Na naaaa nanana nana nanaa…
Katamari Damacy is one of those wonderful joyful toy-like experiences for all ages that don’t appear as often as I’d personally love to see. And my only huge complaint with this remaster would probably only boil down to – why not pack it with We ♥ Katamari for even more bizarre and fun ball rolling goodness?
Katamari Damacy was weird in 2004 and it remains weird today. You roll a ball over items on the level, starting with smaller things than, as your ball size gets larger, going to bigger and bigger things. And you have a timer (for most levels, at least) that sets a hard limit to how long you can keep trying to make the ball as big as the level demands. It’s rarely difficult, in fact only a couple of levels might present a challenge in completing them at all, with some of them being difficult to perfectly clear, but usually easy to clear in any manner. And it’s all supported by an amazing soundtrack, that is as unorthodox as the game and its visual style. It’s super fun, it’s super simple, it’s going to put a smile on your face and before you know it you will be singing along as you play.
It’s samey, but also short in the best way possible. It has some little annoyances, but they don’t get in the way much, especially if you’re not trying to do everything perfectly. And this remaster has a weird thing where it starts in the 720p windowed mode and you cannot change that until after you finish the whole tutorial section – a potential issue as the technology moves along since even now on a 4K screen that original window is tiny as heck. Given that the port is powered by Unity Engine, which allows having a pre-launch config menu, this is just unacceptable. Also, why the heck was auto-save not added so you still must manually save the game, otherwise it’s all gone? Sigh…
Well, other than that? It’s so fun to play. It is a shame that We ♥ Katamari isn’t part of the same package, completing the full Keita Takahashi Katamari experience, but it’s worth for the first game alone.