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fun fun fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 21
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

fun fun fun! the control on PSP is a bit awkard at first...but it still works well!

grrrr I failed 4 times in the 2nd stage! it's fun, addicting and HARD!

Get rolling!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: April 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Once in a while a game comes along that you can't help but smile for, and this season's game is Me & My Katamari.

Me & My Katamari (I'll be referring to it through the review as MMK) is the little brother of Namco's PS2 Katamari series, beginning with the original Katamari Damacy. I've never seen nor played any of the PS2 versions, so all I had to go on was my own experience with the PSP version.

The King of All Cosmos, the Beautiful Queen of All Cosmos, and the Dashing Prince (collectively known as the Wonderful Royal Family) decide to head on to Earth for a tropical summer vacation. The King, however, gets a little carried away with swim practice, and it's up to the 5-centimeter tall Prince (and his unlockable assortment of cousins) to roll up stuff to make new islands for all the homeless animals.

I'm guessing there isn't much difference between Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari, and as I understand it both titles employ the PS2's twin analog sticks to control the ball (or, officially, your katamari) to roll through increasingly bigger stages as you roll over stuff to stick to the katamari.

That gameplay concept remains intact in MMK with one notable exception. Given the lack of a right analog stick on the PSP, Namco had employ the face buttons to fill in for the aforementioned missing stick. When you play the game for the first time you go through a mandatory tutorial mission where you learn the new control scheme. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do it feels natural. (Strangely enough it felt like I had to believe I was using analog sticks and I never had to look up the controls again.) You can still use the PSP's lone analog stick in place of the d-pad and still get good results.

The only boss you'll face is size, and your only enemy is time. You'll be required to get anywhere from a 15 cm katamari in 10 minutes to a 500 m one in 3 minutes, and along the way you'll roll over everything from thumb tacks to volcanic islands. (Stick it out until the endgame and you'll have the chance to roll over even more unbelievable objects.)

Aside from Prince Island, where you spend the bulk of your time between missions managing the game, there's the nearby Volcanic Island with additional objectives that expand the MMK challenge in amusing ways, and Beanstalk Island where you keep all the cousins you roll over and switch characters with. It really doesn't matter which character you use as they bring no special abilities to the gameplay, but the presents you unlock look different on each cousin.

There's a lot of music and images to enjoy in the game. Some reviews have made note of the fact that some tracks have been carried over from previous Katamari games, but to me that really doesn't matter because a) I've never played the older ones and b) they all work well within the game. Upon beating the game, you're granted the opportunity to take pictures wherever you like and store them in an in-game photo album (which is also viewable in the PSP's Photo function when you're not playing the game).

You'll come back to MMK for its Eternal Mode, achievable upon creating the last island. There is no time limit in this mode and you can spend all the time you want hunting down whichever items, presents or cousins you may have missed. Attaining a preset size limit takes you to a larger stage, and so on.

The only thing holding me back from a 5-star rating is the number of stages in the game. These are mostly retooled for different missions; for example, you roll through a town in summertime, then play another mission in the same town in a different season with a new assortment of objects. The whole game works this way, and while it really isn't bad I sometimes found myself wishing there was a larger assortment of places to roll through.

(Incidentally I read on another website that this is going to be the last Katamari game. That's a saddening thought after giving this game enough time, and I hope Namco takes a page out of the Wipeout Pure playbook and gives us downloadable content and new stages. Or even a follow-up Katamari game.)

Overall there's plenty of quirky, surreal, and enchanting charm and wit in Me & My Katamari to keep you interested for many satisfying hours. Go ahead and give it a roll.

What a Hoot!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: April 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a very entertaining game. The idea is still fresh, and there is a great sense of accomplishment when you finally get to a point where you roll up entire buildings, ships, and even islands. Especially rolling up things that used to be too large just a few minutes ago is very satisfying.

I would easily give this a 5-star rating if it wasn't for the controls. After a while, you figure them out and it kinda makes sense (think of your katamari as a tank or bob-cat with independently operated wheels on each side, rather than a ball), but it is just silly. Why not make the steering more intuitive?!? Even once you figure it out, you still keep wondering what they were thinking...

This katamari rolls over the same stuff

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: April 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The 2004 PlayStation 2 sleeper Katamari Damacy and its 2005 sequel, We Love Katamari, spurred an interesting reaction from American gamers. "What's this? A trippy game where you roll around a sticky ball and pick stuff up?" Admit it, you've done it before with a Post-It note or a piece of tape; picking up little pieces of dust or dirt around the office. The strange Japanese concept has been put to use for two games already...does this not-so-novel, not-so-creative-anymore idea hold up well for the PSP edition, Me & My Katamari?

