Welcome to the ANTIPANTS revolution! Paw Paw Paw by Ratalaika Games and Simpleton is a beat ’em up about the right to NOT wear pants. Find out more in our Paw Paw Paw review!

Paw Paw Paw was a peaceful and prosperous kingdom until one fateful day, when the King had decided to enforce everyone to wear pants.

 

Paw Paw Paw was a peaceful kingdom, the most influential kingdom across the realm. One day though, a huge rock fell from the sky, striking right in the middle of the kingdom. Shortly after, the king Bunnylord went mad and decided to enforce that everyone should wear pants. After that, the antipants movement was born, and you start the game as one of the new recruits, seen as an expandable resource that can go on the mission to rescue their leader Obek. Your quest will take you further as you get closer to facing King Bunnylord.

When you start, you can choose between four character classes; the Warrior, Barbarian, Botanist and Archer. Each has different starting stats for their strength and defense, and also two unique skills. The game plays as a beat ’em up, where you have to fight off enemies until you get to the end of the level. The Square and Triangle buttons act as your attack buttons, and you can eventually learn combos to chain attacks together. The L2 button is used to block and the R2 button is used to do a dodge roll. Your two skills are activated with the L1 or R1 button, which consumes stamina that you can regain by attacking enemies or by using potions. Potions and other items are used with the Circle button, and you can change which item you use with the right analog stick by moving it left or right.

 

Visually, the game has some surprisingly beautiful looking levels, with lots of different characters, enemies, as well as a wide variety of environments you visit. It’s not the same level designs over and over again with a simple reskin, I felt like a lot of effort was put into creating the levels.

Starting the game and viewing the intro, I was already liking the story setup. It’s simple, nothing that could win the best narrative, but it was funny. Throughout the levels, the story held itself together in the different places you visit and it was really fun to see how you could lead this resistance into letting animals not wear pants.

From a gameplay perspective, like I said before, I really enjoyed the level designs. Apart from the regular levels where you attack enemies until you reach the end of the level, there were a few levels that stood out to provide some variety. The bosses were also really original, from a giant pug dog to an all-seeing baby god, again it was not some simple reskin over previous bosses. There was also different weapons you could find in levels, some attached to a higher weapon tier that required you to upgrade your character in the skill tree, so the game could be played in different ways to level up your character differently.

 

On the trophies side, the vast majority of the trophies simply come from playing the game until the end. There are a lot of levels, so it should take a couple of hours reaching this point, and other trophies not tied to progression should naturally unlock while getting there.

I found myself enjoying Paw Paw Paw more than I thought I would. The levels are fun, there’s a bit of grinding to do if you want some better weapons equipped, so you’re looking at a good budget beat ’em up that can be really enjoyable for fans of the genre.

Disclaimer
This Paw Paw Paw review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Ratalaiaka Games.