This review contains spoilers
It’s hard to believe the concept of Katamari Damacy hasn’t been around for decades. Conversely, it’s also hard to believe that the game wasn’t an idea that emerged from the mobile gaming market in the late 2000s. The gameplay premise of Katamari Damacy is such a simple, attractive idea seemingly created for a wide demographic of gamers, putting into perspective the overall appeal of the series that has made it successful. Katamari Damacy just seems so ideal that it’s a wonder that someone didn't capitalize on it before 2004. The gameplay is also so simple and accessible that I’m certain every mobile game developer is collectively coveting the rights to this game, kicking themselves that they didn’t think of it first. Alas, the legacy of the Katamari franchise began in 2004 as an exclusive to the PS2 and became a massive hit. Given all of the elements that make this franchise appealing, how could it not have been?
While the gameplay of Katamari Damacy is simple enough, it’s ironically difficult to pinpoint exactly what genre the game falls under. The closest genre that fits appropriately is a rolling platformer, which involves the player rolling a ball in a contraption to get to a goal. It has puzzle elements but in an incredibly unorthodox fashion. The objective of Katamari Damacy is to roll around a colorful ball called a Katamari, collecting objects of relative size to it. Once the player collects enough objects, the Katamari will incrementally increase in size to roll up larger objects the player couldn’t roll up before. The objective is timed, and the player has to get the Katamari to a certain size, or they will fail the mission. This is the objective for every single mission in the game, but it never gets stale. The player starts off rolling up bread crumbs and candy wrappers, minuscule objects that could be picked up by the tiniest of human hands. As you pick these up, the Katamari expands to pick up mice and flowers. Bigger objects like televisions and even people are scattered around as you magnetize the remnants of their households scattered around their ankles. Seeing these larger obstacles makes the player yearn to roll them up but makes them wonder if they will ever be able to. As the game progresses, the small-scaled levels vacuum up people’s houses like a Roomba swallowing people, trees, buildings, Godzilla, and even the clouds in the sky. The credits sequence even has the player rolling up entire countries, leaving the Earth as an ocean planet. The progression of this simple game is incredibly cathartic, and it’s complemented quite well with the simplistic gameplay and objectives.
While this premise could work without any narrative context, Katamari Damacy is aided by an oxymoronically grand yet simple premise. The King of the Cosmos, a being that is most likely supposed to be God, has accidentally destroyed the universe’s celestial bodies in a drunken stupor. To clean up his mess, he enlists The Prince, the green playable protagonist that looks like a Japanese Mike & Ike, to roll up the physical beings of Earth with a Katamari to release them into the sky as celestial beings. This game takes the scientific notion of all life on earth being a product of the cosmos very literally. There is also a little girl on Earth that has the power to feel the presence of the cosmos, and the player gets a cutscene detailing her and her family while the cosmos is being rebuilt. It’s also quite a grim and horrific premise if you think about it. A god is sending all living things back to the universe, prematurely condemning Earth to its doom. Every single thing you collect on the Katamari is lifted to the sky by the King of the Cosmos as it explodes and becomes one with the universe. The inherent existential dread of the game’s premise is entirely cloaked by the snazzy, vivacious charm synonymous with the Katamari series. The game arguably didn’t need an attractive presentation given the simple and effective game mechanics, but the game benefits greatly from having one. Katamari Damacy is the epitome of kawaii Japanese weirdness and eccentricities. The game has an incredibly flamboyant color scheme, and the graphics are stylistically blocky to make everything the Prince rolls up look like a toy. The King of the Cosmos is so ostentatious looking that he could show up at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, and he’d still look overdressed. Not to mention, he has a rainbow mouth power that can make things appear. The soundtrack is also incredibly effervescent and very Japanese. While the simple gameplay is alluring enough, the style here is most likely what grabbed so many people.
The King of the Cosmos also has a giant ego that matches his colossal stature. It’s selfish enough that he has his son clean up after him, but fixing the universe is also a task that must be done without haste. The challenge of each mission is making a big enough Katamari under a time constraint. As the game progresses, the time to make that Katamari increases, but the standard for the size of the Katamari also increases. If the Prince fails to make a big enough Katamari under that time limit, a terrifying game over screen occurs in which the King scolds him like he just came home with a failing grade on a test. Usually, the game gives the player enough time to complete these objectives, so failing never occurred to me. However, this lenient timespan might be implemented because the game incentivizes going beyond the time limit. The King of the Cosmos will be underwhelmed by the Prince performing at the bare minimum and bluntly express this feeling of disappointment. The King is a cunt, and is probably inspired by the collectively strict Asian fathers of all of the developers. I personally think exceeding the needed limit is a good thing. After all, why would you stop building your Katamari after it’s come so far?
