i really wanted to enjoy this but i kept doing 10 successful advance forward and attack combos and the game expected then me to do something, unfortunately it didn’t explain what that was. kept pissing me off because i would be advancing or attacking normally and then i would trigger the 10 combo thing, throw my rhythm off and make me mess up whatever it was i was doing. basically the game is outlined in a white border that pulses with the beat of the game. when you hit the 10 combo it changes to red and then…something about fever. if i did nothing it would mess up, if i tried to do another combo it would mess up.
there was also the fact that building guys requires you to redo levels so you can get more meat and playing a minigame to get sticks costs you meat to play. so if you screwed up the minigame you’re out meat. the feedback from that minigame where you repeat the tree’s beats confused me since it dropped a stick for me but i never saw where it got saved for me. aside from that i had no idea if i was doing the beats correctly (except for the fact the game ends if you don’t do anything).
also, if your ax guys are attacking, they don’t keep following their targets if they get too far away from the spear guys. they hang in the back and those guys don’t follow their targets, which gets annoying.
Fever mode seems to speed up the tempo, just button press when the outline flashes. As for that tree minigame, I got confused and annoyed at it since for some reason the patapons would hardly kill anything on the meat mission.
On the meat mission (the first mission on the map), remove any axe guys you have from your team - they’ll chase away the targets. Better to just use spear guys.
which my brain is totally unable to handle for some reason. every single time, on the first o button press the game punts me back to the normal tempo mode and the tripping and stopped patapons tell me i screwed up. i can’t even tell you if the fever tempo is faster or slower than normal because i have never gotten past that first button push.
I’m not certain the fever mode is a faster tempo–it may be that it kicks in just a bit off-beat from the regular tempo. I have trouble getting the rhythm started, but frequently can stay there once it’s underway for good chunks of a level, and it doesn’t really feel faster while in the groove of it.
Ahh thanks removing the axe guys made it quite a bit easier, I thought they would run in faster an hit a bit harder then they were. I’m definatly spending the $20 to pick this up.
Fans of underdog stories take note: there might only be one more after Patapon. In fact, “virtually the second to last underdog story” might just be a clever way of saying “the last underdog story”. On the other hand, I suppose it could also mean the third or fourth or fifth to last underdog story. However all that turns out, though, they’re right about it being terrific.
Maybe he means its has all the virtues of being the next-to-last underdog story, but it comes from behind at the last minute and becomes the last underdog story.
What I don’t get about the demo is why I’ll be spending the whole time thinking, “this is way way too simple a mechanic to be an engaging game,” and then look up and it’s two hours later and I’ve played through the demo from beginning to end twice.
It’s the perfect (one might even say the penultimate) $20 game – there’s not a ton of genuine complexity, but while you’re playing through it’s just fun. My only complaints from the demo: 1) The call-and-response bit makes it seem a little mushy and unresponsive, where you feel like the enemy’s getting away and you have to wait until the next measure before you can advance; and 2) In the trumpet mini-game, it’s hard to hear the tree guy’s rhythm.
I thought about the first one a bit because when I first started playing I felt the same way. After awhile I realized that if I plan ahead on when to do what, the timing isn’t really an issue. I had no problems with the tree part personally, but I have read that many people do so you might be on to something there.
