The Kickstarter campaign of the Patapon spiritual successor Ratatan just ended, and fans of the rhythm genre certainly came together to support the project.
The campaign earned 219,314,335 yen in pledges from its 14,598 backers, translating approximately into $1.5 million, which is definitely flattering.
This means that another stretch goal has been unlocked, playable Dark Ratatans. The stretch goals announced earlier this week, featuring collaborations with Keiichiro Toyama and Tsutomu Kono of Sony Japan Studio fame have also been cleared.
If you haven't heard about Ratatan just yet, the game was originally teased over a year ago with the code-name "Project Jabberwocky" and then officially revealed at Bitsummit Let's Go in Kyoto last month. It's designed by Patapon creator Hiroyuki Kotani alongside more veteran of the franchise and from Sony's Japan Studio, including Toshiyuki Yasui as director and Kazuto Sakajiri as producer.
Patapon and LocoRoco veteran Kenmei Adachi will compose the music.
During the closing livestream for the campaign, the studio shared a roadmap for development from here to the beginning of 2025. You can read it below.
The launch of the Kickstarter campaign happened at the beginning of August and it reached its initial funding goal in a lightning-fast 48 minutes.
The game is planned to release on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch in 2025, and if you want to see more, you can check out a gameplay trailer and some absolutely joyous music tracks. Ratatan is all about that, after all.
For the sake of full disclosure, the writer of this article has backed Ratatan. He's absolutely terrible at Rhythm games, but despite that, he absolutely loved the Patapon franchise and the work of Japan Studio before Sony regrettably gutted it.
