Welcome to Japanese game design. Western developers may sometimes lack imagination, but most of the time they wipe the floor with Japan when it comes to usability.
Miss Yellow, I don't think it's a cultural thing. The previous Patapons didn't have any of this front-end junk, at least not to this degree. Patapon 3 includes a lot of changes, some good, and some flat-out awful. I'll have a review on 1up next week, but for what it's worth, I've changed my mind about doing a Patapon 3 game diary. :(
Epic Fail :) I can't even make a generalized statement - there is nothing else that is even like this... Ouch! Do these guys realize games on a portable device are intended for quick play?
The 13-step process to quit out of Assassin's Creed the first on its PC port is a wonderful American (well, Canadian) counterpoint to the Japanese intro of Patapon 3.
Superfluous button presses is becoming one of my major pet peeves. Japanese RPGs are getting very bad about this. Every time I'm in a situation where I'm not actually being given an option, but the game won't proceed with a load or whatever until I press X or A, it's inexcusable. Especially when the game is just lying to me about "loading" when the actual loading won't happen until I press another button. I'm not impressed that you've loaded my save. Keep it to yourself until you've loaded my game.