Miscellaneous Patapon notes …

I get the feeling the translation was rushed. I’m not too concerned about the Ultimate Bad Guy being deemed “eivil” or the fact one Patapon cries out “my eyes, my eyes” at the end of the game; it’s the misleading documentation and translation that bug me.

The manual suggests experimenting to find additional commands but neglects to mention you have to first unlock additional drums and commands. The manual notes (correctly enough) you will lose a mission if you lose every unit except your Hatapon flagbearer but omits the fact you will also immediately lose the mission if your Hatapon dies.

A unit’s Reborn status denotes the number of times it has fallen in battle and not the number of enemies exhausted. The Meals list on the Headquarters screen lists the stews prepared and not the stew the Ra Gashapon cook is to prepare in the cooking minigame. The manual notes Yaripon spearmen gain the ability to jump at level 3 but Patapon units don’t gain levels; the Yaripons jump when in Fever mode.

There are six types of units in the game but you can finish the game by merely using the first three units available. The Megapons (roughly analogous to mobile artillery units) are very useful in boss battles but are only made available towards the end of the game. Rarer Megapon variants, in particular, are devastating but have prohibitive ka-ching requirements. I didn’t find the Kibapon cavary and Dekapon heavy infantry units essential and it was difficult to justify their selection.

Of the mini-games, the most useful are the plant and the kettle. The horny, orgasmic plant (“oh-h-h ah oh ah” followed by a flushed face if you succeed at the mini-game … what were they thinking there?) provides vegetables which can be turned into stew after playing the kettle mini-game. This stew will boost the HP of the Patapons during missions.

I found the final boss battle difficult because I had not unlocked one mini-game, the one that provides sorely-needed high-end weapons. I only managed to unlock it after I had beaten the game. I’d recommend grabbing weapon drops during battles before they disappear because weapons aren’t easy to come by.

My final savegame was at the 19-hour mark but when all the failed attempts are factored in, this is more or less a 30-hour game.