History YMMV / Patapon

* ThatOneLevel

** The Evilmass of Adamance in ''Patapon 3'', for having a puzzle which is [[FakeDifficulty completely incogruous to the game's mechanics]]. The first floor is no problem; the OneHitKill guillotines only drop on a timer which is handily displayed at the top of the screen, meaning you just have to not be stupid to get past them. The second floor is where the stupidity arises; in order to pass the guillotines ''there'', you have to [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption deliberately step on the pressure plate that activates them]] and then stay on them to prevent them from acting again. Needless to say, in a game where inputting the command to move forward and moving forward takes combined total of around four seconds, the level of precision required here is almost impossible to actually avoid the guillotines ''and'' hold the pressure plate down simultaneously without one of your party members getting instantly killed. And guess what? Even though this floor has Revive potions so you can restore your fallen party members, it also has respawning kibatans, meaning if you lost your shield classes to a guillotine then it almost guarantees [[KeystoneArmy Hatapon's death]] since virtually nothing can protect him from a kibatan's lance at close range. To clear this dungeon, you will either have to be super lucky or super careful.

*** You encounter Cyclopes early on, and they're easy enough to deal with -- retreat when they tap the ground, advance or guard when they grab at the ground. But the Purple Cyclopes have a habit of smacking you around multiple times per command, and can even outlast a Defense Command, dealing heavy damage to your Shield and/or Spear unit(s). They also have more health and higher offense than normal Cyclopse.

** In all three games, Yumitons/mens/tans/deths with [[StatusInflictionAttack status effect bows]]. Because they stand so far away from your army, usually behind a phalanx of frontline soldiers or buildings, it becomes impossible to take them out even with their nonexistent health while they prevent your army from working cohesively by setting them on fire, putting them to sleep, freezing them, etc. This just makes it more difficult to complete a mission that involves attacking enemy fortifications, though the Party song(PATA PON DON CHAKA) which alleviates status effects does wonders to make them less annoying. Even with that song, the frequency with which you'll have to play it can be infuriating at times thanks to them.

** The Evilmass of Adamance in ''Patapon 3''. It doesn't help that a certain guillotine gives players a GuideDangIt moment or even glitch out on you unexpectedly.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The Dark Ones tribe in general. They're the souls of the undead given corporeal form (and might even be [[CameBackStrong all the Zigotons you killed in the first game]] given what we know about [[spoiler:Kuwagattan and Dark One being Beetleton and Makoton BackForTheDead]]), are essentially the Patapon universe's TheLegionsOfHell, but they show up only in a few levels in the middle of ''Patapon 2''. There's no detailed explanation who they are besides being "the servants of Black Hoshipon" and why are they helping the Karmens before getting locked in the Underworld again.

** In all three games, Yumitons/Mens/Tans/Deths with [[StatusInflictionAttack status effect bows]]. Because they stand so far away from your army, usually behind a phalanx of frontline soldiers or buildings, it becomes impossible to take them out even with their nonexistent health while they prevent your army from working cohesively by setting them on fire, putting them to sleep, freezing them, etc. This just makes it more difficult to complete a mission that involves attacking enemy fortifications, though the Party song(PATA PON DON CHAKA) which alleviates status effects does wonders to make them less annoying. Even with that song, the frequency with which you'll have to play it can be infuriating at times thanks to them.

* GoddamnedBats: ''Patapon 3'' introduces mini-bosses, like Balrogs and Reapers. Which are effectively as good as a down-leveled boss who continuously respawn until you destory their building.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: A general complaint people have with Patapon 3 is that it's too punishing on single-player. Ton, Chin and Kan pale in comparison to your Uberhero, who contributes most of the damage. Without them, your party doesn't have enough strength and firepower to clear the rest of a dungeon floor if they die too early. If you don't choose Taterazay at the start of the game, do your best to keep Chin (Shield-class Patapon) alive because once they're dead you have no contingency for keeping Hatapon alive. Bosses will also start attacking out of rhythm, the core gameplay mechanic, which means it's no longer about skill at that point and hoping you've grinded enough to survive. The fact that most of these problems are mitigated or outright bypassed by playing online with other Uberheroes only feeds to the sentiment.

