A classic PlayStation series that is synonymous with Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld is coming back in the form of a new spiritual successor. For the most part, many of the biggest games that appeared on the PSP happened to be spin-offs from larger franchises that were on PS2 and PS3. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and Daxter are just a handful of the PSP’s biggest titles that happened to follow this format. In the case of Patapon, though, the Sony-published series happened to be developed solely for PSP alongside its two sequels. And while the Patapon franchise has been dormant since 2011, it’s now coming back in a new form.
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As reported by VGC, Patapon creator Hiroyuki Kotani has announced Ratatan, which is a new spiritual successor to the Patapon series. Ratatan doesn’t have anything to do directly with Patapon or PlayStation, but its overall style is a direct callback to the PSP series. Details tied to Ratatan are still being kept under wraps for the time being, although it is known that the game will enter a crowdfunding phase at the end of this month on July 31 via Kickstarter. When that happens, we should get a much deeper look at what Ratatan will have in store.
Until then, you can check out the teaser trailer for Ratatan below:
Despite having so much in common with Patapon at first glance, Kotani explained that he wanted to create a new project that differs from what fans may expect from that series. Specifically, it was said that Ratatan will incorporate roguelike elements and multiplayer gameplay, which is something that Patapon never featured. Following work on Ratatan, Kotani also said that he’d very much be open to collaborating with PlayStation on another Patapon title down the road.
“Patapon was a really unique experience at the time of its release and reflected the development environment of that era. We wanted to make another game like that for the modern age,” he said. “There’s a possibility of maybe doing a Patapon sequel in the future, but for this we really wanted to make our own game, in our own style, with specific types of gameplay that reflect what we want. After that, if there’s a chance to speak to Sony about doing a Patapon sequel then we’ll go from there.”
What do you think about Ratatan based on what we’ve seen so far? And did you happen to play the Patapon series for yourself back when it released on PSP? Let me know either down in the comments or hit me up on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
