A new Famitsu article (untranslated) states the game will have twice the number of levels as its predecessor, so we can only assume that means twice the fun!
1up has more details on the sequel:
Without a doubt, four-player ad-hoc multiplayer is the biggest new addition to the Patapon sequel, tentatively titled Patapon 2. The idea behind the co-op multiplayer mode is simple. In Patapon 2’s single-player story mode, you’ll occasionally come across giant eggs — some of which contain helpful items, some of which hold smaller eggs inside. In order to hatch these suckers, you’ll have to team up with other players and navigate a special enemy-laden multiplayer battleground, using the traditional pata-pata-pata-pon drumbeat to heft the egg forward and defending it whenever monsters loom nearby. Once you arrive at the special egg-hatching altar at the end of the field, all four players will perform a hatching ceremony, a sort of tribal drumline where everyone has to match their rhythms together to crack open the egg.
As Kotani put it to Weekly Famitsu, the original Patapon lacked multiplayer because he thought it would be too hard for players to come to grips with. “You control a lot of characters at once in Patapon, so we thought multiplayer would be too difficult to deal with,” he says. “You wouldn’t have any idea which fighers were under your control. That’s where the Hero Patapon come in.” These Hero Patapon, amusingly enough, play a similar role to the “heroes” in real-time strategy games like Warcraft III — they’re a central unit to your Patapon army, a very powerful character that can be further customized and strengthened with the special items you earn in multiplayer. “[The Hero Patapon] are strong, but the enemies are just as strong this time,” Kotani notes. “There are lots more bosses and midboss-type enemies this time. We’ve got about double the amount of content to explore, just in terms of the number of stages alone. Add the customization options to that, and to be honest, you may never get to fully explore every bit of it.
- Patapon 2 Seeks To Be Twice As Long
Patapon 2 will launch in Japan later this year.
Filed under: PSP | Tagged: 1up, action platformer, famitsu, Patapon, PSP
While Patapon is bare platformer, it is more of a mix of genres. Part music rythm, part RTS, it truly is a weird blend. It has no platform jumping elements, but since you are continualy moving towards the right on a 2D field taking down enemies and collecting items it has its platformer features.
To be honest, I’ve never had a chance to play the original Patapon title but it’s always advertised as a 2D action platformer, so I thought we should follow suit. I really know next to nothing about the series.