* ContestedSequel: ''Patapon 3'' is definitely the odd one out. While the first two games are mostly similar, ''3'' suddenly ditches the tactical war game element and makes the game into an RPG, hyper-stylizes the artstyle so that it looks nothing like the last two games, kills off most of the characters you know and love, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives you a pause button]]. On the plus side, it has some of the most memorable villains and bosses in the series, the story is the best it's ever been and the hyper-stylization and [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic rockin' soundtrack]] makes it feel quite {{Animesque}} at times. Its focus on CoOpMultiplayer while heavily limiting the single-player experience also gets mixed reactions, depending on who has got a chance to use multiplayer.

* ItsHardSoItSucks: A general complaint people have with Patapon 3 is that it's too punishing on single-player. Ton, Chin and Kan pale in comparison to your Uberhero, who contributes most of the damage. Without them, your party doesn't have enough strength and firepower to clear the rest of a dungeon floor if they die too early. If you don't choose Taterazay at the start of the game, do your best to keep Chin (Shield-class Patapon) alive because once they're dead you have no contingency for keeping Hatapon alive. Bosses will also start attacking out of rhythm, the core gameplay mechanic, which means it's no longer about skill at that point and hoping you've grinded enough to survive.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: If you're playing online in ''Patapon 3'', expect other heroes to almost always be A) Grenburr (deals ridiculous amounts of damage) B) Cannasault (deals ridiculous amounts of damage) C) Cannogabang (deals ridiculous amounts of damage) D) Tondenga (though slow, deals great damage and has decent HP, and is one of the earliest classes unlocked). There's a surprising decent number of the two mage classes though, both the healer and the ranged attacker. But other classes such as Wooyari and Pyokorider are seldom seen.

* TheWoobie: Makoton started out as just your average Zigoton soldier posted in BleakBorderBase, with nothing of note about him except a crush on his postmate Aiton. When [[spoiler:Aiton dies]], Makoton is thrown into such a rage born from grief that [[ButtMonkey he spends the rest of the first game trying and failing to destroy the Patapons]], even [[spoiler:[[DealWithTheDevil selling his soul]] to a demon in the process! It's already not hard to feel bad for the poor guy, who's by that point not even allowed to join Aiton in death, but he gets resurrected in every game by ''three separate demonic entities'' and has to serve them with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia no memories]] other than his hatred for Pataons. When he only starts to recover his memories in ''3'', other Dark Heroes pull an immediate YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness on him]]. The only thing he really did wrong was being in the way of the Patapons' advance at the wrong time.

** Dettankarmen and Zuttankarmen from ''2'' suddenly have attacks that are relatively ''lightning-fast'' compared to the other bosses and don't conform. They're also one of the only bosses in the series to immediately follow up an attack with another attack, which can catch you completely off guard the first time and still stumble you after you've memorized their moveset.
** Patapon 3 has this in ''spades'': the minibosses turned what was once simple farming missions into headache-inducing battles. Fortunately, to compensate, players always get experience at appropriate levels, even for failed missions.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The Dark Ones tribe in general. They're the souls of the undead given corporeal form (and might even be [[CameBackStrong all the Zigotons you killed in the first game]] given what we know about [[spoiler:Kuwagattan and Dark One being Beetleton and Makoton BackForTheDead]]), are essentially the Patapon universe's TheLegionsOfHell, but they show up only in a few levels in the middle of ''Patapon 2''. There's no detailed explanation who they are besides being "the servants of Black Hoshipon" and why are they helping Karmen before getting locked in the Underworld again.

* TheWoobie: Makoton started out as just your average Zigoton soldier posted in BleakBorderBase, with nothing of note about him except a crush on his postmate Aiton. When [[spoiler:Aiton dies]], Makoton is thrown into such a rage born from grief that [[TheChewToy he spends the rest of the first game trying and failing to destroy the Patapons]], even [[spoiler:[[DealWithTheDevil selling his soul]] to a demon in the process! It's already not hard to feel bad for the poor guy, who's by that point not even allowed to join Aiton in death, but he gets ressurected in every game by ''three separate demonic entities'' and has to serve them with [[LaserGuidedAmnesia no memories]] other than his hatered for Pataons. When he only starts to recover his memories in ''3'', other Dark Heroes pull an immediate YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness on him]]. The only thing he really did wrong was being in the way of Patapon's advance at the wrong time.

** Gorl, the final boss in the first game, has telegraphed attacks like the other bosses and is much less challenging than [[PreFinalBoss Queen Kharma]], whom needs to be defeated quickly before your army is defeated. That being said, its Beast Form is still quite unpredictable and it posesses a OneHitKill grab attack wth a very short window to dodge, so it's still a threat, just perhaps not as much as the build-up to it would have implied it to be.

