It’s very easy to get disillusioned as a video game reviewer. It doesn’t take very long to figure out that almost every game that’s released is little more than a variation on another game, which is, in turn, a variation on yet another game. That said, it takes a special, original game to truly make the veteran reviewer snap out of said disillusionment, and remember why video games are so much fun in the first place.
Ladies and gentlemen, Katamari Damacy is that special game. If you read no further, know this: This is easily one of the most unique, entertaining games you will encounter this year, and the $20 price tag makes it a crime for any self-respecting video game enthusiast to pass this hidden jewel by.
So what makes Katamari Damacy so special? Fundamentally, it has that “minute to learn, lifetime to master” quality that has made games as old as Pac-Man and Tetris and as new as Super Monkey Ball so enduringly entertaining for gamers of any skill level. It’s also so uniquely and overwhelmingly Japanese that you can’t help but smile as you watch the game unfold; the game often makes no sense whatsoever, but instead of getting in the way of enjoying the game, it actually becomes part of its charm.
The basic idea of the story is that the King of All the Cosmos went on an intergalactic bender one night, and when he came to, all the stars in the sky were gone. Well, if there is no Cosmos, then there is nothing for the King to hold dominion over, so he tasks his Prince to rebuild the stars. How does one manufacture a star, one might ask? Well, apparently, you take a sticky ball (called a katamari), you use it to roll up all the random crap you can find, and then you launch it into space. Given that Home Depot doesn’t exactly have build-your-own-star kits, this seems to be the next best thing.
The player takes on the role of the Prince and his katamari. You use both analog sticks to roll the katamari, via tank-like controls; pushing both sticks in the same direction will move the ball in that direction, while pushing them in opposite directions will rotate the ball left or right. There are a couple of additional moves that will let you switch directions quickly or charge up for a dash, but those are really optional and not at all necessary to get through the game; once you can get the ball moving, you’ve got all the controls down.
The player will start out each stage as a small ball, and many stages require the katamari to reach a particular size within a given time limit. The katamari grows by rolling over objects that will stick to it, but it can only pick up items that are smaller than it is. This is a fairly ingenious mechanic, as what happens as the stage progresses is that objects that were obstacles become food for the katamari, and objects that were simply part of the scenery become small enough to become obstacles. By the end of the game, literally everything is fair game; you’ll pick up everything from thumbtacks and candy to skyscrapers and whole islands.
What is really interesting is that the stage is the same from beginning to end, but it feels like a different stage every time your katamari grows in size. Even though, technically, nothing’s changed, the changing size of your ball means that the stage needs to be traversed differently as different objects are now relatively small enough to block your way. What’s more, what you pick up affects how you move around as much as how much you pick up. Oddly shaped items, like lampposts or fences, will stick out and make it more awkward for your katamari to roll, but they also could act almost like a pole vault to allow the katamari to get over obstacles it couldn’t cross otherwise. As the katamari grows, the mass increases as well, meaning that it takes more effort to get it to change directions as the stage goes on.
There are just under twenty stages, and not all of them are the straight-forward missions that require the katamari to reach a certain size. Some missions require you to create constellations, which usually require picking up particular types of objects. For example, to build Pisces, the player must collect as many fish as possible, and to build Ursa Major, the player must collect the biggest bear that he can find. The stages are very nicely varied and it rarely feels like you’re doing the same thing over and over again. It would have been nice if there were more than three main environments (a room, a house, and the outside world), but they really don’t get old due to the variety of the missions.
The game isn’t overly difficult; with enough persistence, one could easily complete all the stages within a couple of days. However, this is one of those games where completing the stage is only the beginning; the game challenges you to get your katamari as big as you possibly can within the time allotted. It’s a lot of fun to see what kinds of things you can pick up once you know your way around the stages, and there’s always that motivation to get the ball just one centimeter bigger. So while you’ll technically finish the game relatively quickly, you’ll find yourself coming back again and again.
There is also a two player mode, where the players compete to make their katamari the biggest. There is some additional strategy involved here, with the ability to dash into the opposing katamari, or even pick it up if the difference in size is big enough. It’s fun for a while, but these bland battle arenas don’t have quite the same character as the single player stages. A cooperative mode or the ability to compete in the main stages would have been a much better multiplayer mode, but the game doesn’t suffer as a result.
Graphically, Katamari Damacy sports a blocky, almost cubist style that might seem anachronistic in any other game, but just seems to fit here. The sheer array of unique objects to pick up is staggering, and each has its own unique feel thanks to the art direction. The game also does a good job of creating an appropriate sense of scale by occasionally blurring the screen and zooming the camera out as the katamari grows. There is a little slowdown in the multiplayer mode, but even with all the moving objects in the main quest, I rarely noticed any graphical glitches.
The only complaint I really had regarding the graphics concerns the camera control, or the lack thereof. It is occasionally difficult to see where to go, especially when the camera is close to zooming out and the katamari takes up half to three quarters of the screen. The player can press R1 to get a birds-eye view, or L1 to go into first person mode, but neither really does enough to reorient the player.
The sound is truly excellent. Every item the katamari rolls over has its own sound, and rolling a large katamari into a congested area results in this fascinating cacophony of objects competing to be heard. There is a small amount of voice acting, and it is delivered without very much emotion, but it kind of fits with the surreal cutscenes starring a Japanese family who begins to figure out what the King and Prince are doing. (One can only say, “I can feel it. I feel the cosmos,” so convincingly anyway.)
The music, though, really makes the game. The main theme of the game is one of those endearingly catchy tunes that ranks up there with the overworld theme from The Legend of Zelda. I actually caught myself, on several occasions, humming the Katamari Damacy theme to myself long after I had shut the PlayStation off. The other tracks are excellent as well, ranging from J-Pop to big band and beyond. The music is so good I’d consider purchasing a soundtrack, which is not something I can bring myself to say about many games.
Overall, Katamari Damacy is the best $20 you’ll spend all year. It truly defies description; it’s one of those games that is so simple that it almost sounds boring, yet is nearly impossible to put down once you’ve picked it up. Hats off to Namco for having the courage to buck the traditional wisdom about what makes a “great” game and bring this little treasure to these shores, and for pricing it low enough that people wouldn’t be scared to give it a shot. There may be a lot of hype and buzz about some blockbuster games that will be coming out in the next couple of months, but make no mistake: Katamari Damacy is a definite candidate for game of the year, and you’ll truly do yourself a disservice by passing it by.