The answer is yes and no. I had actually never played a Katamari game before this, at least beyond an extent of five or ten minutes, and it's safe to say that the concept would have grown very old to me if I had been a fan since the first game. Katamari is, in all honesty, a very stupid and repetitive but strangely addictive game with the same concept every playing session. But for the series fans, Me & My Katamari is more of the same in a portable fashion. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that...if you're into the idea. You're still the Prince, the son of the King of all Cosmos. The inhabitants of your Katamari world; cute little animals, ask you to find items for them scattered through a few different levels. These items would be used by the King to create islands where the animals can live in peace and happiness.

Of course, you get these items by rolling around and picking them up. This is where the difficulty and the charm of Me & My Katamari comes into play...where the Playstation 2 version asked you to roll over everything, some of the PSP's challenges ask you to pick up specific items. These items are fitted into different categories, like "cool" and "soft" and "hard". Depending on the sort of island an animal asks you to create, you're supposed to try and decide which items to roll into your katamari ball. Though it's not necessary to pick up these specific items, doing so will ensure a happy animal and a "better" island for the animal to live on and a higher score for your records.

Unfortunately, the PSP version of Katamari isn't nearly as easy to control as the PS2 games. I actually had to struggle with the control scheme. The directional pad (or analog nub) controls your ball's direction of movement, while the L and R triggers control the camera's turning. The circle and square buttons cause your ball to strafe, and pressing some of these buttons in a combination will send you flying forward with boost ability. Though the controls sound easy on paper, actually controlling the katamari on sloped geometry and in tight corridors is extremely frustrating, especially when the camera gets caught on things or even behind walls.

The visuals, though crisp and clean on the PSP's 4.3 inches of pretty high-definition, are hampered by an awful frame rate that drops when your katamari starts getting larger and larger. Rolling over huge amounts of items causes the game's frame rate to drop considerably, even to the point that controlling the katamari is impossible. Of course, the art style is still as crazy as ever, and the items you pick up are admittedly cute-c'mon, how can you not giggle at the thought of picking up a blocky little kitten? The music is also pretty repetitive but also as catchy and trippy as it has ever been.

Me & My Katamari is a great handheld Katamari fix for fans of the series, but newcomers might want to check out the PS2 versions instead. Katamari PSP features ad hoc multiplayer, but the console versions offer it in a more traditional split-screen form. Also, the difficult controls and smaller scope make it hard for me to recommend it, being $40, over the $30 We Love Katamari or even the budget-priced original. Still, and I've said it a few times now: fans will find and appreciate more stuff to do and the same great concept they've loved all along.

Fun and bizarre, but repetitive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: June 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I don't have a Playstation or any other game console; I just bought a PSP to kill time on coast-to-coast flights. I had heard about Katamari from others who said it was great so I decided to give it a shot.

Well, the good news is that it is a very original idea. Take a sticky ball and roll it over successfully bigger things and reach the desired size before time runs out. Pretty simple concept, but it works. The game world is beyond bizarre. The King of All Cosmos alone seems like pretty solid evidence that the guys who designed this game were on heavy drugs (special power: "the royal puff", anyone?) but you're of course the much smaller prince who has to gather all these balls of stuff for the various animals that want sweet, hot, cold, beautiful etc. items in their respective balls.

As I said, it is very original and quite captivating. The experience fizzles a little when you realize there's only a handful of different levels being recycled. The controls are enough to drive anyone batty, especially when you get stuck behind some too-big item and you can't see because the stoopid camera decides its time to move in behind some OTHER object. Finally, I did find a bit disturbing that the prince's dad, King of All Cosmos, routinely beats the snot out of the prince whenever you fail to reach the right size. I dunno, it just feels quite misplaced in an otherwise lighthearted game aimed partially at kids.

