pretty fun purely for the mission you roll up a fucking black hole
This runs really bad on Xbox and is much more harder than the other Katamari games so it can be frustrating sometimes. The worst Katamari game overall but it isn't a bad one. Still have it's fun moments, amazing ost and the amazing last stage.
best looking katamari game. added some of the best cousins to date. hate that there's DLC and the heat level, but otherwise my favorite katamari game.
it's katamari so it's still good, albeit this game in particular feels cut short in alot of areas, probably the shortest game in the series too?
One thing I doubt anyone knows about me is that I love the Katamari Damacy Series. I've been only able to play half of it sadly (not counting that mediocre mobile game), and the series seems to be dead, but I adore the games of this series that I have played.
Beautiful Katamari also happens to be one of the first Xbox 360 games I played at the young age of 4. The console would go on to give me many great experiences in my really early life and this weird-ass game was at the forefront of that.
Clear nostalgia aside, I think this game is amazing, having only a few flaws I'll touch on in a bit. I've returned to play bits and pieces of it here and there on completed save files over the years and have played the game start to finish a handful of times. Something must be enjoyable about it to keep me coming back, and that's what this review will cover.
There is a story to this game. The King of All Cosmos is playing tennis with his family while on a vacation when he makes a serve so powerful that it rips the fabric of the universe, creating a black hole. Everything except Earth gets sucked in, leading to you, the prince, getting called upon to roll a katamari around to pick up objects and recreate stars, planets, constellations and the like.
The story of this game is simple enough to get you rolling, and that's what it needs to be. However, I felt that it was a bit lacking. The game doesn't need a sweeping narrative or anything, but Beautiful Katamari doesn't really do much with its story.
Compare this to We Love Katamari (the best game in the series), which has a minimal story too, but uses these overly dramatic cutscenes to show snippets of the king's backstory. There may be a story there, but they're presented in such an over-the-top and bizarre way that you can't take them seriously. That's the joke. Beautiful Katamari has a plot, but no fun with it.
The gameplay is more of the same twinstick rolling that Katamari Damacy is famous for. Push both sticks forward to roll forward. Backward to roll backward. Left or right to strafe. So on and so forth. Pick up items with your katamari to make it grow. Pick up larger things as your katamari grows and meet a certain requirement within a time limit. There's not really anything new to make this game shine, and that's okay. The Katamari formula was great as is, and I personally think it didn't need changed.
The music in this game is amazing. It's all very peppy, with lots of catchy J-pop songs. My favorite is easily Sayonara Rolling Star, for taking a more calm and somber tone while still feeling right at home in the game's soundtrack. Katamari Damacy was originally created to make people happy, and Beatiful Katamari's soundtrack embodies that mantra of being happy perfectly.
The game's levels are designed masterfully, being areas with many nooks and crannies, all chock-full with items that will help you meet your goal. You also run across some very weird stuff. The tutorial level, Egg School, sees you rolling up little plastic toy pieces, angels, and even the puzzle pieces that make up the floor and wall of the map, the removal of which show that you're rolling in a building the king is holding up.
However, the most glaring flaw of this game is in its levels as well. The levels lack variety. Aside from one or two levels, all objectives are "roll around and pick up stuff to reach this certain size." This isn't bad, but previous games, like We Love Katamari, had more varied objectives. That makes the lack of objective variety here disappointing.
On a side note, I think this game is a great first game for any kid. The simplistic controls and imaginative environments can appeal to almost everyone and spur a young mind's imagination. I remember my little sister loving Egg School's odd locales as a toddler, and my mind was blown at a young age when I saw you could roll up the whole world in Schloss Kosmos, the game's final level. The game is also pretty easy, but not patronizing.
Beautiful Katamari is amazing. The gameplay is tight. The scenery is weird. The music is amazing. The nostalgia runs strong. However, the game has a story but fails to do anything interesting with it like previous games and level variety is lacking. Also, the game has some minor frame skips, but they're far from common. However, nostalgia aside, I feel these flaws are relatively very minor, and the game was one I'm proud to have been introduced to at such a young age.
9/10 - It's an amazing game that captivated me when I was very young, but is marred by some minor issues.
Beautiful Katamari also happens to be one of the first Xbox 360 games I played at the young age of 4. The console would go on to give me many great experiences in my really early life and this weird-ass game was at the forefront of that.
Clear nostalgia aside, I think this game is amazing, having only a few flaws I'll touch on in a bit. I've returned to play bits and pieces of it here and there on completed save files over the years and have played the game start to finish a handful of times. Something must be enjoyable about it to keep me coming back, and that's what this review will cover.
