Patapon 3

[PA_Kid]

So anyone else picking this up?

IGN has been doing a ongoing review and one thing they mention is that the online multiplay is a ton of fun (you make a clan and people join it).

Supposedly people can use your blacksmith and such and you get a small "kickback" and other stuff like that.


Just wondering who else may be getting it and if we wanted to coordinate a clan for online play.

[BlackMamba]

I think I might. I enjoyed the first. Never picked up the second, but sorta wished I did. To be honest, the art direction in this series alone is worth the price of admission

On another note, I can't wait for the FFIV Remake to come out in a week!!!!

[PA_Kid]

Picked it up but haven't had much time to play yet. Will share more once I do.

Supposedly they dumped a bit of the randomness in item collecting and minigames - which should be a good thing. My biggest beef with the game was having to repeat certain levels or minigames over and over in the hope I get a rare items to evolve a patapon.

[BlackMamba]

Originally Posted by PA_Kid

Picked it up but haven't had much time to play yet. Will share more once I do.

Supposedly they dumped a bit of the randomness in item collecting and minigames - which should be a good thing. My biggest beef with the game was having to repeat certain levels or minigames over and over in the hope I get a rare items to evolve a patapon.

yeah, please do. I'd like to pick it up at some point this month.

[Suntory_Times]

I'm going to get this later this year for when I go travelling. I loved the first two (in fact patapon 2 and locoroco are two of my favourite games of the last ten years).

[Icemage]

I'm surprised no one has commented on this. Been out of the loop here for a while, but since this game soaked up most of my free time in April, I'll post a quick review here.

Story
Patapon 3 is a departure from the previous games in the story department. Instead of playing the mighty deity Patapon who beats the drums to command your armies, you've now corporealized to become the Uberhero, leading a small band of (much stronger) Patapons against your enemies.

Graphics
Patapon 3 is a much edgier title than previous entries. Instead of the faux-primitive tribal motif of previous games, Patapon 3 has has a lot more sharp points and sleak curvy edges to the characters and weapons, making it look a lot more modern but still keeping the 2D diorama look. See my commentary about audio below for more.

Audio
This is probably the big culture shock for most veteran Patapon players. The music in Patapon 3 is now infected with a hard rock edge, with some faster paced new compositions that use a lot of electric guitar, and even the songs that came back in the new installment have been remixed with more modern instrumentation. The result is sort of an eclectic hash of new vs. old that works most of the time, but clashes with the cleaner, simplier sound and menu effects (which were mostly retained from Patapon 2).

Gameplay
The basic gameplay in Patapon 3 in terms of what you as the player are expected to do is still the same; drum 4 beats in sequence on the face buttons, and have the Patapons do whatever command that represents in the next four beats.

The big difference is that instead of entire squads, you now have command of four SINGLE troops. One Yaripon (spear), one Tatepon (shield), and one Yumipon (bow), plus your Uberhero (I'll explain this in a moment), plus your flagbearer Hatapon.

Each of your troops has an evolution tree, as they gain levels in one class, more advanced forms become unlocked, which in turn unlock even more advanced forms. The three non-Uberhero troops are restricted to only one branch of evolution (so your shield class unit can only evolve into other warrior-type classes, and can never learn how to fire a bow, for example).

Your "main character" Uberhero, on the other hand, starts in one class tree of your choice at the beginning of the game, and can unlock the other evolution trees by achieving level 15 in the base starting class (not too hard, but probably won't get here until you're at least halfway through the game).

So what do you get in exchange for giving up having 6 archers instead of 1?

First, the troops are much, much stronger than before (but so are the enemies). Exponentially so. A maxed out unit can deal damage in excess of 100,000+ per hit, and some tougher bosses have several million life points.

To balance the scales, you can also acquire equipment which can be upgraded at the blacksmithy (instead of just forging unique weaponry as in previous titles). Uniques can't be upgraded, but the standard non-magical gear can, and it's often the best stuff you can use if you spend enough resources on it.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that everything else about the game has improved and streamlined. Resource collection is now much easier; no more endlessly farming bosses for rare upgrade resources, as you can break down extra gear to get the money and pieces you need to upgrade higher level gear.

Miracle Jujus are gone, which is fine because pretty much the only juju anyone ever used was rain to fight Centura or to counteract desert heat. Instead you now have Djinn summons, which activate similarly but have a limited number of uses (typically 1 per level). Djinns instantly revive all dead troops and provide some extra benefits when summoned.

The effect of many of the old jujus are now implemented as optional customizable Set Skills which can be learned by your troops as they level up. For instance, Piekron is one of the evolution branches for the spear-class troop. Getting to level 5 on that unit lets him learn the ability Rain Dance, which you can then set into one of your skill slots to make the weather become rain any time you're in fever (much, much more useful than the old rain juju), and you no longer have to have that troop set to the Piekron class; he can use that skill in any form from that point on.

Every class also has a progression of learnable Class Skills (different from the Set Skills mentioned above, which are earned by simply leveling up). Class skills are skills that have to be used to be learned, so for instance the healer class Pingrek (bow-type) has a skill that increases the amount of HP restored when using healing magic, and gains experience towards learning it when actually healing troops.

Game difficulty is much harder than the previous games. You can't skate by with improperly leveled troops or the wrong equipment/troop mix in this game. Expect to see the Game Over screen a lot.

Overall
Patapon 3 is a very fun game. More streamlined, faster, and less grind-tastic than its predecessors, but you should keep an open mind when playing it for the first time, as there are some fairly drastic changes. The difficulty increase is a nasty surprise for some people, and the lower number of troops can also catch you unaware (despite the individual troops being a lot stronger than the squads from previous games).

[BlackMamba]

Thanks for the review IceMage. I've been looking to pick this game up if only to support the great work the design team has done on this series.

[PA_Kid]

Haven't played as much lately, but agree with most of what Icemage said.

The only other point I'd make is that if you liked the mini games and the RTS feel of the bands of troops in the previous games, you may be shocked initially by the lack of them here (I was).

The game focuses much more on multiplayer and hero units - to the extent that many of the tropes of the original two games are gone. Depending on what you liked from the other games that can be a good or a bad thing.

I've definitely been having fun with it, but I find I miss some of the collection of materials, rare location hunts, and mini-games. The grind was simplified over what it was in the others, but the grindy parts are still there - its just not about grinding for a particular material anymore. It would have been nice if they found a way to keep the mini-games too in addition to making the item questing more simplified.

(One thing I can say I hate is the free-form djinn "game". In no way is it an improvement over the juju execution other than the fact that you're able to keep your fever going. In fact I frequently find I lose units in the middle of it if I use it in combat because they do some wacky things and take hits they never normally would - djinn magic runs in real-time in the level.)

Overall though, if you liked the first two, most will still like the third I think.