I’m not a fan of some of the game’s controls regarding the Katamari. To make the Katamari seem sizable, the developers implemented tank controls to make rolling the intergalactic ball seem more kinetic and unattached to the Prince. In execution, I often found myself losing the pace of movement because of having to roll sideways at times, but this might just be chalked up to my questionable skill level. The Katamari will also roll awkwardly if the player manages to pick up an object like a bench or a fence that is too jagged to pick up once the player can. This causes rolling the Katamari to feel like pole vaulting and breaks the pace of the movement. The game expresses that picking up these kinds of objects should be avoided until they can be picked up smoothly, but they are everywhere and tend to be pretty sizable. I suppose picking these up is meant to be a tradeoff. I frequently also felt annoyed whenever I’d get the Katamari stuck between a rock and a hard place because many of the objects would fall off. Like picking up objects that cause the Katamari to move awkwardly, this happens fairly often due to most structured objects like buildings and such being heavily present but not small enough to pick up, leading to bashing the Katamari and losing some objects. Let’s call it the “adolescent phase” of the Katamari growth process: it’s not where everything can be picked up, but it’s too big to traverse through the playground easily, resulting in being battered at every move. It’s a bit awkward, and it occurs in most of the levels.
I’m also not a fan of the side missions Katamari Damacy presents. Besides restoring the moon and constellations, the King also has the prince roll up specific objects that are themed around astrology. The Prince rolls up crabs to make cancer, fish to make Pisces, etc. Levels like the one for Taurus will have players roll up enough objects to potentially roll up the biggest cow object they can find. What mostly occurs is the player will most likely roll up a smaller cow object by accident, resulting in the level ending and getting a lecture on laziness from the King. These sub-levels mainly underwhelmed me. They sort of break the pace of the climactic progression of the main missions of growing a Katamari in size, and the unfair missions like the Taurus ones royally pissed me off.
Katamari Damacy is a game that is utterly infectious in many ways. It’s unique, it’s charming, and its accessibility makes it ideal for any gamer. It was a gigantic hit in the mid-2000s for a reason. While I had a blast with this game and was smitten by its candy-colored absurdism, I felt like the hiccups presented in the gameplay were a deterring factor. They seem like nitpicks, but I found quite a few while playing this game again for this review. I also feel like the developers undermined the effective simplicity of the game. Katamari Damacy could’ve given me hundreds of levels doing the same thing, and I probably would’ve been satisfied. The developers probably felt that implementing side missions to break the pace of gameplay would’ve been refreshing, but they either ended up tedious or unfairly broken. Katamari Damacy had a golden idea that presented itself well, but I feel like it could’ve used some more refinement. Even the simplest games need time to breathe and buff out the cracks.
...
Also, this game might be way too Japanese for its own good. The King tells the player that they roll up objects in different parts of the world like Poland, Spain, and Russia, but who in Spain plays Shogi? Why are Godzilla and Ultraman running around in Russia? It would’ve made enough sense for the game to be entirely located in Japan, progressively rolling up the entire country at the end of the game as the Katamari got bigger. Then, it would’ve made sense that it conquered the world as per the credits sequence. The Japanese elements present throughout the game are extremely unconvincing for levels that are supposed to be set in other cultures.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com
While the gameplay of Katamari Damacy is simple enough, it’s ironically difficult to pinpoint exactly what genre the game falls under. The closest genre that fits appropriately is a rolling platformer, which involves the player rolling a ball in a contraption to get to a goal. It has puzzle elements but in an incredibly unorthodox fashion. The objective of Katamari Damacy is to roll around a colorful ball called a Katamari, collecting objects of relative size to it. Once the player collects enough objects, the Katamari will incrementally increase in size to roll up larger objects the player couldn’t roll up before. The objective is timed, and the player has to get the Katamari to a certain size, or they will fail the mission. This is the objective for every single mission in the game, but it never gets stale. The player starts off rolling up bread crumbs and candy wrappers, minuscule objects that could be picked up by the tiniest of human hands. As you pick these up, the Katamari expands to pick up mice and flowers. Bigger objects like televisions and even people are scattered around as you magnetize the remnants of their households scattered around their ankles. Seeing these larger obstacles makes the player yearn to roll them up but makes them wonder if they will ever be able to. As the game progresses, the small-scaled levels vacuum up people’s houses like a Roomba swallowing people, trees, buildings, Godzilla, and even the clouds in the sky. The credits sequence even has the player rolling up entire countries, leaving the Earth as an ocean planet. The progression of this simple game is incredibly cathartic, and it’s complemented quite well with the simplistic gameplay and objectives.