There is a story to this game. The King of All Cosmos is playing tennis with his family while on a vacation when he makes a serve so powerful that it rips the fabric of the universe, creating a black hole. Everything except Earth gets sucked in, leading to you, the prince, getting called upon to roll a katamari around to pick up objects and recreate stars, planets, constellations and the like.
The story of this game is simple enough to get you rolling, and that's what it needs to be. However, I felt that it was a bit lacking. The game doesn't need a sweeping narrative or anything, but Beautiful Katamari doesn't really do much with its story.
Compare this to We Love Katamari (the best game in the series), which has a minimal story too, but uses these overly dramatic cutscenes to show snippets of the king's backstory. There may be a story there, but they're presented in such an over-the-top and bizarre way that you can't take them seriously. That's the joke. Beautiful Katamari has a plot, but no fun with it.
The gameplay is more of the same twinstick rolling that Katamari Damacy is famous for. Push both sticks forward to roll forward. Backward to roll backward. Left or right to strafe. So on and so forth. Pick up items with your katamari to make it grow. Pick up larger things as your katamari grows and meet a certain requirement within a time limit. There's not really anything new to make this game shine, and that's okay. The Katamari formula was great as is, and I personally think it didn't need changed.
The music in this game is amazing. It's all very peppy, with lots of catchy J-pop songs. My favorite is easily Sayonara Rolling Star, for taking a more calm and somber tone while still feeling right at home in the game's soundtrack. Katamari Damacy was originally created to make people happy, and Beatiful Katamari's soundtrack embodies that mantra of being happy perfectly.
The game's levels are designed masterfully, being areas with many nooks and crannies, all chock-full with items that will help you meet your goal. You also run across some very weird stuff. The tutorial level, Egg School, sees you rolling up little plastic toy pieces, angels, and even the puzzle pieces that make up the floor and wall of the map, the removal of which show that you're rolling in a building the king is holding up.
However, the most glaring flaw of this game is in its levels as well. The levels lack variety. Aside from one or two levels, all objectives are "roll around and pick up stuff to reach this certain size." This isn't bad, but previous games, like We Love Katamari, had more varied objectives. That makes the lack of objective variety here disappointing.
On a side note, I think this game is a great first game for any kid. The simplistic controls and imaginative environments can appeal to almost everyone and spur a young mind's imagination. I remember my little sister loving Egg School's odd locales as a toddler, and my mind was blown at a young age when I saw you could roll up the whole world in Schloss Kosmos, the game's final level. The game is also pretty easy, but not patronizing.
Beautiful Katamari is amazing. The gameplay is tight. The scenery is weird. The music is amazing. The nostalgia runs strong. However, the game has a story but fails to do anything interesting with it like previous games and level variety is lacking. Also, the game has some minor frame skips, but they're far from common. However, nostalgia aside, I feel these flaws are relatively very minor, and the game was one I'm proud to have been introduced to at such a young age.
9/10 - It's an amazing game that captivated me when I was very young, but is marred by some minor issues.
this game was nice but there was something up with the framerate that made me like it less than other games in the series i cant put my finger on it
these games are hard as shit
good as fuck when you don't got a bitch in your ear telling you it sucks
I'm really glad this became a backwards compatible title recently so I finally get to play it after all these years. I remember feeling really betrayed when I was 8 years old and found out that my favorite game series had jumped over to Xbox, leaving me and my PlayStation in the dust. It was bad enough I didn't get a PSP to play Me & My Katamari so this was just putting salt in my wounds at this point. So after 15 years of waiting, how good is this game? Pretty good, I guess.
I think the most fair game to compare this one to is Katamari Forever, the apology I received for skipping the PlayStation 3 with this game. Katamari Forever is mostly a greatest hits package, a bundle of some of the more interesting game modes and levels from the previous games with updated mechanics and graphics. While this isn't Katamari Damacy 5 like most people were hoping it would be, it does have a lot of interesting levels due to the previous games having such tight and interesting level design.
Beautiful Katamari doesn't really have this going for it, as the amount of achievements and game modes dedicated to Xbox Live functionalities kinda hint that this game's priorities are not focused on refinement or evolution of gameplay but rather goofing off with other players. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I do think that the levels and objectives are often pretty uninspired and do not relate well to the haphazard "story" this game sets forth. Besides making Uranus, which is one of the better levels probably in the whole series, every other objective is pretty one-note in comparison save for the hot katamari which is one of my least favorite levels.
