User Reviews (21 - 31 of 35)

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Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 30, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My wife loves this game, I catch myself watching it and getting into it like the typical male does. She love it. I bet kids would too.

The Beautiful Katamari is awesome!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun once you get to play at least 3 cousins, but what I wanted to know is- what the crud is it about that 40.00 price? I know, it's a wonderful game but it's been out for a while.i think it's downright funny to hear the screams of people and animals once you run them over with the katimari! Lastly, it's just that detailed, I now understand why they call it Beautiful Katamari!
-Written by Buck, age 9.

Still Katamari

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 28, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This edition in the Katamari series was too short, I played through the entire game in about 3 hours, there wern't even 10 levels. They expect you to buy more levels on their xbox live market place. The graphics are very pretty though, the HD makes a huge diffrence.

Fun and Addicting!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is super cute and challenging, and the music is pretty catchy too. It took me a little while to get the hang of things since I have not yet played the other versions in the Katamari series. Loved it, it is great both for kids and adults who are tired of hack and slash.

It Would Be a Fine Sequel, If You Could Actually Play All of It

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The creative force behind Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari did not work on Beautiful Katamari, so I didn't expect this game to have as many new gameplay mechanics as those games. But a new Katamari game full of new levels with new objects and maybe a few new challenges sounded appealing to me anyway. As near as I can tell, there is such a game on this disc. Unfortunately, you can't play all of it just by buying the game.

When I first played through the game, I thought it was a bit short. Even including bonus unlockables, there are only about 9-12 levels and several of them are very similar to each other. Almost every level on the game has the same kind of goal: get as big as you can while picking up as many objects of a particular type (drinks, cold things, "powerful" things, etc.) as possible. The only exceptions are one level where you have to raise the temperature of the katamari by picking up hot things and avoiding cold things (very difficult), one where you need to pick up as many "rings" as possible (which is pretty fun), and a bonus level where the type of object you need to pick up changes every minute or so. There are no get-an-exact-size challenges (like Saturn in the previous installment), no pick-up-only-one-X levels (like the CowBear level), no katamari-on-fire levels, no underwater levels, no snow levels, no pick-up-lots-of-one-item (as in the firefly level), and not much clever at all. So when I completed the game, I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't much more to do.

That's when I heard about the "downloadable" content. There actually are more levels in the game, but you just can't play them unless you pay (about $3.50 each level) to "download" them. I put "download" in quotation marks, because the levels are already on the disc. You just can't play them unless you pay extra money. In theory, this wouldn't be a big deal; it just saves downloading time, I suppose. But since the game already seemed short to me, it felt like they created a complete game, and then locked up some of the levels. And that's just obnoxious.

Even so, the game wasn't completely unenjoyable, even if it was cut short, and I'd already spent the money, so I kept playing. I completed all of the levels, including the bonus level. I started collecting presents and cousins, and I planned on collecting every object in the game, as I'd done in the previous installment. But when I got all the cousins and presents, a funny thing happened: nothing. No unlocks, no achievements, not even a message saying "good job!" This struck me as strange because they had listed achievements for collecting all the cousins and presents, and the game even gave progress mini-achievements (10 cousins, 20 cousins, etc.) So I dug around a bit and discovered that you can't even get the achievements without buying the downloadable content. That was the last straw, and I put the game back on the shelf. I really want to play those last few levels (which include some of the challenge types that I thought were missing), but I'm just so pissed off that they needed to squeeze an extra $10-$20 out of me that I can't justify spending the extra money.

Buying the downloadable content would be sending a message to Namco that they can take full games, lock up some of the levels, sell the game at full price, and then charge extra money to unlock the rest of the game. And as much as I love the series, I can't condone that kind of behavior.

Same old, same old...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 26, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you really really love Katamari then you should buy this game. If you really like the first two Katamari and were hoping for an evolution of the series, then you'll probably be disappointed. It's the same game, only the King is now impossible to please and makes you feel bad about yourself all the time.
Also now that it is in HD it sometimes makes me nauseous.

