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Extremely addicting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I kept hearing about this game from friends who had heard about it from others, and at $20, I had to buy it for myself. I'm so glad I did. This is one of the most awesome games I've ever played. Everything about it is strange--right down to the King of All Cosmos's huge capsule-shaped head--and it's very amusing to roll through the streets picking up absolutely everything in your path. And there's a surprise ending that caught me off-guard!

It's simple to pick up and play. There are no button combos to memorize: Only the analog sticks control the action. The music is excellent, and the replay value of this game makes it seem worth well over its $20 price tag. It's a short game, but you'll play it over and over.

It's a wonder Namco localized a game like this, as weird as it is, and I'm grateful they did. Let's hope they do the same with the sequel! Buy this game--you won't regret it.

Truly a gem!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Caveat: I am not one of those rabid game players whose game collections rival their movie collections and who have exacting standards for game play, length, and graphic quality. I play video games if fits and starts, and a large part of my enjoyment of a game comes from an appreciation of the artistry, programming, and ingenuity that goes into a game. There are some video game enthusiasts who will find Katamari Damacy not to their liking because the image quality is not up to this season's standards or because the game can be played start to finish in as little as 4 hours (depending on your game playing skill level, of course).

But there won't be many of them, because there truly is something for everyone in this extraordinary Japanese import!

I underscore the "import" because the game's Japanese origins positively ooze from every orifice: from the endlessly cheerful and eye-poppingly colorful graphics to the seemingly endless array of "everyday" items that aren't so typical in western homes, such as paper-wrapped chopsticks or Daruma dolls. While one is always aware that the game has been translated from the Japanese original, none of the actual translations have that agrammatical nonsensical quality you often see. All the dialogue and instructions make sense while (one imagines) retaining some of the original poetry.

Some of the game's influences are less region-specific, as seen in the dizzying psychedelic colors, patterns, and references. Giant multi-colored mushrooms figure prominently, and part of the back story involves the King of All Cosmos becoming "one with the beauty of the universe" (wink wink nudge nudge)--something that not all of his friends fully understand when he comes to some time later having destroyed the night sky. The King is a delight; clad in bright ued garments and a giant bright blinky Deco-inspired headress in garish colors that nicely set off his ubiquitous snarl.

Rounding out the design features is an interstitial storyline with it's own unique style, and the excellent soundtrack: from the deeply catchy theme song to Japanese pop-inspired jazzy ambient mood music.

If the game had all of this and the game play was just so-so, I would already be thrilled, but Katamari Damacy also delivers engrossing and fun game play. They have done an excellent job with the physics engine, complete with awkward lopsided rolling when objects stick out the side of your katamari. In the first levels you transform your katamari by a scale of ten or so, but as you progress on to the later levels you pick objects several hundreds of times larger than the ones you started with (think thumbtack to skyscraper and beyond!). It is hard to express the satisfaction of rolling blithely over a house that once was just a neverending wall, but trust me, it feels good.

There aren't a zillion levels and a never-ending terrain to explore so actually finishing the game is within the reach of even casual gamers like myself, which is a refreshing change. At the same time the replay value is quite high since you can replay any level at any time to beat your previous record, and there are goodies hidden in all the levels which you may not have found the first time around.

My only complaint is the user interface; both analog sticks are used to control the movement of the katamari resulting in a blend of movement and camera manipulation which might serve the storyline well but results in fighting with the controls instead of enjoying the game. Other reviewers have described this expressed their fondness for this interface, but in my opinion one analog stick for movement and one for camera angle would have been much more intuitive. Should there ever be another version of the game I hope they will make this change.

Still--the controls *were* easy enough for a five-year-old to learn and enjoy, so my criticism is minor.

Kudos to Namco! If you find a copy of this game available anywhere, buy it right away!

Fail your goal at least once...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: January 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The cut scene with the King of All Cosmos is priceless! I am really bad at video games, but still try them from time to time. I'm really glad I tried this one! There are other excellent reviews describing the gameplay, plot and incredible weirdness of this game. In spite of being really uncoordinated with games, I have had a ball with it! Because of being uncoordinated, however, I have been treated to a sight that many may have missed - The King's reaction if you don't meet the set goal for a level. If you just miss it by a little, he's disappointed; if you miss it by a lot, he disowns you! He's a real jerk about it, but in the funniest way possible, and this extra piece to the game is not to be missed!

An addictive fun game, that will waste your free time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

There are few games out there that grab you instantly like this one does. After picking up the controller and trying to grasp the easy to handle controls (it only uses the two sticks to move the ball), you start to want more and more.
I found that there are points in the game that are very challenging and frustrating when you can't get the camera to move behind you the way you want it to. This of course can be remedied with practice in the game.
Fortunately the game makers build level upon level, the experience you need to complete the next level. Once you get better the next level starts you as a larger ball, and you can pick up larger things. However as you pick up more things, it gets increasingly difficult to move the ball up hills.