Playing this game also made me realize the amount of quality of life changes that Katamari Forever made with its presentation, which was undoubtedly the focus of this native 1080p game. Many of the objectives in Katamari Forever that have you collect as many of X as is listed gives you an exact number, price, weight, or even just size as you would have to beat the objective. Beautiful Katamari does not do this very often at all, with only 2 of its about 12 requests even having a number of what you are collecting on screen. This makes playing for points incredibly frustrating since I have no idea how I am doing until the end when I finish. Beautiful Katamari also does not give a whole lot of time to finish any objective and, while I didn't fail a single level, it felt like it was almost discouraging exploration and relaxation which many of the other games did much better. The music is also a bit weird for the series, as it doesn't seem to stick to any consistent style with the remixes of old songs being just awful. While it does combine with the visuals well, the music just wasn't as stand out as it should've been.
Seems like I didn't miss out on much as a kid considering the best levels were on Katamari Forever anyway with much better visuals, music, and controls. I think Beautiful Katamari could've been astonishing if it tried to do anything at all with its aesthetic instead of just push forward a new entry but this time featuring Xbox Live. Not a bad game cuz hey, its Katamari, but I definitely wont be coming back to this one as much as the others, probably only to finish the DLC when I have a few bucks to spare. Better than probably only Me & My Katamari due to the advantage of having two analog stick functionality.
I think the most fair game to compare this one to is Katamari Forever, the apology I received for skipping the PlayStation 3 with this game. Katamari Forever is mostly a greatest hits package, a bundle of some of the more interesting game modes and levels from the previous games with updated mechanics and graphics. While this isn't Katamari Damacy 5 like most people were hoping it would be, it does have a lot of interesting levels due to the previous games having such tight and interesting level design.
Beautiful Katamari doesn't really have this going for it, as the amount of achievements and game modes dedicated to Xbox Live functionalities kinda hint that this game's priorities are not focused on refinement or evolution of gameplay but rather goofing off with other players. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I do think that the levels and objectives are often pretty uninspired and do not relate well to the haphazard "story" this game sets forth. Besides making Uranus, which is one of the better levels probably in the whole series, every other objective is pretty one-note in comparison save for the hot katamari which is one of my least favorite levels.
Playing this game also made me realize the amount of quality of life changes that Katamari Forever made with its presentation, which was undoubtedly the focus of this native 1080p game. Many of the objectives in Katamari Forever that have you collect as many of X as is listed gives you an exact number, price, weight, or even just size as you would have to beat the objective. Beautiful Katamari does not do this very often at all, with only 2 of its about 12 requests even having a number of what you are collecting on screen. This makes playing for points incredibly frustrating since I have no idea how I am doing until the end when I finish. Beautiful Katamari also does not give a whole lot of time to finish any objective and, while I didn't fail a single level, it felt like it was almost discouraging exploration and relaxation which many of the other games did much better. The music is also a bit weird for the series, as it doesn't seem to stick to any consistent style with the remixes of old songs being just awful. While it does combine with the visuals well, the music just wasn't as stand out as it should've been.
Seems like I didn't miss out on much as a kid considering the best levels were on Katamari Forever anyway with much better visuals, music, and controls. I think Beautiful Katamari could've been astonishing if it tried to do anything at all with its aesthetic instead of just push forward a new entry but this time featuring Xbox Live. Not a bad game cuz hey, its Katamari, but I definitely wont be coming back to this one as much as the others, probably only to finish the DLC when I have a few bucks to spare. Better than probably only Me & My Katamari due to the advantage of having two analog stick functionality.
it's got an idolmaster song in it which is really funny but also it's like 50% paid dlc and mostly just reiterating on stuff from we love katamari so your mileage could vary
It was the shortest game in the series i think. sometimes when life bores you, just play katamari and feel the cosmos
I had to replay almost this whole game because my power went out and for some god forsaken reason theres no autosave. Thankfully it's like an hour, and it's pretty fun. Felt kinda derivative, but It was fun! Katamari always is.
