Ratatan Review

It's been a long time, but we're finally welcoming back an old friend of mine from nearly two decades ago. When I was a kid, I was an enormous fan of the PSP game Patapon, which skirted the line between rhythm game and RTS. It had you play the role of a diety commanding a group of the titular creatures by playing commands in rhythm with the game's music.

The original designer of the Patapon series ran a Kickstarter to create a spiritual successor titled Ratatan, which has recently released into Early Access. With how much I adored Patapon as a kid, I knew I would have to give this game a shot, and of course share my first impressions of the current state of it. I'll likely compare it to Patapon as well, and talk about the ways it's similar and the ways it's not, and what I do and don't personally enjoy about those things.

Gameplay

As a spiritual successor to Patapon, the gameplay is very reminiscent of it, but not in its entirety. Patapon was mission based, but Ratatan aims for a more roguelite experience where you go through successive stages fighting enemies and can gain various upgrades through a run that will only be present for that run, but can also gather materials to be used for obtaining permanent upgrades in the hub area.

It has you more directly involved, playing as a being called a Ratatan that commands a squad of creatures called Cobun. The Ratatan is controlled directly and joins the battle, while the Cobun are commanded with rhythm commands similarly to Patapon. There are several Ratatan to choose from, with the differences between them being a unique passive ability, and the weapons their Cobun wield.

The actual combat is fairly straightforward. You have rhythm commands to have the Cobun follow you, attack, jump, defend, or use a skill. When one falls, it will resurrect with a bit of health near the Ratatan, and when the Ratatan is beaten, you lose the run and go back to the hub. It's not anything particularly worthy of writing home about until you get to each level's boss. The bosses have actual patterns to them that I found to be pretty fun to learn. Each one gave me some trouble at first, but once I figure out how it works it's a lot easier, and I think it's satisfying to feel myself getting better like that.

Visuals

I don't have too much to say here. The game's look differs significantly from its inspiration, and is a lot more colorful. The designs are cute and I don't dislike the overall visuals, but I find that the contrast is lacking and that I sometimes have a hard time seeing my Cobun and projectiles, an issue that Patapon did not have. I've put screenshots of both games below to show Patapon's better contrast.

I don't think Ratatan is a bad looking game by any means, I just find it unfortunate that the contrast isn't as good as Patapon's is at allowing me to differentiate the foreground and background.

Music

Ratatan is of course a sort of rhythm game, and as with any rhythm game the score is a very important part of it, that I personally find myself to be a fan of. Every stage has its own soundtrack that becomes livelier if you enter fever by succeeding in several successive rhythm commands, and every Ratatan has a distinct voice for the commands. The soundtrack is very upbeat and catchy, so I enjoyed it quite a bit.

My Impressions and Hopes

All in all I am enjoying this game so far. It is of course an early access release, so there is not yet a lot of content available, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they add to it and will likely revise this in the future. The rhythm gameplay of it scratches the Patapon itch but the game manages to be distinct enough to feel like a new experience. The music is catchy, and I'm a fan of roguelites so I like that aspect of it. The bosses having patterns you can learn also helped me feel that I was improving at the game, and that's always a good thing in my book.

There are some things I dislike, some of which didn't quite fit into other categories. The English localization is pretty rough, and every run goes through areas in the same order, which can be a bit repetitive. I also don't personally feel like having the Ratatan be controlled manually adds much to the game, I'd prefer they be a special unit that's still controlled via rhythm commands if it's going to be there at all, so that the game can feel a bit closer to its inspiration. There are also the contrast issues I mentioned above.

I'm hoping that as more areas and content are added to the game, things will feel less repetitive. Their roadmap, which I've shared below, shows that they're planning to add more things to do, and more types of progression, so I'm sure that'll be the case. Even with the issues I have with it, I am having a blast with this game and will certainly be playing more of it. If you're interested in checking it out, the early access is currently available on Steam, and if you're a fan of Patapon, I definitely recommend this for scratching a similar itch.

VERDICT: Recommended
Reviewed on PC
Review Copy was Provided