I agree with the disappointed King- we are NOT pleased.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 28
Date: August 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The first Katamari game was a blast. It came out of nowhere, had tons of charm, was practically the best pick-up-and-play game to come out in the past few years, and had replay to boot. Unfortunately, it quickly gained popularity, and became more of a fad than a respected game. No, I'm not one of those people that hates something once it becomes popular, like when indie kids do when their favorite band "sells out". What happened was, everyone flipped out and got Katamari Fever. You couldn't go on any gaming site without it being mentioned. Everyone raving on about the King of Cosmos, typing out lyrics (usually translated wrong at that), and making animated gifs. Did some of these people even actually play the game once they beat it? With the popularity it gained, a sequel came out soon after, but it felt rushed. It wasn't even really a sequel. It felt more like Katamari 1.5, and didn't do much to improve on the first game, and didn't correct any of the flaws it had, which by the way, it had a few big ones. But people still ate it up and demanded more immediately. Then, a new Katamari game was announced for the PSP and DS. Obviously, the DS one never happened, but it was announced that this would be the final game. The creator said so himself, and he too, was tired of the Katamari craze. So how's this final game hold up? Usually, the developers would pull out all the stops for a final installment, correct any past flaws, up the ante in every category, and probably throw in tons of replay options. Well...USUALLY they do. That's not the case here.

If you've never been on the internet, or on any gaming site, the Katamari games are hard to describe properly. You play as a pint-sized Prince, taking orders from his dad, the King of Cosmos. The King is huge, and towers over practically everything. He gives you a Katamari, which is a Bumble Ball-looking object that you roll around on the ground, and it picks up any object, as long as the object is small enough to be picked up. As you roll more and more objects up, you can pick up larger things. You could start out at just a few centimeters big, then work your way up to 500 meters within 10-15 minutes in some levels. Literally, the Katamari will pick up ANYTHING in sight. Pets, people, houses, boulders, gates, industrial buildings, tornadoes, whirlpools, islands, you name it. Things get pretty crazy. Anyway, in this game, a bunch of animals are homeless, and need you to make new islands for them. In the first game, you'd roll up Katamaris, and once your time was up, you'd create a star. Here, it's the same thing but with islands in place of stars. But there's some different goals as well. You'll sometimes have to collect enough objects to meet an animal's request. For example, there's a gorilla who needs enough energy rolled up to fuel his rocket (no, I'm not making this up) so he can go into space. If you don't roll up enough, the rocket won't go anywhere. If you roll up enough, it'll go into space, but he may not be satisfied. There's almost always room for improvement. While playing through levels, you'll find other characters that look like the Prince. These would be his cousins, and once you roll them up and beat the level, you can play as them. There's no benefit other than them looking cool, and some altered text from the King and the animals- they all play the same. There are also presents that you can roll up, leading to new objects you can dress your character up in. From masks to hats to armor, there's a lot to get. Overall, I'd say the game may take about 15 hours in order to get everything, which is fairly decent replay. Also consider the completion of collecting every object (you're given a percentage of how much you've collected out of everything), fully meeting every animal's request, taking pictures (more of a tacked-on addition), and the Eternal Mode for some levels where you can play without a time limit. Yeah, the game's still fun for the basic part, but it's there where the pros end.

One of the things that held the first games down was the camera. Sometimes, it'd go behind a wall while you're rolling around the Katamari, and you couldn't see yourself. Rather than making the wall, oh I don't know, say...INVISIBLE OR TRANSPARENT, it's still there in Me and My Katamari. You'd think that after the first two games, this would've been corrected. There were countless times when I'd just be a few objects away from completing a level, then I'd get in front of a wall, the camera would go behind it, and I'd be fighting the controls to rush forward so I could get the last few objects, but it'd be too late. That's another thing that kind of bugged me, but still bugs a few players- the controls. Obviously, you can't play this one the same like you did the first two, as they used both analog sticks to move around. Instead, you treat the d-pad and shape buttons as analog sticks and go from there. If you want to go straight forward, hold up and triangle. If you want to go back, hit down and X. It's a simple set-up, but far from comfortable. I'd have cramped hands after playing for 15 minutes, and have to take breaks often. The quick turn command, formerly done by clicking in both sticks, is now tapping left + circle twice. And you know what? It's not very responsive- I'd have to hit the buttons 10 times sometimes at different speeds in order to get it to work. And it's not my PSP at fault either- many people complain about this. And don't get me started on how sometimes the controls don't work as they should thanks to the camera constantly moving to be centered. Next, the game is VERY repetitive. I know that any game can be repetitive, but this one more so than others. In the first games, you'd at least have some variety in the levels. Here? Nope, there are 6 or 7 levels that you'll replay over and over again with different objects placed in them as you get to the later stages. It wasn't even challenging after about 2 hours of gameplay, as I'd memorize the placement of bigger objects in the levels since I played them so many times before. As you complete stages, there's a Volcano Island where some animals request things (like the space gorilla), but there aren't many here, and none of them are required to beat the game. On top of this repetitive gameplay, the music is as well, which is a shame since the first game had such a memorable soundtrack. You'll be hearing most of the hits from the first and second game yet again for a third time here. I couldn't make out any original tracks, and am actually now sick of what my girlfriend considers "our song" (the Cherry Blossom one, which the name of the track has 2 different names now between the first game and this one). With the time from We Love Katamari, was it really that time consuming to make any new tracks to throw in rather than remixes? Finally, the King is just plain annoying. He talks too much, pops up while you're playing too much, which clutters your view, and I ended up skipping whatever he had to say most of the time. Just keep this in mind before you decide on buying it.