一歩前進！前進！たまに中断！そんな時もあるさ
無理せずに完走！完走！次は楽勝！できるといいのだけど
それがうちらのやり方だから
一致団結！団結！時に衝突！後腐れないように
とりあえず円満！円満！すべて相談！つまらないことでも
みんなまとめてみんなまとめてみんなまとめてアイドルマスタ
無理せずに完走！完走！次は楽勝！できるといいのだけど
それがうちらのやり方だから
一致団結！団結！時に衝突！後腐れないように
とりあえず円満！円満！すべて相談！つまらないことでも
みんなまとめてみんなまとめてみんなまとめてアイドルマスタ
It's more katamari, which in of itself is a very wonderful thing. Has idolmaster music in it which is cool. Other than that, not much else to say. If you have played katamari before, this is more of that, just on a bigger scale on new hardware. If you haven't played Katamari before, this is as good a place to start as any other. Katamari is good. Play Katamari. I like the funny little ball rolling man
(8-year-old's review, typed by his dad)
I love rolling up people's stuff, and if it was real life, it would be stealing. But this thing is very realistic and everything it has is definitely in real life, like the King of All Cosmos is definitely real! (giggles) And the final part where you have to roll up the world, I think they spelled a typo in one of the countries. I think it was meant to be Tajikistan, but they spelled it like Tadzhikistan?
[We google that for a minute]
Oh wait it's like another name. One last thing, play as Foomin. Bye!
I love rolling up people's stuff, and if it was real life, it would be stealing. But this thing is very realistic and everything it has is definitely in real life, like the King of All Cosmos is definitely real! (giggles) And the final part where you have to roll up the world, I think they spelled a typo in one of the countries. I think it was meant to be Tajikistan, but they spelled it like Tadzhikistan?
[We google that for a minute]
Oh wait it's like another name. One last thing, play as Foomin. Bye!
My first katamari game, it's better than I was expecting
Giving it the half star for having such an awesome final level and solid soundtrack throughout the entire game. Besides that, Beautiful Katamari is incredibly short and frustrating.
Almost all the beginning levels are annoying themes(collect “x” type of object) and the time limits are very short. Compared to the first Katamari you really have to “try” a lot more as opposed to simply enjoy the experience. I play Katamari to relax and have mindless fun. On the other hand, if you feel that Katamari is too easy, this may be worth a try.
I wish I played this game in its heyday so I could experience the online multiplayer, it seems like a fun concept.
Almost all the beginning levels are annoying themes(collect “x” type of object) and the time limits are very short. Compared to the first Katamari you really have to “try” a lot more as opposed to simply enjoy the experience. I play Katamari to relax and have mindless fun. On the other hand, if you feel that Katamari is too easy, this may be worth a try.
I wish I played this game in its heyday so I could experience the online multiplayer, it seems like a fun concept.
I love Katamari and had a great time with this, but of the three I've played so far this is easily the weakest. The original and We Love are both super imaginative and have very well designed progression: you don't have to slowly search an overly large map to find levels and they actually build up in difficulty and concepts over time. Beautiful is fun, and it's Katamari so it's a unique and enjoyable experience that I'm still thrilled to play, but it's not as concise or well designed a game. Most levels feel just about the same difficulty, the gimmicks generally don't meaningfully change how you play, and it feels like the time limit is almost always 5 minutes, making each level very short. Previous games weren't exactly long but this was over in no time.
It's great to have more Katamari to play, Katamari doesn't get boring! I'm still glad that Beautiful finally got made backwards compatible, but it's a shame that it's so inessential after how incredibly good it's predecessors are.
It's great to have more Katamari to play, Katamari doesn't get boring! I'm still glad that Beautiful finally got made backwards compatible, but it's a shame that it's so inessential after how incredibly good it's predecessors are.
Beautiful Katamari has all the characters, cousins and katamari chaos you would expect from a game in the series but you can tell that it's missing a certain something.
The levels you're given are great and expand in entertaining ways but there isn't much variety on offer - you have two different smaller starting locations which eventually grow out into the same larger overworld which is a nice idea but growing out into the same wider world for every level does tend to get old a bit quickly. There's a bunch of levels stuck behind DLC which may address this, but I haven't been able to try these out yet.
The objectives too are pretty stale. The base request you'll receive is to reach - or ideally beat - a certain size while also rolling up as many objects of a particular type which is fine in theory. However, it's almost impossible to fail in collecting enough of those object types (and quite easy to get more than you need to get even the highest scores) which makes it pretty redundant, leaving you stuck with the base 'as big as possible' objective. You do get a couple of requests that are a bit different (like having to keep your katamari warm by rolling up warm things and avoiding anything cold as you try to reach 10,000 Celsius) but these are few and far between and don't match the creativity on display in the two previous PS2 games.
