Rookery’s Retro Review: Katamari Damacy (Playstation 2)
Overall Score: 5 (of 5).
Story: The King of the Cosmos has accidentally knocked all the stars out the sky. As prince, it is your job to take a ball and roll up all the objects on earth until the ball is big enough to replace a star in the sky. Sounds logical and easy, but the catch is your knobby ball called a katamari can only pick up small objects at first, then only slightly larger and larger objects. This means fences and lamp posts will stop you dead in your tracks…at first. Best to start with paperclips, erasers, and buttons before rolling up cows. Reach the size that the King wants, he’ll be pleased and you’ll make a replacement star or constellation.
“I wanna roll you up into my life. Let’s roll up to be a single star in the sky…” Excellent late-night game with plenty of random dialogue, bizarre pop & lounge music, wild colors, shape movements, and an addictive game play. There is a bit of a storyline with snippets between successful completions and an equally strange ending. Especially appealing for those who are into collecting useless stuff, hoarding, yard sales, thrift shops or have a bad habit of shouting, “ooh, shiney!” In other words, it’s perfect for me. The control scheme with dual analog stick movement is uncommon, but have played a few tank games in the past that had a similar style.
Highlights: Quick and easy to start, hard to stop playing. Fairly intuitive controls, challenging levels, entertaining for viewers as well as players. Great for all ages.
Lowlights: Ticking clock can be stressful, getting stuck or not knowing what to pick up next can be frustrating
Similar Style Games: Marble Madness, Vindicators (arcade) or other dual stick control games.
Final Thought: Game of a lifetime! One of my favourite, can’t wait to play We Love Katamari
Original Commercial: