What Ratatan is
Ratatan is a rhythm roguelike action game that mixes rhythm play with side-scrolling action. You move a Ratatan through a 2D animated world and order a crowd of Cobuns around, with over 100 characters fighting in a single big melee. The whole thing runs on the beat: your commands land in rhythm sequences, so the soundtrack is not background noise but the tool you actually play with. The game is in Early Access, so expect it to still be taking shape.
The setting is Rataport, an island in a calm sea that behaves like a toy box full of strange animal-like creatures. The Ratatans look and act differently from each other, but they all want the same thing: to reach "The Everafter" and meet "The Goddess" said to live there. They set out as heroes carrying everyone's hope, and the story makes clear they keep going no matter how many times they fail. The 2D animation is there to give the cast personality in motion rather than just moving sprites around.
Playing it with friends
Online co-op supports up to 4 players, so a group can run the side-scrolling stages together and split the work of holding the line in the big fights. Coordination matters more than raw speed: Ratatans can be moved freely, which means each player has to judge where to send orders, where to position their Ratatan, and when it is time to pull back. With four people issuing commands at once, deciding who covers which direction is the real challenge.
Since the game is built around rhythm sequences, playing together means everyone reading the same beat and covering the gaps. The enemies come at you in large numbers, so defeating them together is about timing and positioning rather than one person carrying the fight.
Before you start
Expect a rhythm game's demands wrapped in a roguelike structure: runs that can end, and a story that explicitly expects you to fail and try again. If you have never played a rhythm action game, the first thing to get used to is that your inputs are judged against the beat, not just pressed whenever. Positioning and retreat are as valid as attacking, so watch the field between inputs.
Being Early Access, systems and content can shift while you play. The tags and genres attached to it cover a lot of ground — action roguelike, 2D platformer, RPG, casual, music — but the core loop stays the same: ride the soundtrack, order your Cobuns, and push through the stage with your group.