But the main thing that I think is lacking is purpose. I don't want to romanticise the first two games too much, but among the silliness there were interesting ideas. The first entry showed us the concept and executed it to a tee, the second developed it alongside a smart meta story about fanservice and having to do the same things again. In Beautiful Katamari, the only progress is in how nice the game looks. The story has nothing to say and is even more of a non-entity than before while its corporate nature shines through with a level about collecting 'cool' things being filled with Xbox 360s - this title of course being an Xbox 360 exclusive despite the history of the series elsewhere - along with the aforementioned locking of 7 of the game's 20 levels behind DLC
With all that said it's still a Katamari game where the simple act of rolling something up is incredibly satisfying, so much so that you're able to block out some of the weaker elements in this entry and just enjoy the ride. It's not perfect by any means but I'm super glad that this made it into the Xbox backwards compatibility program and that I've now been able to play a game I missed 14 years ago
The levels you're given are great and expand in entertaining ways but there isn't much variety on offer - you have two different smaller starting locations which eventually grow out into the same larger overworld which is a nice idea but growing out into the same wider world for every level does tend to get old a bit quickly. There's a bunch of levels stuck behind DLC which may address this, but I haven't been able to try these out yet.
The objectives too are pretty stale. The base request you'll receive is to reach - or ideally beat - a certain size while also rolling up as many objects of a particular type which is fine in theory. However, it's almost impossible to fail in collecting enough of those object types (and quite easy to get more than you need to get even the highest scores) which makes it pretty redundant, leaving you stuck with the base 'as big as possible' objective. You do get a couple of requests that are a bit different (like having to keep your katamari warm by rolling up warm things and avoiding anything cold as you try to reach 10,000 Celsius) but these are few and far between and don't match the creativity on display in the two previous PS2 games.
But the main thing that I think is lacking is purpose. I don't want to romanticise the first two games too much, but among the silliness there were interesting ideas. The first entry showed us the concept and executed it to a tee, the second developed it alongside a smart meta story about fanservice and having to do the same things again. In Beautiful Katamari, the only progress is in how nice the game looks. The story has nothing to say and is even more of a non-entity than before while its corporate nature shines through with a level about collecting 'cool' things being filled with Xbox 360s - this title of course being an Xbox 360 exclusive despite the history of the series elsewhere - along with the aforementioned locking of 7 of the game's 20 levels behind DLC
With all that said it's still a Katamari game where the simple act of rolling something up is incredibly satisfying, so much so that you're able to block out some of the weaker elements in this entry and just enjoy the ride. It's not perfect by any means but I'm super glad that this made it into the Xbox backwards compatibility program and that I've now been able to play a game I missed 14 years ago
It's definitely more katamari which means it's a fun time. It is rather short and simple though and the level where you have to heat up the katamari and avoid anything cold is a huge pain in the butt. Notable positive aspects include the idolmaster song and getting to roll up a billion xbox 360 controllers and consoles because lmao it's an xbox game.
I wonder if namco was trying to tell us that this is a 360 exclusive when they put all those 360s and controllers in that one level
The most boring Katamari game, in that it seems a lot more slight compared to all the others (expect maybe Me & My) and doesn't to me have levels that really stand out or the customization options of the others. Still fun, and more Katamari is generally a good thing, but the most forgettable of the series.
Shoutouts the Sethbling, my favorite speedrun er of this game
There's nothing wrong with a Katamari game. Except for the fact that these levels get really hard for some reason.
An acceptable follow-up to one of the greatest games ever made. Has some neat features but why is the King so nice now?
My favorite Katamari game. Level selection is inside a hub world. No annoying voices that repeat themselves forever like in We Love. All 20 levels have an Eternal Mode, which We Love lacked. The King's strict scoring system makes unlocking Eternal Mode rewarding, incentivizing mastery of each level. Due to the improved power of the Xbox 360, stage assets load instantly when the Katamari gets bigger, erasing any interruptions during gameplay. Most level objectives are "get bigger" but with a neat twist: the King wants one specific theme of items to be the most you collect in the Katamari. This affects your score after the level is finished. The only flaw Beautiful Katamari has is its paid DLC. The DLC stages are great and are on par with the variety levels that were in We Love Katamari, but they should've been in the base game.
this series just keeps delivering
Very good game just not the originals
some of the time limits they throw on these levels are just fuckin nonsense
i really like this game (it’s katamari, hello!!)and i love how much shit they packed into each level but ur better off playin any other one. yes even the PSP one. give it a chance, people!
i really like this game (it’s katamari, hello!!)and i love how much shit they packed into each level but ur better off playin any other one. yes even the PSP one. give it a chance, people!
The peak of the katamari experience. Not a five due to the fact that some levels in the cd are locked as DLC