** Gorl, the final boss in the first game, has telegraphed attacks like the other bosses and is much less challenging than Queen Kharma, whom needs to be defeated quickly before your army is defeated. That being said, its Beast Form is still quite unpredictable and it posesses a OneHitKill grab attack wth a very short window to dodge, so it's still a threat, just perhaps not as much as the build-up to it would have implied it to be.

* AntiClimaxBoss: General Kuwagattan is built up throughout several of the Dark One levels of the second game as a threat rivaling General Beetleton from the first game (especially weird because [[spoiler: he literally IS the resurrected General Beetleton]]) or even Gong the Hawkeye, but he only shows up in one level as a glorified Dekamen with a telegraphed attack that can be easily staggered into oblivion and has to be bailed out by Black Hoshipon and a giant mushroom.
* BreatherBoss: The final boss in the first game, which relies on pattern memorization like many other bosses, is much less annoying than [[BigBad the penultimate boss]], which relies on defeating it quickly before getting defeated.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: You're the god of a tribe of eyeball people, which you must command into battle against other tribes of eyeball people by drumming four sacred, colored drums, so they can reach their ultimate objective -- IT, which is located at the end of the Earth and no one knows what it is, but is said to grant eternal happiness. Along the way, you deal with masks with great powers that wipe out memories when worn; giant multicolored Easter eggs with several SealedGoodInACan inside, including a princess and the core of the world; massive {{Eldritch Abomination}}s with a second head on their stomach; star-shaped people that drop money from their body, demons, and even overweight djinns. Yep, not made on drugs indeed.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Gong is very much well-liked, so much so that [[spoiler:he gets revived in ''Patapon 2'' and plays an important role in ''Patapon 3'' as well]].

** In ''Patapon 3'', certain Uberhero classes can make later levels very easy.

* ContestedSequel: ''Patapon 3'' is definitely the odd one out. While the first two games are mostly similar, ''3'' suddenly ditches the tactical war game element and makes the game into an RPG, hyper-stylizes the artstyle so that it looks nothing like the last two games, kills off most of the characters you know and love, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives you a pause button]]. On the plus side, it has some of the most memorable villains and bosses in the series, the story is the best it's ever been and the hyper-stylization and [[AutobotsRockOut rockin' soundtrack]] makes it feel quite {{Animesque}} at times. Its focus on CoOpMultiplayer while heavily limiting the single-player experience also gets mixed reactions, depending on who has got a chance to use multiplayer.

* ContestedSequel: ''Patapon 3'' is definitely the odd one out. While the first two games are mostly similar, ''3'' suddenly ditches the tactical war game element and makes the game into an RPG, hyper-stylizes the artstyle so that it looks nothing like the last two games, kills off most of the characters you know and love, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives you a pause button]]. On the plus side, it has some of the most memorable villains and bosses in the series, the story is the best it's ever been and the hyper-stylization makes it feel quite {{Animesque}} at times. Its focus on CoOpMultiplayer while heavily limiting the single-player experience also gets mixed reactions, depending on who has got a chance to use multiplayer

* BreatherBoss: The final boss in the first game, which relies on pattern memorization like many other bosses, is much less annying than [[BigBad the penultimate boss]], which relies on defeating it quickly before getting defeated.

** The froms of Arch Pandara, the final boss of the third game, are a giant spiky skeleton, a floating smiling chest, and seven-eyed spider covering the entire sky, are as terrifying as they are powerful.

** When Patapons die, they leave their caps that let them be revived in the Patapolis if picked up. Strong emphasis on "if". The fact that Patapons can suffer {{Permadeath}} in the first game means that you will ''constantly'' be cursing the name of Cioking, Shooshookle and any other boss with a special OneHitKill grab or SwallowedWhole attack for [[KilledOffForReal forever killing]] your super rarepon that you spent a thousand Ka-Ching on, without leaving a cap. Caps also have a despawn timer like any other item, so good luck against freeze- or sleep-inducing bosses.

** [[GiantEnemyCrab Cioking]], the upgraded form of Ciokina, is the only boss with access to a guaranteed OneHitKill attack that targets multiple units. Good luck dodging it, because he also has access to bubbles that will put your army to sleep, followed by the said attack. Kami help you if you lose your Hero or Hatapon to this attack. It's especially hard in ''Patapon 3'' when you can only have 4 units.

