Normally Japan gets all the weird video gaming goods. We miss out on a lot of good, yet really weird titles overseas, and it’s a shame. Companies believe they won’t sell in this market. I mean we don’t even get dating sims over here, but realistically games like that would probably cause an uproar; just look at the Sega CD’s Night Trap and how “controversial” it was. So you can imagine my surprise when I found out Katamari Damacy was coming out in the states. While not controversial, it’s not everyday a game like this comes to America, and at $20 brand new to boot. Everything about this game is distinctly Japanese; there’s never a moment where you question if it came from the Land of the Rising Sun or not. But at $20, could this title be any good?
"Katamari Damacy has to be one of the most unique titles I’ve played in a long time."
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Katamari Damacy has to be one of the most unique titles I’ve played in a long time. It’s based around an extremely simple concept: roll a ball (the Katamari) over stuff smaller than your ball to pick it up, and the ball gets bigger as you go along, allowing you to pick up bigger stuff as you go. It’s amazing how a simple concept like that can be among the most addicting. You’ll start out at a size of five centimeters, and you’ll be picking up dice, and thumbtacks, but as the game progresses and your Katamari grows, you’ll pick up small animals, then furniture, then people, then even whole houses. It’s really funny the way living beings react to being rolled over. Dogs yelp, birds flap wildly, and people wiggle and scream.
But why in the world would you be rolling around a Katamari? The answer is simple: the King of All Cosmos got kind of tipsy, and flew around the universe in a drunken stupor. While doing so, he inadvertently destroyed all the stars in the entire universe, which of course when you think about it, is an every day normal occurrence. It’s now up to you, the Prince, to recreate all of the solar bodies which once populated the sky. In order to create the stars, the Katamari needs to collect giant clumps of things to convert them in a star, and the planet Earth just so happens to have a lot of things, a lot of strange and humorous things to roll up into this ball of “stuff” that’s destined to become a star. Sometimes you’ll have to gather up specific items to make constellations, like crabs to create Cancer, for example. There’s never a dull or unfunny moment in this game.
Actually, the humor is one of the greatest parts of this title. The dialogue scenes with the King of All Cosmos are translated awfully, but it seems they were done so on purpose.
"... the humor is one of the greatest parts of this title. "
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While it’s not quite “Engrish,” it’s definitely not English. It’s just the way the King’s dialogue was written; he’s a truly amusing character. How he refers to himself in the third person all the time, or how he completely patronizes your character, even though you aren’t saying anything back to him. When coupled with the art style, one wonders if Namco enlisted the help of Monty Python to create this game. Right off the bat the game is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Watching the opening cinema I wondered if the Flying Circus was made into a video game. The strange animals who move awkwardly, the water-colored human-like beings with exaggerated features, the surreal scenery, the mushrooms… it borders on plagiarism so much I expected a giant foot to crush the dancing pandas. Also, it resembles what I’m told an acid trip is like. The cut-scenes with the human children and how they interact with their mother are hilarious as well. Their mother just brushes off the fact that the kids know the stars are gone as though it’s their imagination (as real mothers do), and the kids are visibly frustrated, because the news is reporting this. It’s deliciously awkward.
If you didn’t think this game was weird enough, the music is the final straw. In some strange yet inspired move, Namco decided this game needed nearly every style of music in this game, but the songs would be recorded totally in Japanese, which makes sense since they probably figured it wasn’t going to leave Japan. There really isn’t a genre that wasn’t covered in this game. It’s not the fact that every genre was covered; it’s how it was covered. The game starts off right away with the main theme being hummed a cappella and you can’t help but chuckle, but then the main video starts, and the theme kicks in with full instruments, and rainbows, and dancing panda bears, and you start to laugh a lot. Some of the songs are techno, and go as far left as lounge. It’s a very eclectic blend, but the humor comes from the way they’ve skillfully butchered the genres. It all sounds extra quirky and fits the silliness of the game well.
Even though the presentation seems like it’s the high point of this title, the game itself plays like a dream. The quirky humor will be enough to win nearly anyone that can smile over, but it’s the truly pick-up-and-play mechanics that will allow more people to access this than most games of its type. You use both analog sticks to steer your Katamari. For example to go right, you push right with both sticks. There are other moves, like where you push in the sticks to switch directions, and a spin dash like maneuver, among others, but the controls are pretty much self-explanatory. If it looks small enough to pick up, roll over it, and chances are you can, and if you’re not big enough yet, you know you’ll eventually be big enough to do so. If you run into stuff, your ball loses items, and shrinks a little bit. Say you pick up a pencil, but it’s off center with your ball; it will react realistically and be off balance, making your ball control awkwardly. It’s this kind of gameplay that keeps people who aren’t normally into games enthralled, because they don’t really need to think about it too much, but it’s in-depth enough that hardcore gamers will want to try to get 100%. This game is easily described as one of those “easy to learn, lifetime to master” type games.
"... probably the single most creative game to come out this generation."
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Maybe it’s more like “easy to learn, a weekend to master,” because the game itself isn’t very long. You’ll get through it in probably 8 to 10 hours of play, and even that’s being kind of generous, since there are only around twenty stages. But for the price you really can’t go wrong. They added a two-player battle mode, but it’s really pretty shallow. The unlockables are also pretty lame, only giving you characters for versus mode (which are just skins), and some presents you can locate for 100%. Really, this game could have just benefited from more locations and weather effects. It would have taken an excellent game to nearly perfect, but that’s my only complaint.
In a situation like this, usually I’ll say “Katamari Damacy won’t win any awards, but it’s an enjoyable game,” but this time I really believe this title will win awards. It definitely deserves to, since it’s probably the single most creative game to come out this generation. It might not be perfect, but its flaws are small and almost unnoticeable. If a sequel happens, lets hope the length and diversity are the only things tampered with; Katamari is nearly perfect as is.
