Patapon 1+2 Replay was provided by Bandai Namco for review. Thank you!
When I think back to the PSP era, there are multiple different titles that come to my mind that defined the system. While I think of classics like Crisis Core, Dissidia, and Peace Walker, Patapon is quite possibly the only one I never got a chance to experience personally. The game was constantly shown off as a staple of the device, and I had always been curious what the game was like, and now with Patapon 1+2 Replay, I finally had the chance to. Now, after playing through, I can see why it was so highly regarded.
Patapon 1+2 Replay is a re-release of the first two games in the Patapon series with some minor changes. The actual games themselves have not been changed, apart from higher resolution support, but it does have some new quality of life features like being able to change the difficulty for each game, adjust the timing of button presses, and keep all of your commands that you can issue showing on screen. They are small changes, but quite nice to have. Bringing up the list of commands while playing by pressing the Select button is a nice touch, and I used it when I took breaks from playing and came back, forgetting the command to block.
Outside of these changes, there isn't much new added to the games, so returning players may not find much reason to come back. New players will find a lot to love here, and it's definitely a great way to experience these games, but there isn't much new here for those who have played them before.
At its core, the Patapon games are all about rhythm. You guide these little eyeball creatures while fighting enemies, hunting for food, taking down bosses, and tearing down buildings to complete each level using different commands. The commands are activated by pressing one of four buttons to the rhythm of the beat, with different patterns telling your Patapon to do different things. This can be as simple as moving forward or attacking, or get a little more complicated, like making them jump and charging up energy for the next attack.
This is where the core gameplay gets really enticing. Deciding which command to use in the moment can determine whether you complete the level or not. Choosing when to move forward, when to defend, and when to attack will determine whether you kill the boss or get the buffalo that can give you meat that you need for your Patapon army. On top of that, it all has to go to the beat of the music, which adds a new level of strategy and focus. Putting it all together makes for an extremely addictive gameplay loop that I found hard to stop. Putting together more successful commands one after another can also land us in Fever Mode, which can enhance your commands and triple your attack damage.
Speaking of the music, it's just such a bop. I was moving my head and feet to the beat the entire time, and I loved it. It made inputting the commands significantly easier as well, since I felt in tune with the beat. The game emphasizes each of the four commands as different drum beats, which all make distinct sounds, yet fuse into the overall beat to make the song much more enjoyable to listen to and influence.
It's a very basic gameplay loop and simple controls, really only needing four buttons to play through the levels, but it works extremely well. There were some levels where it lasted a little longer than I expected, and I did get confused when trying to progress through different levels due to a lack of explanation, but I ended up figuring it out. The levels you play through may have different elements to pay attention to, and some can be easily missed if you don't think to look.
As you play through, there are different gear and items that can drop from enemies. The Patapon army can be customized and enhanced with new units and equipment, making them more powerful, and finding the best combination of units to go out with. On top of that, each unit can evolve and become more powerful individually. In Patapon 1, this will depend on the items you use to create them, while Patapon 2 has an Evolution Map. The grinding in Patapon 1 to get the items and money to craft can be a little obnoxious, but I like the system overall.
Outside of the missions, there isn't much to do. There are some mini-games and replayable missions here and there, but I didn't find much motivation to continue experimenting with new Patapon and grinding for better equipment after completing the game. The gameplay to get to the end is worth playing through, and I really enjoyed experimenting and customizing my army during the campaign, but I wasn't feeling excited to keep going afterwards.
I do enjoy the visual style of both games. The contrasting, vibrant colors pop on the OLED screen, and the simple contrasting colors help everything stand out that needs to. The simplistic visuals work wonders for this type of game.
As expected, Patapon 1+2 Replay is a perfect fit for the Steam Deck, and it's quite possibly the best way to play it on PC. With the originals releasing on the PSP, it's a no-brainer that it just feels the best on a portable device, and the Deck is the way to go. Without any changes, the game sticks around 6.5W battery drain on average, giving us 8+ hours of battery life on the Steam Deck OLED. For those who just want to play, you can jump in with no worries, but there are some ways to make the experience better.
The game defaults to turning off Anti-Aliasing, MSAA, and keeping render scale at 100%. While the game is very playable this way, you can turn everything on the highest possible settings with render scale at 200% and get an average battery drain of 8W. This does bring down the battery life from 8 hours to around 6.5, but this is still a large amount of battery life for a better-looking image. Turning on one or two of these options can bring the battery drain up to 7 - 7.5W, so if you want to turn them on, you may as well turn them all on.
Since the visual changes are small, I decided to just leave it with the default settings. Turning them on does make the Patapon a bit smoother around the edges, but it isn't enough to make me feel like it's an essential change. Still, there's no wrong way to play, and it will be an amazing experience no matter what. I also want to commend Bandai Namco for adding the in-game actions to Steam Input to make it easy to change the bindings around. The game is rated Playable for showing incorrect controller icons, and due to how the game is structured, I would say it's accurate. It is still very playable, but the Playable rating makes sense here:
You can change each individual game level difficulty, input timing, and master volume, but that's about all the options you have in the settings.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it does have controller and cloud save support. There are no HDR settings.
Patapon 1+2 Replay is a great compilation of two of the best PSP games to release on the console. The combination of rhythm and strategy to command your Patapon army is a joy, and the music is so addictive. It can feel a little grindy at times, but the army and equipment customization and evolving your Patapons are a lot of fun. There isn't much new for those who have played Patapon 1 and 2 before, but for those who haven't, this is a great way to experience these classics.
