Once Upon A KATAMARI
Developer: RENGAME
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox Series X (Reviewed), PlayStation 5
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
The Katamari Damacy series has always been one that felt like a bit of a fever dream, especially when the first one was released in 2004. Playing as a tiny green Prince and rolling a ball around to pick up coins and grow in size to the point of rolling up entire buildings made this humorous series as memorable as its wild soundtrack and unique style. This made it a bit of a surprise that, despite releasing a couple of remakes over the last few years, the franchise has actually been dormant for well over a decade with no brand new console release until now. Now, we have Once Upon A KATAMARI set to make its first step onto consoles once again after such a long period of time and bring with it brand new content, has the series managed to maintain its glorious ridiculousness?
Story
Few people like cleaning up their home, let alone when they have to spend a whole day clearing out the various pieces of clutter that they’ve gathered over the eons. So when The King of All Cosmos and The Queen task The Prince to clean his own room while they are tidying up and finding odd objects themselves, it only makes sense that the ever flamboyant King would grow rather bored. As such, when he finds a scroll among a box of random items, he decides to perform a number of tricks with it, using it as a baton, and much more before sending it flying into the air so high it breaches into space, shattering through planets and stars and bursting open to reveal that this wasn’t just any normal scroll, but the Cosmos Scroll and it happened to destroy both the Earth and its moon when it burst open.
With the stars once again destroyed, The King orders The Prince that they best get to cleaning up the even bigger mess that was just created and that the best way to do it this time is by going back in time using the S.S. Prince space-ship/time travel machine. Since the best way to gather up energy and restore the stars in the present is to go back before everything fell apart and make new stars once more. With The Prince first arriving in Edo era Japan, this is only the first of many stops they’ll have throughout numerous eras and well over fifty different levels tasking them with all kinds of missions, ranging from simply making as large of a Katamari ball as possible to gathering only specific items, or even limiting themselves to aim for the most expensive or “gains” earning collection possible.
One Upon A KATAMARI thrives with its crazy nature and any fan of the franchise wouldn’t have it any other way. The King of the Cosmos is as ridiculous as ever when it comes to issuing orders to The Prince while the stages that the players must roll around in all have their own unique elements that are just as zany as can be. The fact that every stage is set within a certain era also helps contain the chaos a bit to help keep some of it feeling cohesive while also keeping the narrative a bit tighter, especially with the many theme based levels players will be challenged to take on.
These can include gathering tumbleweeds or gold rushing in the Wild West, collecting demons in a Feudal Japan era, or even collecting philosophers in ancient Greece. It is also nice to note that not only do some levels feature in-level scenes that are just as ridiculous when triggered but also, after a certain number of levels in each area, players are treated to just as ridiculous looking of an animation featuring the King of All Cosmos or The Queen being involved in something completely off-the-wall, always making sure to give players a laugh as they progress.
Gameplay
For those who are uninitiated in the Katamari Damacy series, everything revolves around players taking on the role of the diminutive Prince and rolling around a “katamari” which is an ultra-sticky ball-like object that gathers up everything in its path relative to its size, with small objects like tacks or dominos starting things out usually before it grows large enough to rolling up entire groups of people, buildings, and beyond should the level require it, all within a time limit or item limit. Once Upon A KATAMARI brings with it the classic control scheme of having to use both analog sticks to roll the katamari around or a “simple” scheme that allows players to roll it with only one stick and using the other to rotate the prince around the ball to help direct where it rolls.
The S.S. Prince serves as the player’s primary “hub” that contains mostly side-things as well as their method of traveling between the different eras available that players unlock by completing levels in previous eras. The ship itself doesn’t offer a whole ton of options itself and mostly serves as a record keeper of things players have done, the size of certain “stars” and “planets” they’ve helped create, and customizing their very own Cousin. While players can choose to play as The Prince and dress him up with little accessories obtained through the game, players can also select to play as one of many pre-created Cousins that they have rolled up in levels, or create their very own from scratch. This small bit of customization isn’t too much, but it is a bit of a nice touch even though I can see many people simply altering The Prince himself.
