Above : Uberhero Yaripon.
Gameplay Trailer + Impressions from IGN.
To begin for people who have never played the game before:
Patapon has released the third in it's series at long last in english, also being one of the most anticipated games of 2011. People rapidly grew to love the little characters you control that went be the name Pon Pons, who appear to be little eyeballs with small, thin hand and legs. The objective is to lead an army in battle with a series of commands done in 4 beats in rhythm to catchy BGM. Graphics have always been vibrant, being more so in each new release, upgrading the system more and more to be more friendly to new players. In this version, instead of controlling the original array of Pon Pons to form a giant army to send into battle whilst overseeing the thing as a "god", the player plays with his main character [Uberhero] leading three other units into battle. In the start of the game, you can select from three basic classes to train from - [Yarida the Yaripon [Spearman], Taterazay the Tatepon[Swordsman], or Yumiyacha the Yumipon[Archer]]. From there, you start of with one Yaripon, Tatepon and Yumipon regular Pon Pons. As you level this party of four, you can unlock new "advanced" classes to change your battle style, gain powerful weapons and gear and develop skills to help you in battle. Older players may be familiar with Miracle, which has been this time, replaced with Summon which enables a Hero to revive in Dungeons.
As soon as i found out Patapon 3 had been released, i rushed to get it. Gameplay has barely changed from the past two games and in fact has improved to also become more beginner-friendly, with notes on the difficulty of the level and what you would encounter and in fact, become more adorable and fun. I started off with Yarida the Yaripon Uberhero, and shortly after i was hooked. EacH time i struck a beat i bobbed my head to keep into sync with the rhythm so that i could get into FEVER mode, where certain abilities are boosted and Summoning is enabled, and each time I lost my "Combo", i would wince and hastily rush to regain FEVER mode. Overall gameplay has become easier apart from the Summon/Miracle commands, which tend to give you too tiny a time window to input the commands and grinding is still noticeable, though not as bad as the previous games where you had to train in a map for over five times[each map being considerably lengthy] to advance to the next story mission.
I've only played this game for 8 hours or so, and it is AMAZING. Fun, cute and ADDICTIVE.
Left: Typical gameplay in Patapon 3. This shows a advanced class of the Tatepon Uberhero.
I also appear to have fired off a trend to make several others play Patapon 3. It appears i'm not the only person to be bobbing my head or tapping my foot as i play, and people groan with me when we lose FEVER status in battle. A few of my friends tried playing Ad Hoc and it was amazing, apart from the fact that Ad Hoc seems to be as glitchy as ever, but it is still a wonderful game to play with friends where you stay focused to never lose the beat without getting overly stressed - and as we all finish the mission, we slump back and breathe a sigh of relief, followed by picking up the PSP again to compare gear followed by starting a new mission.
But i've said enough. I have much more to add, but that would make this draggy.
To simply summarize this game?
Get it. If you've never played Patapon before just get this game and play it once, you can even borrow it from a friend, and i promise you, you WILL be hooked with it's vibrant graphics and fun gameplay.
And if you do, i have basics tips for the beginner to Patapon
I. Stay calm, don't just fire off random buttons. Wait for the beats to sync. If you ever forget the commands, they're all listed on the bottom for easy reference.
II. If you find yourself failing too much? It could be because you need to train a bit more. It could be that you don't upgrade your gear enough. Or it could be you don't have a shieldbearer. Take some time in gameplay to analyse what you're doing wrong. Is your Hatapon [Flagbearer] dying all the time? You need a guard like Tatepon to protect him from offense.
III. Have fun.
Nicholas Yu
DMD[G] 2011 NYP
