Last year, gaming was utterly pwned by the big three consoles, but once those machines went into their annual winter hibernation after releasing all them triple-A titles before Christmas, those wee handhelds staged a comeback.

Long in the shadows of Nintendo’s money-printing DS, Sony’s PSP has had a great year so far. Some flash new colours have sparked a sales surge in Japan, where it recently outsold the DS and the Wii.

Meanwhile, North American owners are most likely glued to the universally acclaimed God of War prequel Chains of Olympus, a blockbuster of miniature proportions with all the mythological trappings, chain-blade ultra-violence and gorgeous graphic design you’ve grown to expect from a Kratos game.

But while GoW shows the PSP can go epic, Patapon proves it can innovate as well. It’s a rhythm game featuring a similarly adorable aesthetic as the charming, best-PSP-game-ever LocoRoco. No surprise, really, given that both games share a production studio and music composer, though the eyeball-esque characters and tribal flavouring come courtesy of French graphic artist Rolito.

Patapon takes the PSP away from console ports to craft something new, a side-scrolling rhythm game that’s also a real-time strategy game, a God game and even slaps in some RPG elements. Then the whole shebang is wrapped in stylized and sillouetted graphics and set to the pata-pata-pata-pon sound of your thumb drum.

But the Nintendo DS hasn’t been slouching with the release of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Though its Brain Training games remain immensely popular, I personally grew tired of being told my youthful indulgences had made my mind old before its time. Unlike Brain Age’s judgmental Professor Kawashima, who hates my handwriting and ridicules my short-term memory, the whimsical Prof. Layton is a pleasure to play with.

While still in the realm of mental exercises, Layton is all about old-school riddles. Sometimes they are hard as hell—hint: Layton loves trick questions so if you’re stumped think simple—but cracking them is extremely rewarding and once done, there are more puzzles available via free download.

Set in a small old-world village graphically inspired by Triplets of Belleville, the storyline revolves around a murder mystery. But really that’s just an excuse to get you wandering the streets of St. Mystere, exploring its shops and chatting up the townsfolk, all of whom need challenge you to a brain teaser in exchange for clues in that overarching mystery.

So go ahead and let your consoles have a well-deserved breather because right now it’s the small game machines that are going big on fun and innovation.