Outside of the ship is where players will find the various eras that they can walk around in and see a few oddball sights as well as the levels. Every level has its own unique mission, as mentioned before, and these can range wildly from gathering up a specific number of a certain type of item only, gathering up as many items as possible to simply grow as large as possible within the time limit, reaching a certain value amount or other type of amount within a specific number of items rolled up, and more. Some of these levels can be quite challenging, especially those that require specific items that will see players needing to either effectively use their katamari rolling skills as quickly as possible or accessing secret or hard to reach locations after trial and error, making these levels as much of a puzzle as they are obstacle courses to eventually glue to the katamari.
There is a very nice balance between the level challenge and rarely will players feel like they are actually being overtly punished or held back. In fact, players can clear a stage with the lowest possible grade of D and still advance, it is only through another factor that players might find their progress held back by. A new mechanic introduced in Once Upon A KATAMARI are some collectables that include “presents” that unlock aforementioned customization items as well as Crowns. Every level has three crowns hidden throughout its wildly varied structures and while players may initially find it optional to simply roll up and gather these crowns if they come across them, eventually there are certain stages that require the player to have obtained a certain number, meaning that players might have to return to previous stages to obtain these missed crowns. Thankfully, players don’t need to acquire every single one and there is a lot of lenience here, meaning it is entirely possible to avoid bothering with a full completion of a level players may have found annoying or challenging to complete.
Outside of these new collectables there are also “freebies” that have been added to the game. These freebies are basically simple items such as a magnet, sonar, rockets, and time stop watch, that players can use once for a bit of help, with magnets drawing nearby objects directly into the katamari, the sonar pointing towards collectables, the rockets giving players a boost until they run out, and time stop freezing the timer and anything moving that may be hard to pick up. The freebies are a decent little addition but feel a bit lacking as they barely offer any notable change to the gameplay nor do they last long enough to feel worthwhile, especially some are positioned in hard to reach locations. This being the largest change makes it feel like while the game still has everything that fans love, especially with an entirely new set of levels and storyline, it doesn’t really innovate or change. Though the saying if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it feels quite apt here.
One other addition to the game happens to be KatamariBall which is a multiplayer versus mode where up to four players compete against one another to roll up the largest amount of items and return them to space-ships that jump from point to point in the level, while also either trying to roll up other players or avoid them to deposit your own katamari. Playing against bots makes the mode feel a little lifeless while playing online against other players does bring a certain level of delightful chaos, including a whole new set of Freebies that are exclusive to the mode, though it is doubtful this mode will keep players attention for long compared to the classic gameplay.
Audio & Visuals
It is clear that, despite not having a hand in any development of past Katamari games, RENGAME knew exactly what fans of the franchise adore for this quirky series. Rather than trying to modernize the game’s graphics or smooth things out as much as possible, the team has kept all of the rough looking edges that make the game look just like a classic PlayStation 2 title only running incredibly smoothly with so many bright and vivid colors and absolutely ridiculous things to gather up in the katamari ball. The level designs are also wildly varied and thanks to the Era theming feature plenty of variety both in their overall theming as well as the items players will be rolling up. It is also nice to note that both the in-level cutscenes and the artwork used for the humorous little scenes involving The King or Queen are replicated perfectly from how fans will remember.
There isn’t any notable voicework throughout the game other than screaming or animal noises when players pick up humans or animals with the Katamari ball but it is nice to note that the title does boast an exceptional soundtrack. Players can choose to have their own favorite songs from the game play during replays but for the most part every level has its own theme and, once again, thanks to the Eras that players will travel through these songs are incredibly varied as they fit the nature of the time period players are rolling through. That being said, there is something absolutely delightful when rolling through a Jurassic level only for some J-Pop to start blasting in the background if players choose to shuffle the music.
Overall
Once Upon A KATAMARI may play it safe in many regards, only adding in a few extra elements to the tried and true formula that fans love, but it does deliver more of just that, what fans love. The brand new off-the-wall storyline works perfectly as a backdrop to the themed levels that are as ridiculous and fun to roll through that fans could hope for. This makes Once Upon A KATAMARI an easy recommendation for anyone who liked past games in the series as this is truly a fresh step forward for the franchise, albeit small, and a great way for newcomers to experience katamari for the first time.
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