bueno, con simples combinaciones que representan órdenes para los patapons podrás librar cualquier obstáculo en el nivel. y los minijuegos que simplifican esta mecánica llevándolo a solo uno o dos botones para completarlos son bastante, bastante divertidos, en especial el del árbol y la montaña bebé, vale totalmente la pena darle una oportunidad si los juegos rítmicos son lo tuyo o si te gustan los rpgs, si eres alguien que no tiene casi nada de ritmo puedes probar jugar en el modo fácil para que te acostumbres un poco a todo, algo más este juego también brilla por su farmeo, tendrás que completas varias "misiones de caza" o tendrás que pelear en torres enemigas para poder tener más recompensas, crear mejores unidades y por supuesto tener mejor equipamiento, y estas misiones no son para nada aburridas, siempre variando su música, la forma en la que vienen las estructuras y los enemigos que veras dentro de ellas, es enserio muy entretenido, también tienes la opción de omitir esas misiones e ir directamente por un jefe, que también te darán las mismas cosas e incluso un poco mejores, pero todo dependerá de que tan preparado estes para enfrentarte a ellos y por supuesto de tu ritmo.

Lo recordaba menos grindy. Buen juego de ritmo. Musicote.
Los minijuegos de la aldea los recordaba más generosos.
Se me hizo algo corto. Fueron ~24 horas.
Me lo pasé en 2 días viciandome como un loco.
No lo rejugaría por qué el 2 es igual pero mejor en todo

I’ve always been terrible at rhythm games. I’ve sort of stayed away from them because I know I’m terrible at them. I absolutely adore music, but rhythm games have always been my weak point. I mean you’re looking at the guy that can’t usually hear the bass in a song so I wouldn’t really see myself as someone who can find the beat to something. But patapon is special…well the sequels anyway.

You guide the patapons on their quest to find earthend. You play as their god known as the ‘Almighty patapon’. And that’s kind of all there is to it…not the most exciting story but why should it be?

Gameplay is a mixture of rhythm and strategy. You’ll have to put in different command using the face buttons and time it to the beat, if you time it well then you’ll go into a ‘fever’ where your attack and defence increases…but good luck keeping that fever. Pon is used with the circle button, pata is used with the square button, Chaka is used with the triangle button, and don is used with the x button. If you time the drums to the beat then you’ll be able to do different command such as charge, attack, defend, and others. You’ll also be able to gain more troops with the more items you gather as you fight. In the game there are around about 40 missions so if you know what you’re doing the game is pretty short.

For the first game in its series, patapon feels like a rough draft for what could be an absolutely brilliant game. Patapon 2 would improve on all of it drastically but I’ve got a review lined up for that game in the near future.

Rough draft, excellent music, fever is hard to hold onto, adorable art, pata pata pata pon!

Patapon is a franchise that I hold close to my chest. It's one big reason why I've ended up gravitating towards music and sound design as my primary hobby. The first game is a unique and innovative action game that still holds up quite well after nearly two decades since its launch on the PlayStation Portable.

Returning to it through the PlayStation 4 remaster after years and years of not having thought about the first game has been quite the experience. I found myself understanding and engaging with the deeper intricacies of Patapon's mechanics more than I did as a prepubescent kid who was about to enter the darkest point in their life. I knew when to move, when to attack and defend, what materials made which Rarepon and how to play each minigame with no mistakes made. Now I found myself actively moving each Patapon to different positions depending on their stats and equipment. I found which missions consistently provide the most amount of money (it's the first hunting mission btw) and ground for materials when needed. I found what units worked the best for me, optimized the hell out of them, and steamrolled the final boss on my first try when it gave me trouble all those years before.

Now I find myself thinking about this game in a more mature perspective. I'm one month away from turning 26 years old right now, and I've learned a lot about what I like in a video game and how I engage with them. With this experience in mind, I believe it's reasonable to say that Patapon is a game where you can find it fun the whole way through, or it'll quickly become a chore for you even if you do have the internal metronome needed to play effectively.

While the bones of Patapon are very strong and well developed, its biggest flaw is a lot of the busywork. This is something that the second game will make very apparent. Grinding is slow, but it's also very automated. The minigames never change, most of the hunting missions are not optimal for material/money grinding, the pool of equipment is quite limited, and if you're aiming to create the high-level Rarepons, you're going to be trudging through a lot of repeat missions just to get the absurd amount of needed Ka-ching. When it pays off, hell yeah, it pays off! But the journey is not for everyone.

I'm not everyone. I'm a weird recluse with mental illnesses and a love for repetition. Patapon scratches a nice itch for me, though it is one that made me pine for the days of endgame Patapon 2 towards the end.

I don't often share information about myself online, but I think the fact that I'm a musician is relevant to my thoughts here. Most musicians who play an important rhythmic role (conductors, drummers, etc.) all keep a mental list of songs they are intimately familiar with at every tempo for reference's sake; for example, if I need to lead something that I know is at 80 beats per minute, I play a couple of bars of Cbat in my head before I start. Well, the beats here are so earwormingly catchy that I've scratched "120bpm - Stars and Stripes Forever" out of my mind palace and replaced it with "Patapon".

Patapon is one of those games that just works - like the rare piece of music where you don't know if the composer came up with the melody or the chords first (because that melody only makes sense with that specific harmony and vice versa, and both of those only make sense with that specific rhythm), each one of Patapon's mishmash of genres somehow comes together. Part rhythm game and part strategy game with a dash of RPG and town-builder sim thrown in, the player is cast as the god of the Patapon tribe, issuing commands to its soldiers in the form of 4-beat button commands. The need to relentlessly sound the drums without skipping a beat in order for the army to operate at full effectiveness elevates Patapon above its individual genres - rather than just being about issuing the right commands or following the right rhythms, this is a game about multitasking and planning ahead. Since the Patapons essentially follow your commands on a 4-beat lag, you need to read the battlefield situation (unit positioning and things like wind direction), decide what to do, then input the right button combination while thinking 2-4 seconds into the future and taking care not to skip any beats. It's amazingly engaging! The town building and RPG elements also have an important role here, allowing players to gradually unlock and access a variety of unit and equipment types which allow for different playstyles.

I have to say that Patapon appealed to me despite me generally not being a big fan of its main genres. As someone who doesn't enjoy the busywork of strategy games, Patapon's unique mechanics allowed me to issue more general commands and not get caught up in micromanagement, without being boring. And (sorry to brag a bit) as someone who can play lots of stuff by ear and therefore doesn't really see much of a point in most rhythm games, Patapon engaged me by having its rhythm mechanics as a tactical means to an end, rather than simply being "press buttons to play song".

Really, the only reason I'm not rating this higher is that there are certain things that could be more refined (it's pretty easy to get screwed by some enemy attacks that simply give you no time to react, the game doesn't always communicate how you can improve, the movements of some Patapons are ever so slightly de-sycned from the beat so as to be misleading, the minigames lack variety), and I know there are a couple of sequels which I'm really hoping will address those issues.

But this is one of the gaming highlights of the year for me. It's brilliant, it's unique, and it's going to be playing in my head for quite some time.