As for the graphics, it's the same basic late-PSone-era visuals that the series sports. Things look smoother now though, and colors are more solid, which makes things look prettier. There's still some slowdown, but it's not too frequent. But when it happens, it can be very annoying, and even cost you completing the level. Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of the music here, probably 95%, is borrowed from the first two games. There aren't many voices aside from screaming humans when you roll them up, so no worries about bad voice acting.

Was I expecting more from the final Katamari game? A better question would be, why shouldn't I have? After the overnight fame it got, we deserved better. Like We Love Katamari, Me and My Katamari feels rushed and unfinished. The best experience I had with it was probably the credits scene, which converts the game into a Super Mario Bros. 8-bit side scroller. Aside from that, there's not much to really warrant an immediate purchase. If you worship the series and still make animated icons of the Prince and King, then yeah, you'll love this game. Anyone else who isn't a fanboy, and especially those new to the series...stick with the first game, or just rent this. Or wait until the price drops. That's what I should've done.

Best PSP Title So Far!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: August 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge fan of the two Katamari titles for PS2, and I have to say that this game really delivers on the promise of those two earlier games. This isn't a port - it's a brand new story with new characters and settings, and unlike the two other games, you can reach "eternal" on almost all of the levels with just a bit of extra effort. The soundtrack is catchy and contains new songs not found on the other two titles. I haven't tried networked gaming yet, but I'm sure that's just icing on the cake. Overall, this game is a great diversion, and highly recommended for all ages!

No real plot, but seriously entertaining nevertheless

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've never played this game's PS2 predecessors. I recently got a PSP and was looking for some fun games and a friend enthusiastically recommended "Me and My Katamari".

I've only played it for a day, and I have to say, I'm enthralled. The description my friend had given me wasn't all that clear (but this game is admittedly not easy to describe), and the manual wasn't much more helpful, but the game becomes instantly clear after a short tutorial: just push the ball around, make it roll over objects and end up with an appropriately sized and textured ball before time runs out.

The concept seems deceptively simple. To be honest, after the tutorial, I wasn't sure I would like this game. But it quickly grew on me. It's addictive as hell, really. The levels apparently repeat themselves after a while, but this isn't a game you play with an ending in mind, it's just pure, temporary fun. It's exactly the kind of game you grab when you have a few minutes to kill before having to leave the house, the kind you stick in your purse (or briefcase, or pocket) when you know you've got a long bus-ride ahead of you. It's like Tetris, it doesn't get old.

And also, it's just plain quirky. The basic concept is just ball-rolling, but it's put into this bizarre context in which you play as a pint-sized Prince (whose head is shaped like a rolling pin), who needs to make katamaris (i.e. balls) of the right size and texture in order for his giant father, the King (a flamboyant character if there ever was one), to turn them into islands for animals whose homes were recently destroyed. Apparently, the King does not hesitate to beat the Prince with gigantic boxing gloves, should the latter fail his task. The katamaris the Prince rolls vary in size, from 15 cm to 70 m and above.

I struggled a bit with the controls the first few times around, but quickly got the hang of it instinctively. There really isn't anything very difficult about this game. Like I said, you don't play this game for the quests or the challenges, you just play it for fun.

Highly recommended!

Load up the stuff!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is tremendous fun, and especially nice now that the price has dropped to under $20! I paid $35.

Anyway, the control is a little harder than on PS2, but it really isn't bad, just different. All the charm, presents, music and cousins are here!

Stick to PS2 version

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game on the PS2 however the psp version is much more difficult to control and perhaps the levels are also more difficult. I found myself stuck attempting the same challenge over and over on the psp whereas on the ps2 version there were (at least early on) more areas to explore and more diversity in the environments.
If you have to play Katamari on the road you will get a quick fix with this release however I doubt it will be played for as long or enjoyed nearly as much as the PS2 version.

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