Overall, if you liked Patapon 2 back in the day, you’re going to enjoy this release on the PlayStation 4. It doesn’t do anything particularly special other than giving you the game you might have loved in 2009 on a bigger screen.
I missed this when it came out on Sony’s doomed PSP, which, in its defense, was an amazing piece of technology that just couldn’t get itself going for whatever reason — probably Nintendo reasons. Anyway, Patapon 2 was developed by Pyramid back in the UMD days and has finally made its way to modern console with its PlayStation 4 debut.
Patapon, as told by the almighty Wikipedia, consists of two words pata (marching) and pon (drumming). These are important because to progress in the game you must march via drums, as well as attack the same way. For example, the game teaches you to march at the very beginning with drum beats led by button mashing, in the same vein as (pick a music game in the last 20 years). You can also mash drum buttons in a certain order to get your fellow Patapons to attack, which at the beginning means throwing spears (it gets more complicated and 2D violent with other weapons as you progress). You traverse lands, find enemies and barriers, and proceed to do these actions while picking up additional ways to get your troops through enemy territory. You, the gamer, are playing the role of a Patapon God, who orders the Patapon (those fourth wall breakers) to follow your every command through drum-based idols they gift to you. It’s empowering and at the same time sorta sad that you can only communicate these one-eyed beings with the power of drums. Of course, music is 70% of everything in life (or is that water…I can’t remember), so I guess it makes sense.
The gameplay design is out of this world fun, though two-dimensional. You are essentially playing a side-scrolling marching game that requires you to be aware of your actions, your surroundings, and your enemies. The levels remind me a lot of a flatter, more railed LocoRoco, which isn’t a bad thing, though not as free-flowing as LocoRoco’s nature. Patapon 2 requires you to strategize how to accomplish progression in the game while dealing with multiple situations (like enemies and obstacles) and also having to concentrate on button mashing with a rhythmic beat. It’s a lot for your senses to juggle, but nonetheless a healthy challenge for a video game. It doesn’t pull punches, it doesn’t pull away from difficulty, rather it forces you to get with the program on the fly. I actually admire this type of design, where the developers kept it simple, but at the same time overwhelm the gamer a bit here and there. The simplicity of button mashing will give you the motivation to try again after failing or to simply do better. It’s like watching your brother speed-run Super Mario, then having him hand over the controller and saying something like, “It’s not that hard.” Oh, it’s hard. And yes, Patapon 2 was designed to be played in a simple manner. Knowing that you can beat the game with the right timing and weapon combination/strategy is what will motivate you to keep going.
If that wasn’t enough to keep your brain occupied, the game also throws out different weapons your troops can use as you progress and troop choice type. These types of choices help to complicate the strategic part of the game and make the experience deeper than maybe it should be. I’m sure the folks at Pyramid thought that you deserved more than a rhythm game, so they added these small elements to make it a bit more thoughtful. I can see why this is a good addition to the experience because beats alone are just boring after a while. This also allowed the developers to throw in more difficult enemies and create a variety of them. Essentially, it expanded how far the gameplay design could be taken. Please keep in mind, dear readers, that we were getting music-based games around this time like crazy. FreeStyleGames and Activision were releasing games like DJ Hero during this same year, as well as dishing out Guitar Hero. We were also seeing the end of DDR from Konami (thank GOD) around this time period. Anyway, it was a craze that lasted about 4-5 years before people started getting a bit rundown from the concept. None of these games really took their title to the depth that Patapon 2 did, which is why this game is considered a cult classic by PSP owners.
Having said all the above, the ‘remastered’ part of this title is what you think it should be. The game looks gorgeous and sounds gorgeous on a 4K set. I think some graphics needed a bit touching up (the opening scenes), but for the most part, you get a nice fullscreen Patapon 2 that looks crisp and doesn’t do more than it needs to do visually. I didn’t expect a Resident Evil 2 overhaul here, rather I was just hoping for the small screen to be upscaled nicely to the big screen — and you get that here. The game looks good, sounds solid, and the gameplay is unaffected or improved by the visual upgrade.
Overall, if you liked Patapon 2 back in the day, you’re going to enjoy this release on the PlayStation 4. It doesn’t do anything particularly special other than giving you the game you might have loved in 2009 on a bigger screen.
