Patapon 1 + 2 Replay

Play it on: PS5, Switch, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Playable”)
Current goal: Defeat the Great Dinosaur Kacchindonga

The Patapon games on PlayStation Portable are the kinds of things they don’t make anymore, in part because dedicated gaming handhelds are now a thing of the past. There’s just not enough money in paying a studio to develop an exclusive trilogy of bespoke rhythm strategy RPGs for your under-powered portable hardware nowadays. Which is a shame. Making that fact sting a little less is being able to finally enjoy the first two Patapon games on modern platforms in HD. New generations need to know what they missed out on.

The bold, simple art style really pops and the music is even better than I remember it. If you pick up the collection, you should skip right to Patapon 2, which is essentially a beefed up and expanded Ultimate Edition of the first game, unless you’re a diehard fan and want to squeeze every last hour of drum-thumbing goodness out of both games. Grinding hunts to upgrade your little armies and take down tanking bosses with perfectly executed marching medleys still hits. Even if you don’t plan on playing it at all you should buy it so we might someday, at long last, get Patapon 4. Of course, we sort of already are. Original designer Hiroyuki Kotani is making a spiritual successor called Ratatan and it’s coming to Early Access later this month. — Ethan Gach