If you've grown tired of waiting for Sony to make another Patapon game, it seems the original creators are taking matters into their own hands. Named Ratatan, this spiritual successor is being helmed by staff who brought Sony's PSP series to life, and you can really tell in the debut trailer. This is Patapon in everything but name.

Indie team Ratata Arts is the main force behind this, and as mentioned, is led by creators of the Patapon series. Ratatan looks to operate almost identically, which is no bad thing. If you're unfamiliar, these games are a unique blend of real-time strategy and rhythm action, where you send out commands to the beat of the music and the on-screen characters obey your orders. You perform these chants to tell your Ratatan army to advance, attack, retreat, and so on. The gameplay looks unbelievably similar to Patapon, although the art style definitely has its own look.

The Ratatan come in different classes and many of them carry musical instruments onto the battlefield, which they'll use to produce various effects like buffs and defensive moves. One major difference is that you'll have an on-screen avatar you have direct control over to allow for "more modern movement".

If you like what you see here, Ratata Arts is on the verge of launching a Kickstarter campaign for Ratatan to gain funding. Assuming the game meets its initial goal, it'll release on PC. One of the stretch goals is a release on consoles — hopefully including PlayStation. Fans of Patapon will definitely want to chip in if they can — if you've been hankering for more rhythm strategy, this looks like a dream come true.

What do you make of Ratatan? Will you be supporting this project on Kickstarter? March into the comments section below.

[source kickstarter.com]