While this premise could work without any narrative context, Katamari Damacy is aided by an oxymoronically grand yet simple premise. The King of the Cosmos, a being that is most likely supposed to be God, has accidentally destroyed the universe’s celestial bodies in a drunken stupor. To clean up his mess, he enlists The Prince, the green playable protagonist that looks like a Japanese Mike & Ike, to roll up the physical beings of Earth with a Katamari to release them into the sky as celestial beings. This game takes the scientific notion of all life on earth being a product of the cosmos very literally. There is also a little girl on Earth that has the power to feel the presence of the cosmos, and the player gets a cutscene detailing her and her family while the cosmos is being rebuilt. It’s also quite a grim and horrific premise if you think about it. A god is sending all living things back to the universe, prematurely condemning Earth to its doom. Every single thing you collect on the Katamari is lifted to the sky by the King of the Cosmos as it explodes and becomes one with the universe. The inherent existential dread of the game’s premise is entirely cloaked by the snazzy, vivacious charm synonymous with the Katamari series. The game arguably didn’t need an attractive presentation given the simple and effective game mechanics, but the game benefits greatly from having one. Katamari Damacy is the epitome of kawaii Japanese weirdness and eccentricities. The game has an incredibly flamboyant color scheme, and the graphics are stylistically blocky to make everything the Prince rolls up look like a toy. The King of the Cosmos is so ostentatious looking that he could show up at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, and he’d still look overdressed. Not to mention, he has a rainbow mouth power that can make things appear. The soundtrack is also incredibly effervescent and very Japanese. While the simple gameplay is alluring enough, the style here is most likely what grabbed so many people.
The King of the Cosmos also has a giant ego that matches his colossal stature. It’s selfish enough that he has his son clean up after him, but fixing the universe is also a task that must be done without haste. The challenge of each mission is making a big enough Katamari under a time constraint. As the game progresses, the time to make that Katamari increases, but the standard for the size of the Katamari also increases. If the Prince fails to make a big enough Katamari under that time limit, a terrifying game over screen occurs in which the King scolds him like he just came home with a failing grade on a test. Usually, the game gives the player enough time to complete these objectives, so failing never occurred to me. However, this lenient timespan might be implemented because the game incentivizes going beyond the time limit. The King of the Cosmos will be underwhelmed by the Prince performing at the bare minimum and bluntly express this feeling of disappointment. The King is a cunt, and is probably inspired by the collectively strict Asian fathers of all of the developers. I personally think exceeding the needed limit is a good thing. After all, why would you stop building your Katamari after it’s come so far?
I’m not a fan of some of the game’s controls regarding the Katamari. To make the Katamari seem sizable, the developers implemented tank controls to make rolling the intergalactic ball seem more kinetic and unattached to the Prince. In execution, I often found myself losing the pace of movement because of having to roll sideways at times, but this might just be chalked up to my questionable skill level. The Katamari will also roll awkwardly if the player manages to pick up an object like a bench or a fence that is too jagged to pick up once the player can. This causes rolling the Katamari to feel like pole vaulting and breaks the pace of the movement. The game expresses that picking up these kinds of objects should be avoided until they can be picked up smoothly, but they are everywhere and tend to be pretty sizable. I suppose picking these up is meant to be a tradeoff. I frequently also felt annoyed whenever I’d get the Katamari stuck between a rock and a hard place because many of the objects would fall off. Like picking up objects that cause the Katamari to move awkwardly, this happens fairly often due to most structured objects like buildings and such being heavily present but not small enough to pick up, leading to bashing the Katamari and losing some objects. Let’s call it the “adolescent phase” of the Katamari growth process: it’s not where everything can be picked up, but it’s too big to traverse through the playground easily, resulting in being battered at every move. It’s a bit awkward, and it occurs in most of the levels.
I’m also not a fan of the side missions Katamari Damacy presents. Besides restoring the moon and constellations, the King also has the prince roll up specific objects that are themed around astrology. The Prince rolls up crabs to make cancer, fish to make Pisces, etc. Levels like the one for Taurus will have players roll up enough objects to potentially roll up the biggest cow object they can find. What mostly occurs is the player will most likely roll up a smaller cow object by accident, resulting in the level ending and getting a lecture on laziness from the King. These sub-levels mainly underwhelmed me. They sort of break the pace of the climactic progression of the main missions of growing a Katamari in size, and the unfair missions like the Taurus ones royally pissed me off.
Katamari Damacy is a game that is utterly infectious in many ways. It’s unique, it’s charming, and its accessibility makes it ideal for any gamer. It was a gigantic hit in the mid-2000s for a reason. While I had a blast with this game and was smitten by its candy-colored absurdism, I felt like the hiccups presented in the gameplay were a deterring factor. They seem like nitpicks, but I found quite a few while playing this game again for this review. I also feel like the developers undermined the effective simplicity of the game. Katamari Damacy could’ve given me hundreds of levels doing the same thing, and I probably would’ve been satisfied. The developers probably felt that implementing side missions to break the pace of gameplay would’ve been refreshing, but they either ended up tedious or unfairly broken. Katamari Damacy had a golden idea that presented itself well, but I feel like it could’ve used some more refinement. Even the simplest games need time to breathe and buff out the cracks.
...
Also, this game might be way too Japanese for its own good. The King tells the player that they roll up objects in different parts of the world like Poland, Spain, and Russia, but who in Spain plays Shogi? Why are Godzilla and Ultraman running around in Russia? It would’ve made enough sense for the game to be entirely located in Japan, progressively rolling up the entire country at the end of the game as the Katamari got bigger. Then, it would’ve made sense that it conquered the world as per the credits sequence. The Japanese elements present throughout the game are extremely unconvincing for levels that are supposed to be set in other cultures.
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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com