Aah, the Patapon. A tiny tribe of round people (a bit like eyeballs with legs - think Mike from Monsters Inc.), who are desperately searching for IT. Don't know what I'm talking about? Don't worry - everything will become clear when you play this game, and play it you must.

Patapon is a rhythm game, sort of, so I'll start with a little rhythmic limerick.

Pata pata pata PON!
Pata pata pata PON!
Pon pon pata PON!
This game is a flawed masterpiece!

Okay, so that didn't really work - but trust me when I say that after you've played Patapon for any length of time (and, if you buy it, you will play it), your head will be full of simple rhythms and funky tunes. These little guys jump out of the screen, go through your eyes and get inside your brain. It's brilliant.

What is it, though? Well, that's easy to describe. In terms of genre, it's a rhythm-based god-sim RTS war platformer RPG. Got that? Not surprised, really. Let's try again; what we have here is primarily a rhythm game. You control your little people (the Patapon) by beating on your drums (each of which is mapped to one of the four face buttons on the console). There's a four-four beat going on and you have to keep time with it. You hit your drums four times, the Patapon respond with a little chant, and - here's the clever bit - do whatever it was you just ordered them to do. So you can get them to move forward, attack, defend, retreat and so on, all with your simple drum rhythms. Easy, eh? If you miss a beat or get your patterns wrong, the little people stop what they're doing and complain. If you get several patterns right in a row then they go into a frenzy, doubling the power of their attacks.

The main aim of the game is to move your tribe from left to right across a scrolling level, defeating enemies, solving simple puzzles and discovering goodies. Sometimes there's a big boss and, until you've learned the patterns to take it down, your little people will be wiped out. Occasionally you'll pick up some new weapons or armour, which can then be given to your troops in between battles. Sometimes you'll earn a new type of Patapon, which can then be created and added to your army at will, as long as you have the resources (which are, you've guessed it, collected during the battles). There are different types of battle and there are a couple of mini-games, but they all play out in the same basic way; you hit your drums, your little people respond and a fight ensues.

When Patapon is described like that, it's very easy to see what the flaw is. After a while, it all gets a little bit repetitive (a common problem with rhythm games). You end up having to fight through the same battles over and over again in order to collect enough resources to successfully take out the next boss. You can fight the bosses over and over, too, but they get harder each time you beat them (a good thing, in some ways, but before too long you'll reach the point of no return). The rhythms are incredibly catchy and the gameplay is amazingly addictive, but at some point you will catch yourself thinking, "I've been doing this for hours".

Why such a good score, then? Easy - because, before the repetition hits you, you'll have a fantastic time playing Patapon - guaranteed. Even - and this is important - even if you don't like rhythm games. This is because there's an element of strategy (how do I best approach this level?) and an element of roleplaying (which of my troops would benefit most from this new item?) and sim-like management (how shall I spend my limited resources?); because of all this, you're not really playing a 'normal' rhythm game. There's no 'Simon-says' style button-pressing here; actually, the characters on the screen copy your rhythms, not the other way round. The developers have even got the difficulty just right, too; although your rhythms need to be roughly in time, you'll not be punished for getting a drum beat a semi-demi-crotchet-quaver-minim out (you can probably tell I'm not a musical type). If you make a hash of it then you'll you're your momentum (and, if you've worked the little guys into a frenzy, you'll lose that too), but you can normally pick up and carry on. The difficulty comes from a subtle blend of all the game's elements, not just getting perfect rhythms. You have to remember all the correct drum sequences for a start (not an easy thing in the heat of the battle) and some of them are quite twisty on the old fingers. You'll want to keep the Patapon in frenzy, too, but again, when some big boss is beating you down you'll all-too-easily get panicked and lose the rhythm. Even between battles when you're spending resources, you need to get it right. So there's plenty of difficulty here, but it's well balanced and not all about keeping perfect time.

You might have guessed by now that I think Patapon is pretty damn good - and you'd be right. Let's talk for a moment about the thing that (cynical hat on) actually sells games. The graphics. By now you'll have looked at the screenshots and perhaps are thinking "my PSP is capable of so much more!" Well, yes, it is, but, and let's be brutal here, if handheld games were all about the graphics then where would the DS be? Yes, this game has simplistic graphics. Yes, the PSP barely breaks a sweat displaying them. No, the screenshots don't do them justice. They're a whole lot better when they're animated; in fact, when they're moving around I'd go so far as to say they're excellent. Everything moves smoothly, everything looks funky, everything has style. More than this, though, is the fact that all the little animations are superb and really add to the atmosphere of the game. The Patapon are unbearably cute, from the little dances they do when you get things wrong to the leaping attacks they perform when you get it right. When an enemy is in sight they frown angrily at it - an impressive sight on a creature that is, basically, an eyeball on legs. The enemies are equally well animated; they stride forward aggressively, retreat in abject terror, die humorously and even taunt your little people. Big bosses move smoothly and with real menace; you will probably panic when you see one of them winding up for a big attack (until you've worked out how to counter it, that is). I've said this before and I'll say it again; don't trust the screenshots - they lie! This is a good-looking game.

It sounds good, too, as you might expect. The tunes are simple, catchy and fun. The rhythms are, as I've already said, four-four (which, if you're a musical dunderhead like me, sounds like this; DUM da da da), which makes keeping up with them easy. Well, easy enough so that if you get it wrong then it's your fault and not the game throwing random curveballs at you. The Patapon's chanting is supremely cute and all the little sound effects work well too - the whistle of flying spears, the thud of attack, the cheering of victory and so on. The only thing I would say is that this is, very definitely, a headphones-only game - you'll need to really hear the beats and the PSP's little speakers aren't really up to the job.

In fact, the only thing Patapon really lacks is a multiplayer mode. It would have been nice if you could have sent your little army up against another one, even if it was just on a machine-to-machine basis. But no, there's nothing - no multiplayer at all. It's a real shame, although it's not a deal-breaker. There are some mini-games, which are still rhythm-based. They're a bit more 'traditional' though, in that you're copying rhythms the game gives you, rather than creating your own.

Patapon is a brilliant game that deserves to be inside your PSP, especially at the price. I would go so far to say that it's one of the best games on the system. The only reason it didn't score higher is because of its ultimately repetitive nature and its lack of a multiplayer mode. I'll wrap this up with a quote from the Patapon themselves (taken slightly out of context); compared to other rhythm games, this will "smack them bottoms". It's a flawed masterpiece, but cheap as chips - so buy it now and thank me later.

Reviewed by Dom Turner for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).