notes from underground

Dubbed “the new Katamari” by my housemates for its insane visual style, slightly psychotic gameplay and all-consuming soundtrack, Patapon is the main reason I won’t give my friend’s PSP back to him. Penny Arcade made a very good set of arguments against the game, and I agree with all of the points made in their newspost, but as Tycho blogged later on, “I had to play Patapon for quite awhile before I figured out why I didn’t like it, and then I had to be quite sure I didn’t, and then I had to play it some more for some reason I don’t entirely understand.” It’s that kind of game.

As noted, a good portion of the game’s charm and addictive qualities stem from its unique visual style, which was a product of French artist and designer Rolito. Gamasutra has put up an interview with Rolito, or you can head straight to his blog to investigate his other creations: they are by and large the same style, which means they are awesome. So awesome, in fact, that in this case the art came first–an interview with Patapon’s creative director Hiroyuki Kotani reveals that he created the game for Rolito’s characters, and not the other way around. This is an approach usually seen in marketing campaigns and movie spin-offs and rarely results in a new, creative product. I suppose I might make an exception if, say, Takashi Murakami wanted to create a game, because the visuals in such a work would blow your mind, but in general it makes me very happy to see the game designers making the first move. It is refreshing to see a game being created for a character because they deserve a game and not because the character creators want a new stream of revenue.

Patapon, for all its faults (you can’t disband a Patapon once they have been created, and you can only have so many of one type) is a fantastic game that is well worth your time. I feel my appreciation of the PSP is slightly skewed from only having played Katamari and Patapon on it… I am beginning to associate it exculsively with fantastic game design and addictive gameplay, especially with Echochrome coming out; still, for all the game-chaff I know is out there I want to be along for the ride if these are good examples of where game design is going.