It's very nice that the ball follows the laws of physics. As you spin forward, the ball picks up more and more things, however if you run into something too big, or get kicked by an animal or human, things will fly off of your katamari ball.

I agree with most of the other reviewers, this game is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the skill that was needed for other games like Tetris, or dr. Mario, Intelligent Qube, ... but this game is different, it is MUCH more entertaining to watch!
If you are watching someone else play, a description of each object picked up appears in the left hand corner of the screen. And in the right hand corner is a picture of the prince as he pushes the ball around. It's still unnerving to watch someone else play and screw up. But it at least entertains you more than if you were just watching a ball roll around.

The two player game isn't anything to get excited about. It was fun the first couple of times, but its definitely made more for a one person setting. My husband and I thought we could do a lot of death battles, but the two player battle mode doesn't change much from game to game, and the skill levels don't change. Otherwise, the game is EXCELLENT and I highly recommend it to anyone's game collection as a Must!!!

Even non-gamers get totally addicted to this Great game!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My son played it in college, LOVED IT, so bought it for home for winter break. My daughter (also in college) ended up playing for hours after watching my son play. I (mom) watched her play, and couldn't wait to try it - and I was addicted. Dad, who dislikes video games, ended up trying it, and we each spent Christmas vacation trying to get our fair share of playing time. It was so much fun - for any price it's an amazingly good game. But for $20 you cannot lose.

Silly & Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: September 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love this game! I typically love puzzle-type games like Devil Dice, Bombastic and Tetris and I love Katamari Damacy! It's great for kids because the controls are easy and the objects that you pick up are funny to see. Plus, doesn't everyone love miniature stuff? You start out very small, so a matchstick looks like it's as big as you and as you grow bigger the perspective changes. It's challenging enough for adults, but fun enough for kids!

Insanely catchy fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: September 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoy this game - quite a departure from the run of the mill shooter or action game. Colorful, funny, intuitive, a bit crazy, and with captivating music.

How come American companies don't make games this imaginative?

When you finally start rolling up really big things, like cities, and your Katamari is so big that it bumps up against clouds, you will be smiling at the pure brilliance of this game. A perfect delight.

I only rate the game overall a four out of five because it seemed a bit short to finish (although there is much left to do after the credits roll,) and because two of the 'constellation' levels were frustrating.

Rainbow-colored zen...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Katamari Damacy's appeal is hard to explain to people who haven't played it already.

"What do you DO in this game??" asked my father-in-law, another dedicated gamer, when he heard rumors that I was glued to the PS2.

"Um, you roll this ball around and get stuff stuck to it. You just keep rolling and getting the ball as big as you can within a certain time limit," I replied, a little lamely.

His eyes glazed over. "And that's fun?" he snorted.

"Yes. It's fun. Really fun. It cheers me up. There isn't anything to think about; you just roll," I attempted.

"And there's no monsters?" he asked. (I'm usually an RPG-er.)

"Well, there's a Thunder God, but you just roll him up too," I replied. "But you can only roll him up when your ball of stuff is so big that you're rolling up skyscrapers and clouds and islands too."

There was a silence.

"Well, you just enjoy yourself," he said.

"Oh, I DO!!" I tried again, a little desperately, "It might sound dumb, and it IS ... but it's so much fun!"

You are the tiny, green-clothed Prince, the son of the omnipotent King of All Cosmos, and it is your job to rebuild the night sky after the King, in a kind of meditative daze, smashed it to smithereens. The King is a towering figure in a rainbow-colored headpiece and purple Elizabethan-ruffed wrestling leotard who loves to use the royal "we" and insult your puny efforts. You are sent to three different areas (the house, the town, and the world) and given various missions to complete within a certain time frame. For example, one of your first missions is to roll a 10cm "katamari" (which translates to "clump of stuff" from Japanese) in 3 minutes, I think, or was it 2?? Either way, you are plonked down in the world with your katamari (which starts out looking rather like a bumpy dog-toy), and you start to roll up stuff. The king pops in every now and again (as a disembodied head!) to make comments (usually insulting) or guide you to another area during your mission. It is almost as simple as it sounds, but each item in the game requires your katamari to have attained a certain size before you can pick it up. Thus, you have to get significantly bigger from when you could roll up a ham sandwich to when you can roll up a person or an elephant.

I was addicted within a few minutes. It was the moment I rolled up my first person, and she shrieked "AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!" and kicked and waved her arms around. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKK" went the guy in the business suit. "**!!!!!!!!TRUMPET!!!!!!!!!!!**" went the elephant and "**HHHHHOOOOOOONNNNNKKKK**" went the bus. And I just kept going. I rolled until I beat the game two weeks later (I'm an after-work gamer), and then I ran out and bought the sequel, "We Love Katamari".

