SEASONS

Review: Katamari Damacy

The King of All Cosmos has accidentally destroyed all the stars. It's up to you, the diminutive Prince to gather all the things on Earth to replace the lost stars in space. To accomplish your task, you are given a katamari (a sticky ball). As you roll the katamari around, it will pick up objects smaller than it, making the katamari larger and able to pick up larger objects. Eventually, your katamari will be sent into space to become a star.

If you just let out a yawn, you are excused. In this age of more—more abilities, more moves, more characters, more interactions— Katamari Damacy certainly seems boring at first glance. Yet, it is its simple concept and lack of extras that make Katamari Damacy such a joy to play.

The goal of each level is to build up your katamari to a certain size. You start with a small katamari only capable of picking up the smallest objects on the map—perhaps thumbtacks and dice. As you progress, you'll be able to pick up larger objects like shovels and flower pots as well as be able to access other areas of the map. In this way, the level design of Katamari Damacy is very Metroid-esque. Initially, most of the map is inaccessible. However, once your katamari gets large enough, it will be able to roll over walls and up stairs, allowing you to reach new areas.

As your katamari gets bigger, the view zooms out, keeping your katamari at the same onscreen size and making the world around you look smaller. The zoom-out happens in many steps, so it feels seamless. You might not even notice how much bigger your katamari has gotten until you start picking up the people—yes, you can roll up people =)—that kicked you around a few minutes ago.

Rolling around (done with the two analog sticks like Virtual-On) feels natural. If you pick up a long object like a pencil, your katamari becomes lopsided and its roll is affected as you might expect. If you crash into a wall (or a relatively big object), objects on the outer layer of your katamari will fall off. The weight of an object will also affect whether or not you can pick it up; e.g. you'll be able to pick up a comic book before you can pick up a flower pot.

The beauty of Katamari Damacy stems from its simplicity. Rolling around is pure joy. It is also quite soothing and meditative. The music and graphics—which I sadly don't have time to write about—are incredibly well-done and have that quirky-Japanese style.

Katamari Damacy is a sure-fire sleeper-hit. Normally, I wouldn't recommend this kind of game to everyone, but it's only $20 ($15 with GGC @ BestBuy), so you have no excuse not to check this game out.

Verdict: Two thumbs up.

Tom Bramwell has a more-thorough and much-better-written review of Katamari Damacy over at Eurogamer.net.