You get more for your money with the Playstation 2 Katamari games.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm glad I didn't buy this game at launch and waited until it got cheap.

The creator of Katamari Damacy didn't work on this game and it shows. It's missing a little bit of the personality of the original games. This game also reuses a lot of the ideas from We Love Katamari (which had a much better variety of stages) and doesn't bring much new to the table. Plus it doesn't come with very many levels unless you pay for five or six extra ones through Xbox Live. It's roughly fifteen bucks worth of Microsoft Points if you plan on getting all the extra levels. It kind of feels like you're getting scalped a little bit.

On the other hand, it's still Katamari Damacy. This game didn't really break anything, which is a major danger when in a situation where the original creators are not present. The great stuff from the previous games is still intact. And if you're tired of the levels from the PS2 Katamari games and really want some more, or don't own a PS2 and want a Katamari game, it's not a bad game to get. There is a nice level in this one where you're supposed to roll up inexpensive items, but still make the ball as big as possible, so you try to roll up cheap things like toilet paper without crashing into diamonds and gold. But this is one of the ones you have to buy through Xbox live.

There's also some great fun music in this game, just like the other Katamari games, although there's a couple of songs in this game that seemed too normal for Katamari. If you don't buy the game check out the tracks Katamarity and Guru Guru Gravity if you can find a place to download them.

Overall I enjoyed this game but I'll really look forward to a new type of game from the original Katamari creators.

Fun, simple game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I had never played any Katamari games before I received this one for Christmas. My brother thought they were a lot of fun, so I downloaded the demo off of Xbox Live and decided that I wanted to purchase Beautiful Katamari.

I like this game pretty well, and it is fun, but there are a few aspects about it that I do not like. For example, the king in the game is very very negative toward the prince and is constantly blocking the screen with his unnecessary commentary. Also, occasionally, the screen angles are terrible and you won't be able to see where you are going, and in turn, can get stuck. The graphics can also be glitchy.

Overall, I do like to play this game. It is a nice, fun game that I play when I am not in the mood for anything complicated. I won't say that it is easy because the 'roll up hot things level' is not every easy, lol, but it is a game that doesn't seem to require a lot of thought.

Great fun, if a little repetitive.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 02, 2008
Author: Amazon User

My family played this game as a demo for about a year on XBLA before I finally decided to get it for my husband's birthday. We have kids that are 3 and 5 years old, and they love playing on XBOX with their daddy. I thought this would be a great game for them to play, as all one does is roll a ball around to collect stuff.

It is truly a hit for the whole family, but can be a little tough for a small person to collect all of the things the game wants you to get before the timer runs out. Daddy has been taking to clear the level for the kids before they play it, just to avoide frustration. Also, if you like rolling a ball around, this game is for you - but that's about it. It is a good game for small people to enjoy, especially if you don't want to expose kids to FPS games.

Adorable, but really for a niche audience

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Beautiful Katamari is a really cute game with bright graphics and droll, sometimes amusingly insulting dialogue. The Japanes lyrics are zippy and interesting. I really wanted to like it. I really wanted to be able to play it, and actually progress in the game without repeating levels over and over and over and over. But, it seems by ability to roll up katamari is very inadequate. Maybe I should have started with the first one in the series, but at this point, I don't think I'll plunk down any appreciable money to get another game like this....

I have to agree with another reviewer that the frame rate sometimes slowing down and getting choppy seems to make a diference, especially when seconds count in the timed trials. It's already not very smooth, and I kept losing my direction, pushing too hard or going in the wrong direction. The controls just didn't seem right. I played over and over and I couldn't really raise my score, and my hands hurt!

My son, who is 12, also had trouble with this game, he has a faster reaction time. He gave up almost immediately, but I persisted, as I was the one who forked out $49.99. Yikes, what a waste of money!

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