Why? Well, the music is so cheerful, for starters; it gets in your head. When I'm stuck in an especially boring meeting, I think "Na naaa na na na na na na na na naaaa na na na naaaaa" (you'll know what I mean) and feel instantly better.

The graphics are rainbow-colored, bright, and cute. There's a sort of "order from chaos" appeal as you pick things up, and there really are a lot of things to pick up in the game. Because this game is Japanese, a lot of the stuff is not what you would normally find lying around your (un-Japanese) house. Why would this be interesting? Well, my mother is Japanese, and she loves to go to American supermarkets "just to look at all the stuff." (Yes, there's sushi lying around in Katamari Damacy. However, there are also robotic action figures from around 1977 that my brother used to fanatically collect. Definitely different.)

It is stress-busting in the extreme when you are flying through the city, rolling up skyscrapers, trees, vending machines, cows, and traffic - (especially taxis!) after you spent a frustrating hour or two stuck in real-life traffic, getting buzzed by taxis, if not cows. Often, after a bad commute, I rolled until there was nothing left in the world but the katamari and me. It was funny, and it made me see the lighter side of it. (Don't ask me what "it" is - you either get it or you don't.)

Katamari Damacy's appeal can be summed up like this: this game treats the grind of everyday life like a gigantic, cosmic joke. I hope you get it and laugh as hard as the rest of us.

Completely unique, a world of its own, incredibly imaginative

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is exactly what I look for in a video game. The premise and the gameplay itself are so much fun and so deliciously weird, and it's something I would've never imagined myself in a million years. You don't need a 592 page strategy guide, and you don't need to play the game for 40 hours just to unlock a bunch of crap before you can do anything.

If you're curious as to what is so weird and interesting with this game, a lot of it has to do with the general weirdness of Japanese culture, as this game both visually and conceptually seems like it was taken out of a Japanese kids cartoon. The music is left as is, and all the songs are sung in Japanese, which really does a lot to add to the intrigue and otherworldliness that is consistently present. The dialogue also feels like it was almost purposefully translated as literally as possible, to add to the goofy atmosphere, which in effect has made the King of All Cosmos one of my favorite video game characters ever. And finally, the idea behind the gameplay, which consists of rolling up random objects (emphasis on random) in proportion to your katamari ('ball' or 'clump' in Japanese) and building it up in size as quickly as possible, seems like something that was yanked out of a warped child's imagination.

There are plenty of reviews here that explain the premise and the mechanics of the gameplay more in depth, but the main thing I want to convey is the sheer amount of fun and bizarre atmosphere this game creates. It is completely unique and a world of its own, and is really worth picking up.

The Japanese are crazy - crazy smart.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: March 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In some ways, this game defies description. The gist of the storyline - your father, the King of the Cosmos, got a little drunk or crazy or something and "accidentally" destroyed all the stars. So now it's your responsibility to put the stars back in the sky. Which you do, through a series of progressively difficult levels and challenges involving collecting items on earth.

At the start of each level, you, the prince, are placed behind an empty "katamari." This is a ball-like thing that you must roll around. As you roll around, objects will stick to you, which will increase the size of the katamari. The goal of each level is to get the katamari to a certain size. The size of the objects you can pick up is relative to the size the katamari currently is - the bigger you get your katamari, the bigger the objects that you can pick up. The levels are timed, so you can't just waste time. When your katamari gets to the goal size, your dad turns it into a star.

Each level is set in a particular venue - inside a house, in a neighborhood, in a park, etc. When you get to certain "mini-goals," the camera angle changes to reflect the new size of the katamari. All of a sudden you can see objects you couldn't before, simply because you were too small.

There are also a series of "challenge" levels, which ask you to do certain things - pick up certain kinds of items, collect sets of things, etc. These challenges help you build the constellations. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory - to build Cancer, you pick up crabs, to build Cygnus, you pick up swans, etc.

The levels are interspersed by movie clips of a family wondering where the stars went. The movie bits are creepy in a way, but very amusing.

The soundtrack to this game is funny. Most of it is in Japanese, but it's so catchy it doesn't matter.

There is a two-player mode, where you compete against a friend to try to get the biggest katamari, but this rapidly gets boring, because the level is essentially the same over and over and once you get the hang of how to master it, there's not much challenge in it.

The controls on this game are surprisingly easy. You control your katamari with the left and right analog sticks, simply by pushing both of them in the direction you want to go. There are a few specialized moves you can do with the sticks, but basically that's it. No buttons, no directional pad, just the analog sticks.

Half of the fun of the game is in the options. There are all kinds of ways to view the number and kind of items you have picked up, as well as see the stars and constellations you have created. This is where the long-term playing power of the game comes from - even after you beat all the levels, there are always items you've missed, and you can always make your stars bigger.

Supposedly there is a sequel coming. I'm totally pre-ordering it. This game is completely unique.

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