Patapon 3: Love-hate relationship. Especially hate.

I’m getting nervous just by thinking about this. I’me completely obsessed.

Background: I’m a super fan of Patapon. I loved the first one and drove me mad. I played more than 40 hours and got in love with each every minigame and little creatures that danced to my buttoning.

I marked in my calendar the 17th April as a magic date, although I waited a bit to make sure the European version was available to be download. In fact I waited a bit more because the moment was too important and I was too busy, with Easter and blah blah.

Well, the moment comes, I install it (the game can’t find my gamesave from Patapon 2… OK, fine), and at the beginning everything was right. After an hour, I started to realize that everything in my mental fantasy was falling down. I thought it would get better after a while pero it didn’t. IT HAS GONE WORSE. And I’m VERY ANGRY. Angry at Sony and everyone who has written a review online because EVERYONE LOVES IT

Well, I’m writing A BAD REVIEW. I will stand for those disappointed gamers that haven’t dared to open their mouths because they’re too scared. I will be the voice of the people. Sorry about the caps but if this would be spoken you would hear me SHOUT.

First and foremost, WHERE ARE THE MINIGAMES?! Please don’t tell me you have listened to those casual tough guys who just want to clear levels and DON’T UNDERSTAND the patapon universe and don’t know what it is to forge your own weapon with your own materiales and make your stews with a chef that cuts carrots… *cry*

I’ve read online that now the minigames “have changed” and now they are races, battles, etc. THOSE ARE NOT MINIGAMES, they’re just different maps that, although welcome, THEY ARE JUST THE SAME GAME of that in the career and, besides, THEY ARE SUPER HARD TO CLEAR. That leads me to another point.

WHY DO I DIE CONSTANTLY? Now it seems that instead of an army you just have four heroes, one for each class and yourself. OK, that is not so funny as changing all the little helmets and shields, but is OK. Well, when the shield class dies, Hatapon or the flag-man becomes vulnerable and dies at once, and when he dies the level is over. WRONG.

Since there aren’t minigames, all the materiales (except meat, you can’t hunt anymore because that would be too boring for tough guys) are just exchangable items like coins, bye bye to the wonderful feeling of getting a good rock from the mountain or a blue-eyed log from the tree that sings bon bonn bonnn ¬¬

And since there are no minigames, the only way to improve your army and level up is completing the same maps again and again until you are bored to death. I guess they suppose people are suddenly SUPER GOOD players and they won’t have to repeat maps or anything because they will master the game. Look, I’m good, but when you have to play for 20 minutes or more WITHOUT MAKING A MISTAKE or losing fever you feel like throwing the psp out of the windows and start playing with the DS. (About videogames difficulty I will talk in another post, I don’t feel strong enough to go on writing in caps.)

The worst part is that I can’t stop playing because… even if it’s only the tenth part of what it used to be… it was something so big… the patapon… I have to keep on playing… I’ll play 100 times the same stage until I am level 40 and I could kill bosses with just an arrow… But I'll keep on playing… :(