* ContestedSequel: ''Patapon 3'' is definitely the odd one out. While the first two games are mostly similar, ''3'' suddenly ditches the tactical war game element and makes the game into an RPG, uses hyper-stylizes the artstyle so that it looks nothing like the last two games, kills off most of the characters you know and love, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives you a pause button]]. On the plus side, it has some of the most memorable villains and bosses in the series, the story is the best it's ever been and the hyper-stylization makes it feel quite {{Animesque}} at times. Its focus on CoOpMultiplayer while heavily limiting the single-player experience also gets mixed reactions, depending on who has got a chance to use multiplayer

* AntiClimaxBoss: General Kuwagattan is built up throughout several of the Dark One levels of 2 as a threat rivaling General Beetleton from the first game(especially weird because [[spoiler: he literally IS the resurrected General Beetleton]]) or even Gong the Hawkeye, but he only shows up in one level as a glorified Dekamen with a telegraphed attack that can be easily staggered into oblivion and has to be bailed out by Black Hoshipon and a giant mushroom.
* BreatherBoss: The final boss from the first game, which relies on pattern memorization, as opposed to the penultimate boss, which relies on defeating it before getting defeated.
* ContestedSequel: ''Patapon 3'' is definitely the odd one out. While the first two games are mostly similar, ''3'' suddenly ditches the tactical war game element and makes the game into an RPG, hyper-stylizes the artstyle so that it looks nothing like the last two games, kills off most of the characters you know and love, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives you a pause button]]. On the plus side, it has some of the most memorable villains and bosses in the series, the story is the best it's ever been and the hyper-stylization makes it feel quite {{Animesque}} at times.

* GameBreaker: The [[LimitBreak Hero Modes]] in the second game, take your pick:
** One side of the story involves [[InvincibleHero making the entire army unkillable]].
** The other side involves dealing thousands of points of damage in seconds.

* GoddamnedBoss: Mochichichi/Fenicchi fart on your army and run away ''every single time they're staggered.''
** Goruru/Garuru in beast form have an incredibly annoying habit of shuffling back and forth almost randomly. Good luck trying to charge up a ''PON PON CHAKA CHAKA'' attack without whiffing!
* HilariousInHindsight: In an amusing bit of BilingualBonus, "patapon" in Filipino means "worthless" or "throwaway".

* NightmareFuel: Arch Pandara is the scariest final boss ever seen in the Patapon series, and it deserves that title!
** Its first form is something resembling a robed skeleton.
** Its second form is a floating casket.
** Its third form is...
*** The final bosses from the three games are quite nightmarish in general.
*** Gate Goul Baban (and its upgraded form Bababan). The eyes. THE EYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!
* OlderThanTheyThink: Patapons aren't an invention of SonyComputerEntertainment and were around for years before the game. They are one of many assorted characters by the flash animator Rolito Giuli in his Rolitoland series, before Hioyuki Kotani invited him to work on a game using his minimalistic designs.
* TheScrappy: A lot of people don't like Meden for various reasons:
** [[DamselInDistress Probably because she gets kidnapped twice,]] [[ThatOneLevel AND in the desert part of each game.]]
** She often plays TheWatson for both you and her unnamed assistant, who seems well aware of everything that's going on (which the player will also find obvious) and frequently seems to just be indulging her ignorance.
* ScrappyMechanic: Hell is an instant kill Guillotine surrounded by self destructing salamanders...
** The only way to make the Divine and Demon weapons and armor is to play the Ton Kampon minigame flawlessly. You know, the one that's practically designed to get you to foul up at least once out of panic by rapidly increasing the speed and having a very small window for you to correctly input a hit? Yeah, that one.
** The fact that Patapons can suffer {{Perma Death}} in the first game means that you will ''constantly'' be cursing the name of Cioking, Shooshookle and any other boss with a {{One Hit Kill}} grab attack for killing your super rarepon that you spent a thousand Ka-Ching on.
* SurpriseDifficulty: "Give commands to an army of cutesy eye-looking critters through a series of 4 beats in a certain order. Seems easy. Why not?" Say hello to Queen Kharma, the desert level, and the (thankfully scarce) break the cart/steal catapult/escort missions.
** Dettankarmen and [[spoiler: Zuttankarmen]] from ''2'' suddenly have attacks that are relatively ''lightning-fast'' compared to the other bosses and conform to the beat even less. They're also one of the only bosses in the series to immediately follow up an attack with another attack, which can catch you completely off guard the first time and still stumble you after you've downloaded their moveset.

