I've seen a few reviews on here that claim Katamari Damacy has terrible controls. In Katamari you need both analog sticks to move; move both sticks up to roll forward, down for backwards, hold the left stick up and the right stick down to quickly move the Prince to the left, and vice versa. Rapidly move the analog sticks up and down for a few seconds to perform a dash and you can press both sticks in to do a 180-degree turn. I personally think these controls are perfect; sure, it may take a while to get used to them, but just because they're weird or different doesn't mean they're bad. I kind of see it like tank controls, except I see more people bitch about that. Katamari NEEDS two analog sticks to work! So, what do you get when you put Katamari on a console with only one analog nub? You get one scuffed Katamari game, probably the worst in the series! Everything the right analog stick used to do is now on the four face buttons. Triangle replaces holding up on the right stick and x replaces holding down. For the dash you need to press the nub up and the triangle button alternatively, and for the quick turn press left on the nub and the circle button twice in quick succession. Just like with other Katamari games, you can get used to them eventually (remapping the face buttons to the right analog stick helps) but there are issues beyond the controls here.

This is the third game in the series and is the first game made without the involvement of series creator Keita Takahashi and it shows. Each level plays out the exact same way. Roll up to this amount, then get transported to a new map, timer resets and roll around again. Now repeat this for about 4 and a half hours. This may sound like a normal Katamari game, but the problem is that every level is the god damn same thing every single time. Rollable objects are always in the same position; the size number you need to achieve is the same, and the order the maps appear in is the same; they could have at least randomized them! I didn't count how many maps are in the game, but there's really not too many. Your objective is always the same, just roll and get bigger; it gets mind-numbing real quick. We Love Katamari introduced a lot of stage variety like rolling a sumo wrestler around so he can eat and get bigger for an upcoming sumo match. A boy got caught up with studying and didn't pay his electricity bill; now go roll up fireflies so he can continue his studies. There's a stage where you enter a race and now your Katamari will automatically accelerate. This game offers nothing of that caliber. There's a few levels off to the side that amount to rolling up as much as you can for a few minutes with no real way to fail.

I saw a comment somewhere that the described this game as soulless and that's completely accurate. I can't even complement the music as most of the soundtrack is ripped from the first two games.

Reviewed on Feb 01, 2023


8 Comments


I guess they were really banking on the portability factor due to make up some of the constrained nature for the handheld, but that's always been a weird idea to me. Transferring the controlled environment feel of sitting at a space hours on end to carefully construct a layout and plan for a mobile offering that has different factors working against you doesn't strike my fancy, but maybe I'm just overexaggerating.

1 year ago

It would be like putting a remake of the original Ape Escape on the PSP. Luckily that never happened!
Yep, it sure is a good thing there is no Ape Escape remake on the PSP
Yeah this game absolutely seems like a "Just cause ya can doesn't mean ya should" type beat lmao. When it works well the face buttons as right analog stick deal can work but my god there were so many games that just didn't do that well at all.

1 year ago

I remember trying the Ghost in the Shell PSP game for about 5 minutes before I shut it off. An FPS that doesn't even have dual analog is a complete nightmare!

1 year ago

Oh wow I didn't even know there was a PSP katamari game. I don't really mind any of the games past we love katamari, it doesn't make any sense for the series and the original director was the heart and soul of it anyhow. What a well written review, I really enjoyed reading it <3

1 year ago

Thank you for the kind words! You can really feel that something is missing with all of the titles post We Love Katamari. I think Katamari Forever is fine but ultimately not very memorable.

1 year ago

It doesn't even really make sense cause the whole point of we love katamari was that the king didn't really wanna continue rolling, but he did so at the encouragement of his fans. I'm not even sure how you follow that up with a competent sequel lol. But yeah I agree, they definitely lost something