Just like the original game, it is all about rhythm, only now you have to lead your Patapon tribe through a strange land and battle a better class of enemies and bigger bosses.

Success depends on some serious hand-eye co-ordination and top-quality pata pata pata pon skills.

You control an army of eyeballs-on-sticks, tapping rhythms (instructions) on the PSP's square, circle, triangle and X buttons.

The eyeballs - they really are cute and one of the best things about the game - react like lemmings and advance, attack, defend or run away while repeating the chants you've tapped out.

If you screw up the chant, all can be lost.

The format has more depth, particularly for anyone who loves intricate class systems.

The addition of four-player ad hoc mode adds some extra depth and there are loads of missions, new characters - including robots and magicians - and extra, albeit complex, drum commands and a fully customisable hero.

There's also a save game transfer feature, allowing you to access elements of the first game.

Developer Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has stuck with the graphics and sounds that made the original stand out, so Patapon 2 is a great looking game, using simple two-dimensional graphics to complement the addictive melodies.

The beat system, however, is so precise that just getting through the tutorial will prove onerous for many players.

The original garnered good reviews because its format suited Sony's little handheld, while being refreshingly different.

It also had some deficiencies but these were easily outweighed by the originality.

Sadly Patapon 2 is so much like the original that it starts to feel more like an expansion pack than a totally new game.