Patapons, Zigotons, and Everything In-Between
The other day, I went out to lunch with my mother in penance for being such an absentee son. After waxing ridiculous about IHOP’s Horton Hears a Who cross-promotion (pancakes that secrete pink and blue something, and Sprite mixed with insoluble hard candies), I attempted to explain Patapon, a game on the PSP, to my mom. Understand that, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have even given thought to such a feeble gesture, but having only just discovered Patapon’s joys mere minutes earlier, I was determined to spread the word.
As you probably expected, the end result was disastrous. She thought the game’s concept sounded weird and lame, and I was sadly without disciples for my Pataponian movement. Well, having invested a little more time in the game, I’ve now realized that, contrary to the results of my lunchtime escapade, Patapon is an excellent title for those hard of gaming. At the same time, however, it’s unfortunately incapable of reaching many of those people.
So, you’ve stuck with me this long; I think it’s time to actually explain Patapon. It is, at first glance, a simplistic rhythm game wherein you guide a handful of eyeball people by banging on ethereal drums. Now, I’ll admit that this concept sounds extremely odd, but it’s really fun! Basically, you’re a god of sorts, and each “pata” and “pon” of your drums drives your tribe of eyeball people forward. And they really are a tribe: they utilize primitive weaponry, display the heads of their fallen foes for all to see, and practice voodoo magic (that actually works).
Sounds creepy, right? Wrong. Patapon is wrapped in the most tasteful candy-coated aesthetic I’ve ever seen, and without it, the game would fail. Each tiny tribesman is uniquely adorable, and even the game’s Jurassic-sized bosses, at their fiercest, look fit to be Barney the Dinosaur’s rebellious cousins. But while the graphics are stunning in their simplicity, they’re far from the main attraction. That honor goes to the music, which takes the form of initially simple chantings composed on-the-fly by your characters.
It’s no exaggeration to say that these chantings are the core of the entire game. Each time you beat out a simple pattern on your drums (controlled by the PSP’s shape-themed buttons), the game’s music takes an upswing. Soon, your little army gets so riled-up that it enters Fever mode and begins shredding through all that gets in its path, causing your enemies to rue the day the were born into a strictly two-dimensional world. All throughout the madness, however, you have to keep up with the rhythm; every few seconds, “pata pata pata pon” must rebound off your drums or else your army will literally lose its rhythm and fall to the ground. As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount of concentration for something that seems so simple. But that’s why Patapon is an ideal non-gamer’s game.
See, thus far, I’ve only given you the skinny on Patapon’s basic gameplay — something so basic that you need only one hand to play it*. With hardly any previous gaming experience, a soccer mom, businessman, or annoying younger sibling would find themselves comfortably fitting into Patapon’s addictive stylings. But with a wee bit of digging, they’d discover something truly deep.
For one thing, Patapon isn’t simply about moving and attacking. There’s defending, too. End of paragraph. It’s about managing the ebb and flow of those advances. If you advance at the incorrect time, you’ll find yourself falling to the slings and arrows of outrageous, well, slings and arrows. In addition, at a point in the game where you should be sufficiently skilled in managing the battle’s flow, Patapon introduces you to miracles. Since you’re a god, it only makes sense that you’d get a few perks aside from banging on the drum all day, and miracles fit the bill. They come at a cost, however: Fever. As an example, one miracle allows you to call down rain from the heavens — subsequently putting out fires and making your eye-tribe’s mascara run. But what happens when a boss sets your army on fire? Do you allow your devoted followers to suffer a hell on earth in order to do more damage to the boss, or do you put out the fire in the hopes that causalities will be lessened? And all the while, “pon pon pata pon.”
“But what’s so important about casualties?” you ask. Well, at first, nothing. Here again, though, everything’s simple at first; the game only teaches you things when you’re ready. Soon though, you gain the ability to grow patapons from a suggestively-shaped tree at your home base. With each mission, you’ll collect new parts to use in the genetic recombination process, while offing the patapons that no longer fit your needs. Before long, you’ll find yourself growing attached to your ultimate eyeball fighting force, especially once you start decking them out in cute little weapon sets. Needless to say, losing your team won’t merely cause emotional damage, as a well-bred army is far more powerful than a normal one.
At this point, you’re probably thinking that Patapon is prohibitively complex — like a high-level game of Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons. But in reality, Patapon is more like a rhythmic version of chess — a game with simple concepts and intricate possibilities. In fact, you can ignore much of the army customization and be ok; the game even auto-optimizes your army’s equipment if you so desire. The other complexities fall into place like new pieces in Tetris; they just make sense.
These complexities, ironically enough, are the main reason Patapon is such a great non-gamer’s game. Sure, many other games fit the bill in more traditional ways, but Patapon is progressive. By melding the ingrained human concept of rhythm with full-blown RPG and strategy elements, Patapon forms an exquisite bridge between gaming’s two diametrically-opposed sides. It can lure non-gamers in with simple charms and then introduce them to the basics of hardcore gaming’s favorite genres. There’s one caveat, however: in order to really understand Patapon, you have to play it. It’s a shame, then, that the people who would most benefit from Patapon are the most likely to miss out on it. But like the patapon, we can prevail over this issue. We must band together and spread the good word. For if not gamers, then who?
*Next time on Vahn16’s Blog: Why Patapon is a great game for pirates
