Do not let the Digital Distribution only sway you; this Patapon is better than the first.
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Description
Where the original Patapon left off is where you will begin in Patapon 2. While it is not required to have played the first, it will certainly help you understand things a little better. While this game is taking a major hit in the gaming community based on Sony's decision to only distribute the game digitally, this should not be a reason to pass this title up. There is a HUGE plus to this system though. My wife and I both own PSP's, and hate buying two of the same game to play together. With the Patapon 2 download code we purchased in the store, we are allowed five downloads of the Patapon 2 game. So for a $20 game, we installed Patapon 2 on both of our systems. This is an amazing deal for family and friends who play together!
Spoiler Free Story: You play the role of "The Almighty Leader" (which will have your name as selected), and it is your task to lead your fellow Patapons to "Earthend." On your way, you will learn new songs, discover 36 different levels, 16+ different bosses, fight against an opposing army, and collect materials used to upgrade and level up your own Patapons.
The Basics:The game takes part in missions, which will be hunting, attacking a fort, facing a boss, or a few different training missions. During these missions, the game consists of 8 beats; four beats for you to enter in a four part rhythm, and then four beats for your army to act out that command. There are songs to move forward, attack, jump, defend, back off, charge, and to cure status effect- which song to use is up to you! While you won't start off with all of these songs, you will receive them as needed over the course of your journey. This is where the complexity of the game comes into play.
All of the bosses have attack patterns, and will give you a visual queue of what they are about to do. When a dragon reaches his head back, he is going to breath fire. Should you continue to attack, defend, run away, or something else? It may take you a try or two to learn a bosses patterns, but in no time you will learn the best way to counter everything they can do.
Your Patapon Army: When you begin the game, you will not have access to all of the units in the game, but again will get them as you progress. You will start off with some very basic units with basic abilities, and you can take six of them into battle. Later on, you can unlock special Patapons, which can only be taken into battle three at a time. Furthermore, you will receive one Hero Patapon which is a beefed up version of your normal Patapons. You can select three sets of these to take into battle, meaning you can have as few as 10 individual units, or as many as 19.
Your normal Patapons can equip helmets, a weapon, and usually an accessory specific to their class. These and every evolution of Patapon can be reach level 10. Later on when you evolve these Patapons, they will lose the ability to wear hats, but instead have a "Rock Paper Scissors" status. Example: One type has very high Hit-Points, has a high stagger rate, but catches on fire very easily. It's up to you how you would like to set up your army! Unlike Patapon 1, you can level up each individual unit separately. So if you would like one with high damage / low hit points, another one who falls asleep but has a high critical rate, the choice is up to you. There are 100's of different combination's you can make, each with their own differences.
Your Hero Patapon is different in that he can wear a mask in battle. These masks give him special abilities like being immune to fire, having a higher attack speed, or being able to soak up damage other Patapons take. You may change your hero to any class you have unlocked, and he will use a special ability based on that class when you stay on beat. While he specifically cannot level up, he can assume the highest level that a Patapon of that class has reached.
The Leveling System: RPG lovers will have a ball customizing their armies. Leveling however is not done by normal XP gains. You will find spoils in battle which can then be used to upgrade their levels. Early levels and evolutions take minimal items, but later evolutions can mean hours of farming. The depth to this, is each time you kill a boss, he gains a level. The next time you fight him, he will be even stronger with higher hit-points. Some bosses even obtain one-hit kill abilities later on, meaning you must counter with the correct song, or risk losing a few members of your army. Fear not however; gone from Patapon 2 is the ability to lose your Patapons. If they die, you will always receive a cap so that they may be revived at home camp.
Mini-Games: There are seven different mini-games at home camp (two new ones from PP1), which will help you obtain items to level up your army. However, these must be found in the Single player game to be used. Most of them are found after killing a boss multiple times, which makes it possible to complete a full play through of the game only discovering two of the mini-games. Just read the descriptions of the missions and you are sure to find them however.
Multiplayer:The masks the Hero Patapon wears are obtained from the multiplayer, which is a good and a bad thing. Finding someone to play with could be a task, but if you do not have anyone, three CPU players can join the fight. However, these CPU players are nowhere near as smart / powerful as customized hero Patapons. While not required to complete the game, and some of the masks are situational at best, there are a few which will mean a world of difference in the single player game. My biggest issue, is when I played Multi with my wife, I get distracted by the sounds from her PSP. If I put headphones in, it hardly feels like I am playing the game with her. Also, only the host of the multiplayer (which is essentially co-op bosses) will receive items, so swapping hosts is nice, but also a pain.
Graphics / Sound / Re-playability:The graphics of the game haven't changed much from the first game, but there really wasn't a need for it. This game is about an art style, more so than flashy high polygon count graphics. The sound as well hasn't changed, and the only thing I can suggest, is that playing with headphones is a must for this game. While it can be completed without, you'll hear so much more with them. Mini-games and keeping the beat becomes exponentially easier, which is critical at higher difficulty levels. It's possible to breeze through the game in 20 hours if you really try, but if you find the mini-games, levels up a few times, redo a few bosses, you'll reach the 30 hour mark easily.
Once the game is complete, there are a few new missions to find / unlock, but the re-playability is in your army. You will not be max level when you complete the game, where you will be allowed to continue replaying missions and continue advancing your units. If you kill a lvl 10 boss and get a rare weapon, you are now more powerful, but so is he. This back and forth can go on with most bosses well up nearing the 100's. Eventually you'll hit a point where it's just impossible to kill a boss, but you would have had 300+ hours easily invested in the game before you could achieve that. Thankfully the ending of the game however does have a sense of accomplishment to it for those of us who are less than completionists.
Misc: If you have a Patapon 1 saved game, that may be imported to start with a few base resources. If you complete the Patapon 2 demo, and continue with that saved game, you will receive a very nice hat for use in the game.
Conclusion: If you enjoyed Patapon 1, this is simply an overall improvement on everything Patapon 1 was. The game play has been improved where it was needed, and nothing that worked was changed simply because it's a sequel. If you've never entered Pataopolis before, this is a great place to start. RPG fans will be impressed by the depth, and casual gamers will love the fact you can pick up the game, complete a mission, and feel like you had your quick gaming fix.