* ThatOneBoss: Gate Ghoul Baban is infamous in the first game for wiping the floor with unprepared armies. In the second game, it's "slightly" easier with hero mode, but still fairly hard.
** [[GiantEnemyCrab Cioking]], the upgraded form of Ciokina, is the only boss with access to a guaranteed 1-hit kill attack that targets multiple units. Good luck dodging it, because he also has access to bubbles that will put your army to sleep! Kami help you if you lose your hero to this attack. It gets [[TotalPartyWipe worse]] in Patapon 3, where you only have four units...
* ThatOneAttack: Any boss attack that freezes/inflames/puts your patapons to sleep, especially in ''1'' and the first three-quarters of ''2'' because they prevent your army from retreating with ''PON PATA PON PATA'' and you don't have access to the ''PATA PON DON CHAKA'' song that can negate those effects. Your only hope is to throw up a quick ''CHAKA CHAKA'' and hope the boss in question doesn't use a {{One Hit Kill}} grab attack or a huge, army wiping, [[KeystoneArmy Hatapon]]-squishing AOE attack like Dogaeen's body slam or one of the Kunels' tremor attacks. Manboroth is especially annoying about this, because it almost always does a charge attack immediately after showering your army with freezing snowflakes that you can't even dodge.

** Each of the games have at least one [[EscortMission escort mission]], [[ShiftingSandLand desert level]] that require summoning rain to cross, and rescue missions that ''avert'' [[FriendlyFireproof Friendly Fireproof]].
** "Meden kidnapped" in both ''1'' and ''2'' is by-and-large considered to be the worst and most frustrating level because of a few things; first, the cart holding Meden is constantly moving away from you, meaning you constantly have to play the song to move forward, which feels clunky in a game where you are constrained by a 4/4 beat. Second, you can't have ANY gear on you that has even the tiniest chance of causing fire damage or even have any ''stew'' equipped or Meden will burn to a crisp, guaranteeing you'll probably have to finish the level with sub-par gear. Third, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking the song that plays during this level]] is probably the only one in the entire series that could be considered "annoying".

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: General Kuwagattan and the Dark Ones in general. They're the souls of the undead given corporeal form(and might even be [[CameBackStrong all the Zigotons you killed in the first game]] given what we know about [[spoiler:Kuwagattan]]), are essentially the Patapon universe's armies of hell and ''they only show up for like five levels?'' They're also given next to no explanation within Patapon 2's story itself, beyond a generic 'They're servants of Black Hoshipon from the underworld and they're evil!' They could have been a QuirkyMinibossSquad or even a DiscOneFinalBoss, for Jebus' sake!
* ViewerGenderConfusion: Black Hoshipon and Aiton are female. Since this is mentioned in gameplay only once for Aiton and never for Black Hoshipon, you would be forgiven for assuming that Makoton had some... [[HoYay interesting feelings about Aiton.]]

** Mild violence, censored bad words (Rarely in ''Patapon'', at least), pole dancing, and creepy monsters. Yup, E-rated.
** There is a part in ''3'' where Naughtyfins is very visibly imitating the motion of, um, [[CountryMatters touching a certain part of her body.]]
** Final bosses Gorl, Dettan Karmen, Arch Pandara. EldritchAbomination with a hint of BodyHorror.
* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: You're the god of a tribe of eyeball people, which you must command into battle against other tribes of eyeball people by drumming four sacred, colored drums, so they can reach their ultimate objective; IT, which is located at the end of the Earth and no one knows what it is, but is said to grant eternal happiness. Along the way, you deal with masks with great powers that wipe out memories when worn; giant multicolored Easter eggs with several SealedGoodInACan inside, including a princess and the core of the world; massive {{Eldritch Abomination}}s with a second head on their stomach; star-shaped people that drop money from their body, demons, and even overweight djinns. Yep, not made on drugs indeed.
* TheWoobie: Makoton started out as just your average Zigoton soldier posted in an unremarkable location, with nothing of note about him except a crush on his postmate Aiton. When [[spoiler:Aiton dies,]] Makoton is thrown into such a rage born from grief that [[TheDulcineaEffect he spends the rest of the first game trying and failing to destroy the Patapons]], even selling his soul to a demon in the process! It's already not hard to feel bad for the poor guy at that point, but then he spends the rest of the game series getting resurrected and bound to the will of beings more powerful and eviler than him, not even allowed to join Aiton in death. To top it all off, he never even ''once'' [[TheChewToy gets the upper hand on the Patapons]], so he spends all three games getting repeatedly thwarted and killed over and over again simply for once being in the wrong place at the wrong time.