Few sounds are as deeply ingrained in our household as the merry chant of the Patapon. A PSP favourite, and with three games in the bag, Sony then seemed to forget about the little one-eyed weirdos, occasionally dusting the first two games off for remasters. The team at TVT and Ratata Arts haven’t forgotten, though. Made up of various team members from the original games, they’ve set sail on an all new, rhythm-action extravaganza in the shape of Ratatan. For all the changes and modernity that they’ve brought, it’s still of game of tiny weirdos, impressive footwork and merry chants. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Expansive. That’s the word that you’ll associate with Ratatan if you’ve played previous Patapon games. There’s simply more here, and that starts with choosing your Ratatan. There’s eight incredibly cool, but equally cute, leading characters to choose from, all of whom have different abilities and weapon selections.
Mashuma is clad in a mushroom – or maybe is a mushroom? – and plays a toadstool bagpipe. That’s very cool. Pyokorappa looks like a cyberpunk rabbit, plays a trombone, and sounds suspiciously like a Patapon. That’s all very cool too. Frogs, owls, ninja cats, whichever of the lovingly created characters you go for, you’ll find you now have direct control over them, functioning as lead instrumentalist and general, so not only do you have to command your diminuitive single-eyed army, you have to think about where you’re standing too. At first, this feels like more than the tiny human mind can cope with, but you soon start to understand how it all works.
Ratata looks stunning. The artwork here is beautiful, taking the stripped back visual design of Patapon and laying on a massive palette of colour, detail and vibrancy. Everything feels alive, and that sense of life carries through from the characters and different enemies you come across, all the way to the hub world that you visit in-between each run.
Each run sees you taking your army of Ratatan, which are one eyed fish people as opposed to one eyed… actually, what were Patapon? Presumably, they’re the same species as Mike Wazowski? Some sort of cyclops? Anyway, you set out int the overworld with your army, fighting your way through small skirmishes until you meet the huge boss at the end. That starts out with a huge dinosaur-esque badnik, before moving things onto giant armoured crabs and shark/bull hybrids.
Whatever awesome-looking form they take, you’ll need to be prepared, and you do that through repeated runs. Patapon was fundamentally always roguelite adjacent, rewarding repeated runs through the same areas, building your armoury and levelling up your army. That’s just more obvious here, and as you beat all those evil little one eyed armies with your good one eyed army, you’ll pick up weaponry and materials that you’ll need to advance further.
Besides that, there’s a run of Ratakurata cards that you collect, enhancing your attacks with different effects. The two main card types add an elemental attack to either your standard move or your special, while others may prolong certain effects or give you higher damage or better defense. Each run can be completely different, between choosing alternate lead characters, who then use different Cubon types, with access to alternate weaponry, and then the random factor and decisions of selecting your Ratakurata cards. It really helps to avoid some of the grind, when everything can be changed up run by run as you seek out your favourite setup. It throws a lot at you, but manages to maintain a distinct sense of self and direction in the process
It all comes down to the music though. Rhythm-action games live and die by their soundtrack, and Ratatan serves up bop after bop. I don’t remember a rhythm action game in recent memory that has had me bopping along as consistently as Ratatan does, with each world shifting through clearer genres and musical composition than Patapon ever did. It will make you smile, and it will make you happy, and that kind of unburdened joy is in short supply these days.
As you progress, your hub town swells to include various different townspeople and merchants, all of whom want to help you out, or charge you a suspiciously high amount of materials in exchange for something else. Levelling up and crafting weapons for your army is a highlight, and some of the designs for the special weaponry is Monster Hunter-level good. They definitely need to make more of these, because what’s better than a one-eyed army setting off into battle with an array of sick weaponry?
Ratatan is exactly what I wanted it to be. In Early Access this is a fresh, modern take on Patapon’s iconic action with an invigorating visual design and awesome soundtrack. All I want now from the journey to 1.0 is even more of this.
