Playing God and the War Drums Together in Innovative Patapon

God’s day is becoming considerably fuller every year. First, he’s got to wake up early in the morning and make sure a family of Sims remembers to use the toilet. Following his afternoon snack, he does a little papier-mâché gardening as he takes care of all his Viva Piñata pets. Yet still, before he can get into bed at night, he’s got to deal with monsters in ActRaiser. Well, with Patapon, a creative new music strategy game for the PlayStation Portable, God’s schedule just got more hectic.

You play the god of a tribe of Patapons, a warring species of circular blobs that are perhaps a little too endearing for their warmongering natures. As god, you are summoned by the Patapon high chiefs to organize the Patapon tribe into an effective war machine—you have to build your army, equip them with proper armor and weaponry, and then guide them in battle as they fight rival tribes on their quest for Patapon domination.

The game plays out entirely on a two dimensional plane composed mostly of black, white, and another color for the sky—usually a striking red or blue. The stunning visual style suits the game well. Though it may appear to be some sort of traditional side-scroller, Patapon’s big innovation is in how you actually interact with the game and command your army.

You never directly control the Patapon—you are a laissez-faire God, and your schedule is way overbooked as it is. Instead, the square (“pata”) and the circle (“pon”) buttons serve as war drums that you need to beat in various rhythms to communicate with your army in the field. The game becomes a hybrid of a rhythm and a strategy game. You’re forced to keep a beat going to motivate and manipulate your Patapon army, but at the same time you need to be thinking of plain strategy, like, “Where should I put my archers?” or “Advance or retreat?”

Say you are beginning a level and you need your Patapon to advance across the screen. This involves recalling the beat for “advance” and then entering it on the war drums—in this case, beat out “pata-pata-pata-pon” and wait for the Patapons to respond. After they echo your call, you can issue another command. The “attack” command, which you will be issuing frequently, is “pon-pon-pata-pon.” Before you know it you’ll have this vibrant mélange of tribal war drums playing as your feet start tapping and you feel the need to get up and dance.

Patapon is quite difficult despite its deceptively simple concept—the crossover of rhythm and strategy is overwhelming to process, and there are quite a few melodic commands you really do need to memorize to be any good at the game. Some of the systems in the game feel sort of broken, too, like the game’s buy-sell system—it always seems like you have either way too much money or nowhere near enough money. Additionally, because the game is so difficult, there is a distinct possibility that players could actually get stuck at various levels while playing and have to “grind” out a few past levels again so that they can gain enough experience and money to build (or buy) better and better Patapons.

Still, what’s a little time spent grinding when you’re eternal? Patapon is really addictive and original, and that’s really something special because many developers are pumping out music games simply to take advantage of the “music game phenomenon” everyone is going wild over. Patapon integrates music-based gameplay into its core structure incredibly well all while looking and sounding superb—and at only $19.99, rhythm fans should definitely investigate.