The games also run extremely well on the Steam Deck, even with all the quality settings turned to the max. It feels right at home on the Deck with a 6.5 - 8 hour battery life, and I can't see myself playing it any other way.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
Afterlove EP was provided by Fellow Traveller for review. Thank you!
Afterlove EP presents us with the last story from Mohammad Fahmi, the creator of Coffee Talk and What Comes After, before his passing in 2022. Unfortunately, that fact may fill you with more emotion than the game's storyline. Although the game affected me at points, it instead seemed to water down certain points more than I would have liked.
The game begins with a short prologue in which our protagonist, Rama, enjoys time with his girlfriend, Cinta, and his bandmates. By the time the prologue ends, Cinta has unexpectedly passed away from a short illness, and the game fast-forwards one year, in which Rama has (or rather, hasn't) been coping with the grief, causing the band to fall apart and Rama to drift away from his friends.
Afterlove EP then follows Rama's life over the next month as he tries to get things back on track by rebuilding his friendships with his bandmates, finding a new love interest, and seeking therapy because he can hear Cinta speaking to him and occasionally see her throughout the game.
While I found the beginning of the story quite compelling and emotional, the game does sort of gradually shift into more of a "dating sim." Afterlove EP has well-written conversations, and the voice actress for Cinta does a great job as she comments on Rama's actions as he struggles through each day, but the game feels kind of... shallow.
The game takes place over a month, and while I get that decision from a gameplay perspective, it minimizes the themes it hopes to explore. You go from not having any contact with your bandmates for a year to being good friends with them again, grieving over your deceased girlfriend, to professing your love for someone else, all in less than a month. By the end of it all, you kind of wonder how much Rama has improved or just shifted into another unhealthy situation.
That's not to say the story is bad; it's just not what I was expecting. Afterlove EP often has a light-hearted feel despite the friction and drama caused by the grief in the friend group. Cinta's voice in Rama's head is often humorous and pokes fun at him, and the game seems to use it for comic relief at times, which is odd considering why Rama can hear Cinta.
While I did enjoy the storyline of Afterlove EP, and it hit some emotional notes for sure, the gameplay side of things was a bit more hit-and-miss. I felt some curious choices were made when interacting with objects in the game world, like certain characters and interactable objects are positioned close together for no reason, meaning you could easily miss a prompt to interact with something in a room.
Navigating the city is cool, and it's great to see all of the art done for the game, but at the same time, it can seem superfluous. A fair chunk of game time is spent trying to find where you're headed to, then getting there, going through 5-10 minutes of dialogue, and then trying to find the next place to go.
This choice can make sense later on, as players can decide how to spend their day, whether to go to therapy to help Rama with his feelings, hang out with his friends, etc. But a lot of the time, you have only one choice in what to do, and it felt a little pointless making the player travel to each location. Most of the filler NPCs you meet have repetitive and uninteresting dialogue, and there aren't any easter eggs or rewards to find except certain places triggering memories of Cinta.
Given the Visual Novel nature of the game, I feel like players should have been presented with choices of who to hang out with that day and then go into a cutscene of traveling there.
I also felt that some conversation choices were a little pointless. The choices you're given are often down the path that the game wants you to follow. If the game wants you to disagree with someone, you must disagree with them, likewise for agreeing. I understand the game is largely about grief and following Rama's story as he copes with it, but why give the player a choice if you've already made that decision for them?
A few times throughout the game, you'll also be playing songs on the guitar in the form of a rhythm game. It's a pretty basic game, but it works well enough, and the songs recorded for the game are also pretty neat.
Afterlove EP does present itself well, with an art style that kind of reminded me of the mid-2000s Flash games, but it is done well. The music is also pretty good and helps convey the atmosphere the game is going for, which you'd hope for a game that's largely based on the subject matter. Sadly, the game flashes up the lyrics to the song as you play the rhythm game mode, and you're too busy watching the notes to hit to be able to read what the song is about.
Is Afterlove EP a bad game? Not at all. It can be emotional, it can be entertaining, and it can make some profound statements on various life situations that will probably hit the mark for the majority of players. But there are some gameplay and pacing issues with the story that I wasn't a huge fan of. The game is reasonably priced, so if you want to dive into a mostly visual-novel dating sim that is a bit different from the norm, you should try it.
As you might imagine, Afterlove EP has fairly basic requirements. The game has full controller support, and despite not listing 1280x800 as a resolution, it does fill the Steam Deck's display.
There are no graphical settings to adjust, and we can easily run the whole game at 90 FPS with a 6W TDP Limit.
The power draw hung around 8W-9W, with temperatures around 55-60C. So expect around 5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and 3.5 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
The only accessibility option in Afterlove EP is to have the game auto-hit the notes in the rhythm sections. All dialogue, including Cinta's voiced dialogue, is subtitled.
Afterlove EP gets some things right with a strong start to the story that will make you feel emotional. However, as the days carry on, Rama seems consumed by finding a new love interest while he's still in a bad way from his previous girlfriend's death, and at times, it feels as though the game is pushing you toward making bad decisions on Rama's behalf. If you don't look too deeply at the overall situation, though, there are still entertaining conversations and relatable points to be made.
You also can't fault how Afterlove EP runs on the Steam Deck, with perfect controls, performance, and a long battery life, meaning the game is perfect to play on your handheld devices.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back.
