Katamari Damacy!

Katamari Damacy
Published by: Namco
Review by Greg Cutcher


What happens when you combine a pointy ball, a two-centimeter kid and a roll-up world into one game? Katamari Damacy! This game is the most crazy, out-going game that I have played.

Pop the game into your PS2, let it load and you will instantly find yourself in an odd, Japanese-style game. Being submerged in odd singing, bright colors, a huge ball rolling about and pandas that turn red, in what can only be described as watching a J-pop music video while being on mushrooms (which are also in this opening as well!).

So, this is the game: The King of All Cosmos has decided in a drunken stupor that he should destroy all of the stars in the universe. Upon realizing how unhappy the population of Earth is, he has sent you, a 2-centimeter boy and a round, spiky ball called a Katamari down to ‘fix things up’. With your Katamari, you must start off rolling up tiny things like jacks and eraser gums that stick to the Katamari. By rolling up objects, the size of the Katamari increases, getting you closer to the goal of completing the level. As you progress through the levels, your character grows stronger and your Katamari gets that much larger, allowing you to roll up bigger objects in different levels. With your Katamari getting larger, you will in further levels be able to pick up cats, dogs, people, buildings and even landmasses! Who wouldn’t enjoy rolling up all of this, and reveling in all of the mindless destruction that has no violence, save a person wailing and flailing about as the Katamari catches him.

You have to be careful too about what you roll up. First, you cannot roll up things that are larger than half your Katamari. Second, if you speed up and crash into an object larger than your katamari, objects you have rolled up, fly off in different directions. Third, if you grab something straight like a pen or an electric pole, the object will make the Katamari itself lift off the ground and become harder to control, just to allow the object to move underneath.

Every level you are either attempting to roll up enough objects within a certain time limit or how big you can make your Katamari. Some challenges don't even have a time limit! There is also an added bonus to every level; obscure Japanese music! Every level gives you happy-go-lucky music, sung to you in Japanese and a funky beat behind the singer.

As you roll up things, the King at certain time intervals or size intervals will tell you how pathetic or how good you are doing. By achieving new sizes in a level, new areas may open up for you that you could not get to before. If you are not of a certain height, things will block you, like large staircases to gigantic, 60 meter tall pylons!!

If you succeed in a level, you do indeed get a new star or constellation if you get the Katamari to a certain size, but if you do not, you get lip from the king. “Pathetic, worthless, useless.” Says the King of all Cosmos with thunder racing behind him in outer space. The King, no matter how lazy he is to get the stars back himself, will throw large insults you if you are not up-to-par with his expectations.

Upon finishing a level, you have the opportunity to return to the same level to challenge it again for a better rank. The bigger your Katamari, the happier the King will be. Also, you can get secret, no-time-limit levels that appear if you get the Katamari to a certain size in some levels.

The King, in all of his laziness, tries to give you presents before every mission, but admits that he lost it somewhere on the way to you. You, of course, have to find the present on the current level by rolling it up and successfully completing the mission in order to get some accessory to add onto your ‘prince’ to make him look cooler.

When you don’t want to roll up the world anymore into stars, or if you have completed every level, the prince can go to a world where his cousins live. Just have a friend over so that both of you can choose a ‘cousin’ or the prince to have a grudge fest. Both you and your friend will have to try and roll up as many objects as you can to make the largest Katamari. Heck, if you do get big enough, just roll your friend up for a little while and take them for a spin. This sounds fun right? Well, the multiplayer could have been improved by having larger levels, more objects and/or more time limit for the battle. 3 minutes is not enough time. That being said, the multiplayer can still be a blast for a few games, but you’ll be soon be wanting to send your friend home so you can get back to rolling up the world.

Katamari is a game that will pull you in and won’t let you go (No pun intended). This game offers new life to gameplay that is out in the gaming world. If you enjoy rolling up objects, people, schools, landmasses and other silly objects, bizarre music and the King of all Cosmos being an ass and you showing him up, then, this game is for you. However, I love all of that and even after the few months that this game has been out, I continue to play it. This truly is the strangest, yet most amusing and enjoyable game that I have ever played.