Save 10% on Ratatan on Steam

It's currently in Early Access and the price tag ain't too bad.

Some aspects are a little rough (the UI), but I've been having fun with this! As like, I went "oh yeah I got my code for backing this some years back" and suddenly lost three hours last night.

It's like if Patapon got dipped into Hades and Pikmin.

Like its predecessor, your Ratatan leads the group but is also functionally the Hatapon. Meaning, if it goes, that's game over.

Unlike its predecessor, you have direct control over your Ratatan's position.

To compensate for this extra wrinkle of management, the songs are decently simple. You hit two or three beats for a command.

The Ratatan you pick also has a few bonus features. Their movement speed varies on type, their available units also varies on type, and each one has a bonus.

The hedgehog Ratatan (which I'm currently doing a run with) for example, has sword and spear units available to it. Its special bonus increases defense when guarding. Very obviously a tanky sort!

I enjoyed the frog one last night too. It also had sword units but bomb units for the secondary. Plus the bonus of "your little guys revive with more HP".

(Also each Ratatan animates differently, the frog hops to get around )

And that's the other thing - you don't have to go back to base for your little guys to revive. They just need time before they reappear on the field.

In the end, the Ratatan is the one you have to protect.

The Hades element comes into the base and also the routes you can take. You can pick between two options at the end of a route, whether you want money for the shop, an elemental card to augment your little guys, and so on.

If you're having trouble, the candies you pick up out in the field can be brought back to the base for various upgrades. (A heal fountain appears in the wild, your guys will recover health on picking up candy, etc.)

oh also this is multiplayer????

You can do runs with your friends, each of you handling a squad???

I haven't delved into that yet though, maybe in a bit.

oh man, trying out the owl and that's extremely a sniper leader lmao

very glass cannon!

low health, but consider: rain of arrows

(the owl's bonus is that your hustle skill does more damage when you hit perfectly on the beat)

it's nice that all the guys seem useful, nothing really stands out as super great or super bad

ya hoi hoi

Cleared it in multiplayer!

It's really easy to lose track of where you are when you're in a full group, so I'll probably leave feedback about that.

But otherwise, definitely more manageable in multi, even if you haven't properly upgraded.

And of course, beating the game unlocks the various challenge settings for more rare items.

(Or, well, reaching the end of the current Early Access, since it ends abruptly.)