When Bandai Namco Entertainment brought back Sony’s Freedom Wars as Freedom Wars Remastered, I kept hoping we’d see the likes of Soul Sacrifice and potentially other older Sony handheld games remastered for modern systems. I didn’t expect the first release to follow Freedom Wars to be a bundle featuring both Patapon and Patapon 2, but here we are. Nearly two decades after both games launched on PSP, Patapon 1+2 Replay is now available on Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Steam with a slew of new features and enhancements. I’m going to focus on the Nintendo Switch version played on both my Nintendo Switch OLED and Nintendo Switch 2 for this review.
If you’re new to the series, both Patapon and Patapon 2 are rhythm strategy games with some RPG elements that take place on a 2D plane. Your aim is to press the face buttons in a specific order (each button is a different kind of drum) alongside the rhythm of the song, using the face buttons to command the Patapons to attack, move, and basically get to the end of each stage. These commands initially let you just move forward or attack, but you soon start getting more options as the game progresses.
The Patapons are a tribe that serves as the protagonist of this series, and they worship you, the player. The Patapon tribe has various types of units you play around with to build your army. This is where the strategy aspect comes into the picture, because you get to decide which units or classes to bring on a specific stage, their equipment, and more. There’s actually a story here involving the Patapon tribe, their history, and their journey to reach Earthend. This takes place through some cut-scenes that can be skipped in this new bundle.
While most Patapon fans have been around since the PSP versions, my first taste of the series was actually through the mediocre PS4 remaster, which I dropped a few days later because it did not feel good enough. To get a good idea of what Patapon was for this review, I bought the PSP original on PS Vita. Yes, that’s still available to buy digitally if you own a PS Vita. After spending a few hours with it, I could see what Bandai Namco Entertainment has done to make Patapon more accessible.
Patapon 1+2 Replay includes the first two games together with higher resolution visuals, 60 frames per second (fps) support, and a few support features. This is very much a bundle of two remasters and nothing more. I’d have loved to see some bonus content included, like maybe interviews with the team working on this port and a museum feature like we see in other retro game collections. Still, I can’t really complain about the value offered here, especially for newcomers. This bundle will get you well over 30 hours of rhythm action goodness with the Patapon chants and music getting burned into your memory for sure, even a few hours in.
The support or accessibility options included are three difficulty modes that seem to mainly affect how lenient the Fever mode is with timing for the normal combos remaining unaffected as far as I can tell, the ability to display the command or combos for each action at all times in levels by pressing the help button, and being able to skip pre-rendered cut-scenes.
Visually, Patapon’s minimalist aesthetic shines with higher resolution visuals and smoother performance than the original. The new font is also better than the original. My only complaint is that some of the button prompts on Switch use low-resolution assets that stick out compared to how crisp the rest of the game looks in handheld. Patapon’s aesthetic really is timeless, and while there are some elements that I thought should’ve been handled better, especially in cutscenes, it definitely is better than playing the PSP original across the board. Aside from visuals, Patapon and Patapon 2’s music and sound effects are still as good and shine on handhelds with good speakers. Maybe if this does well enough, we can see Patapon 3 brought over and a nice big bundle soundtrack for all of the games.
One of the major complaints with Patapon’s remaster on PS4 was the input lag. I was curious to see how it would feel in Patapon 1+2 Replay. I’ve focused on playing in handheld mode, and I have no complaints with Patapon 1+2 Replay on my Switch OLED and Switch 2. While I usually play most Switch games on Switch 2 for faster loading and improved performance, I think Patapon 1+2 Replay is more suited to the Switch OLED since the minimalist and stylized aesthetic is elevated by the gorgeous OLED display and also because it is a Switch game so it feels better on that screen rather than upscaled on the Switch 2.
If you don’t have access to a Switch OLED and only play on Switch 2, it isn’t bad, in fact, I replayed the first few levels on PS Vita, Switch OLED, Switch 2, and didn’t miss a single combo. I think it plays great across those devices, but you can tell the game is a lower resolution when played on Switch 2, with the aliased edges being more visible. Given how light Patapon 1+2 Replay is to run on PC, I was hoping this would be one of those Switch games that rendered at 1080p in handheld mode so it would look crisp on Switch 2.
Speaking of the PC version, I also had access to Patapon 1+2 Replay on Steam, and I played it on my Steam Deck OLED and ROG Ally. Like with the Switch OLED, Patapon 1+2 Replay shines on the Steam Deck OLED, and I only changed the screen refresh rate to 60hz to match the game’s 60fps target. I didn’t have to tweak anything else. I was surprised that while the Switch version displays ABXY button prompts for gameplay, the PC version only uses arrows to indicate which face button to press. I assume this is because the developers did not want to add button prompts for various controllers. It is a bit disappointing, but I got used to it.
There is one aspect that I hope the developers work on for patches. While I spent the majority of my time with the Switch version in handheld mode, I noticed the input timing option on the title screen only has one setting. I think Patapon 1+2 Replay should be updated to allow for an individual setting per game and separately for docked and handheld play. I didn’t need to change anything when playing handheld, but I noticed that I needed to make some tweaks when playing on my 1440p gaming monitor compared to the TV I tested on before.
Having now spent the better part of the last week playing Patapon 1+2 Replay across multiple devices and the original PSP version on PS Vita, I’ve grown to appreciate the series more. Patapon 1+2 Replay isn’t perfect. It could use a better input timing calibration option for those who play docked, and some of the UI elements are a bit blurry on Nintendo Switch. However, this is one of the easiest recommendations for anyone who likes unique rhythm games. I recommend sticking to handheld mode for the best possible experience on Switch, though.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review copy provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment
