Back when you could only get a Platform Fighting experience on the Gamecube with Melee, me and my friends could only dream of what it would be like to play it on the go. So when I discovered that there was a game like Smash Bros., on the DS, featuring some of my favorite anime characters, my childhood brain exploded.

It was destroyed even further thanks to the polish, content, and replayability that this game offered. I can't tell you how many hours my friends and I put into this just unlocking new worlds in the story mode, customizing our load-out of fighters, of which there are over 50 to choose from, and just facing each other online using the Nintendo WFC.

Even to this day, this is my favorite DS game to have been released. My only complaint is that you need a guide to get through the story mode or unlock the extras, however, the core is still there and I cannot recommend this game enough.

I’ve always been terrible at rhythm games. I’ve sort of stayed away from them because I know I’m terrible at them. I absolutely adore music, but rhythm games have always been my weak point. I mean you’re looking at the guy that can’t usually hear the bass in a song so I wouldn’t really see myself as someone who can find the beat to something. But patapon is special…well the sequels anyway.

You guide the patapons on their quest to find earthend. You play as their god known as the ‘Almighty patapon’. And that’s kind of all there is to it…not the most exciting story but why should it be?

Gameplay is a mixture of rhythm and strategy. You’ll have to put in different command using the face buttons and time it to the beat, if you time it well then you’ll go into a ‘fever’ where your attack and defence increases…but good luck keeping that fever. Pon is used with the circle button, pata is used with the square button, Chaka is used with the triangle button, and don is used with the x button. If you time the drums to the beat then you’ll be able to do different command such as charge, attack, defend, and others. You’ll also be able to gain more troops with the more items you gather as you fight. In the game there are around about 40 missions so if you know what you’re doing the game is pretty short.

For the first game in its series, patapon feels like a rough draft for what could be an absolutely brilliant game. Patapon 2 would improve on all of it drastically but I’ve got a review lined up for that game in the near future.

Rough draft, excellent music, fever is hard to hold onto, adorable art, pata pata pata pon!

This game kicked ass. Using the force in the environment to murder enemies was so cool. Saber combat was cool mixxed with awesome force powers you could use and upgrade. It did feel weird how the lightsaber didn’t actually cut through people. Somehow enemies were able to withstand it multiple times. I tried not to think about it but it really killed the immersion sometimes. Maybe one day we’ll get a Star Wars game like that but it’s hard to land attacks. And of my god the scenery in this game was great too. There’s a part where you literally grab a star destroyer with the force. That was so cool.

Whatever slightly less positive things I could say about Rhythm Heaven Fever are completely overshadowed by the fact that this is one of the greatest games ever. Sure, I'm not enamoured with the idea of creating a more consistent artstyle instead of just throwing a lot of disparate ideas at the wall, but when everything looks as cute as it does here, I can't complain at all really. Everything that appears to be that tiny bit less interesting to me compared to previous entries ends up not mattering when it feels like so much else has been taken further. The outlandish concepts for the minigames have somehow become even more ridiculous and charming, the way a player's sense of rhythm is messed with feels both more intuitive than ever before while also throwing some really interesting curveballs your way that are sure to catch you off guard even after having played the games before it, and the music is once again fantastic. Basically an ideal game, I need another 17 entries in this series and I need them immediately.