While Sony may have gutted its beloved Japan Studio, more of its veteran developers are gathering under the flag of the Patapon spiritual successor Ratatan.
Developer Ratata Arts announced via press release that two well-known developers who formerly worked at Japan Studio will collaborate in the game's development if the respective stretch goals are achieved on Kickstarter.
Keiichiro Toyama of Siren and Gravity Rush fame (currently working on Slitterhead with his own Bokeh Game Studio) will work on the game if 190,000,000 yen are achieved, while Tsutomu Kono of Loco Roco fame will participate at 185,000,000 yen.
Another stretch goal at 195,000,000 yen will add My Room and Base customization.
These goals seem certainly achievable since the Kickstarter campaign is at 184,977,000 yen at the moment of this writing, and there are still 37 hours left on the clock.
On top of this, the press release reveals that the developer will host a closing livestream to accompany the Kickstarter campaign into the history books. It will start on September 1 at 5:00 a.m. PDT, 8:00 a.m. EDT, 1:00 p.m. BST, or 2:00 p.m. CEST depending on where you live, and will last approximately four hours as the countdown runs out.
If you're unfamiliar with Ratatan, it was officially revealed at Bitsummit Let's Go in Kyoto after being teased over a year ago. It's designed by Patapon creator Hiroyuki Kotani and more veterans of the series and of Japan Studio, including Toshiyuki Yasui as director and Kazuto Sakajiri as producer.
Patapon and LocoRoco veteran Kenmei Adachi will also reprise his role in the game. The Kickstarter campaign was launched approximately a month ago it reached its funding goal in only 48 minutes.
If you'd like to see more, you can check out a gameplay trailer and a few absolutely joyous music tracks.
It'll come to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.
For the sake of full disclosure, the author of this post backed Ratatan on Kickstarter, because he loved Patapon and the work of Japan Studio, and is extremely happy to see them coming back, at least indirectly.
Perhaps the success of this game will make a certain console manufacturer realize the error of its ways, albeit I'm not holding my breath.
