So, this game exists.  I’m not sure how or why, but this game exists.  And I fucking love it.  Screw the intro I’m reviewing Katamari Damacy!

Katamari Damacy was released in 2002 by Namco for the PS2 and my god is it weird.  You play as the Prince, son of the King of Cosmos.  The game starts off with a cutscene where your dad gets super drunk and destroys all the stars in the sky.  And he tells you as his son, to pick up random shit on Earth with a Katamari, a ball that makes everything smaller than it stick to it for some reason. Anyway, the king (who refers to himself as both a he and a we for some reason) send you off on this journey starting at the height of about 5 centimeters.  Your job is to roll the katamari big enough to make a star out of it.  After you’ve made your katamari big enough, the King takes it and turns it into a star by blowing it up.  

There are also cutscenes with this family going to see their dad fly in a rocket to the moon later that day.  I don’t get why these cutscenes are here or how they add to anything, but they have a certain strange charm to them.  Except when you beat a constellation.  The daughter can “sense” what’s going on.

The game’s look is very colorful and pleasing to the eye.  All the objects pop and some even react when being picked up such as animals and people.  On top of that everything has a very Japanese feel.  Like no, this game could only be made by the Japanese. I love the art style and find it to be very unique.  I do wish the locales were more varied though.  You start in a house in like 5 different levels and have to go to the same locations in a lot of different levels as well.

And now the music.  My god, the music.  This game has to be in my top 5 game soundtracks of all time.  And that theme makes me so happy!  Some of the soundtrack is repeated in later levels, but I don’t even care! It’s fantastic.  Between this and the graphics, I wish more games had the balls to go this outside the box with their presentation because it makes the game feel really unique.

The gameplay of Katamari Damacy is super simple.  Roll the ball into small stuff to get them to stick.  Once your ball gets bigger, you can roll up bigger stuff.  Also, you can turbo charge and if you pick up something that makes your ball lopsided your Katamari will do a weird pole-vault-hobble to get everywhere until you smooth out.  And that’s pretty much all you do for the entire game.  The are a few variations here and there where you’re tasked with collecting a lot of a certain object or collecting the largest of a certain kind of object you can find, but generally you’re going to be doing the same thing most of the game.  Which is perfectly fine because picking things up with a Katamari is one of the most satisfying feelings ever put into a game! Starting a level by running from snails and growing to the size of picking up buildings feels amazing and powerful.  It’s also oddly relaxing.   The game can be challenging your first time through, but after that the only major challenge is getting a large enough Katamari that the King won’t scrutinize you.

The controls feel kind of weird at first, but they grow on you.  Eventually you’ll be rolling around like a pro.  However, there are a few problems with the gameplay.  Rolling into a wall holding forward is supposed to get you to roll your ball over the ledge, but it only works about 50% of the time.  I often wished that the game had a jump button instead to allow for easier travel.  On top of that, the camera can sometimes get really confused, leaving you completely clueless as to where you’re going.  And finally, there isn’t much indication as to what you can pick up.  There were many occasions when I was clearly taller and more massive that what I was going to pick up, but couldn’t.  I’m not sure what qualifies this, but it could have been organized better.  Maybe have a button causing all of the objects you can pick up to glow briefly?  

Also, while I do like the bit of variety offered with the constellation levels, I do think the addition of some extra gimmicks could have been nice.  Maybe rolling the Katamari into some water to roll through flaming bushes to get to a new area, or racing a car with your katamari, or dodgeball.  There is so much potential with this concept and while the finished game is really fun, it really sparked my imagination for what could be done in the future.  Oh, and going back to the same locations can get repetitive sometimes despite this being a short game to begin with.  Though sometimes it’s cool to return at a larger size and collect the objects that gave you trouble on your previous trip.

In spite of all these flaws the game is still tons of fun to play and really impressive too.  I mean, you can go from as small as an ant picking things up inside a house to being large enough to roll up the house you started in without ever seeing a loading screen.  There’s just a little blurry transition that lasts for about a second allowing the world to shrink relative to your new size every once in awhile.  The game runs flawlessly and I never managed to get myself stuck within a level despite actually trying to.  Seriously, the game is weird but the programming has some great structure.

Katamari Damacy is a weird game.  It’s really weird.  But my god do I love it.  It has one of the most satisfying mechanics ever put into a game and uses it very well.  While I would probably prefer a bit more variety in both the gameplay and level design, I can’t fault a game for sticking to its strengths.  I give Katamari Damacy 8.5 sticky balls out of 10.