Katamari Damacy Review

I haven't seen a more unique and innovative game than Katamari Damacy in a long time. A blast to play it is a simple game where all you do is roll around your Katamari or sticky ball collecting items so you can make it big enough to pick up larger items.

People can be turned off at first because of its simplicity, but most have found Katamari Damacy a lot of fun and highly addictive. The storyline is the powerful king of the cosmos destroys the stars in the sky. You play the prince who is sent to Earth by the king with your ball to recreate the stars and restore order to the galaxy.

The physics to the game is done well in the sense picking up a long pencil can make rolling your ball more difficult. The bigger your ball gets the harder it becomes to move around. In the beginning you will roll up small items such as thumb tacks, erasers, sticks of gum, and dice. By the end of the levels you will be rolling up fences, animals, humans, and even buildings.

The game is easy to follow. Create your ball until it is a certain size before time runs out. If you complete the objective in time you unlock intergalactic items. If you accomplish the goal before time is up you're able to collect more items to render your ball as big as you want. There are also constellation missions, meaning it is your job to recreate the constellations by collecting, swans, crabs, fish, and pairs of items returning them to the sky.

The graphics and animation are colorful and bright. The king is painted in an array of many different colors such as black, blue, and purple. The little prince disappears behind the humongous ball, as it rolls over everything in its path is what makes this game so cute and original. The ball is easy to maneuver around the streets and reacts accordingly to what it picks up. The sound effects are true to what you pick up. If you pick up a duck it will quack. If you pick up a dog it will bark, a cat meows and the humans scream out in surprise. The music is bouncy, catchy and sung only in Japanese. You will find yourself humming along even if you don't understand the words. This game is not too hard, but will provide challenges, such as trying not to bump into things because if you do you loose an item from your katamari.

Multi player mode encourages you and a friend to create the largest Katamari in three minutes. The best part of this is you can roll up your friend's ball if his is smaller than yours.

My only complaint is the game is too short. A devout gamer will probably finish it in a day a two. I did it in four. Once you get started you will loose any concept of time and want to finish it. You will not notice the time going by as you play believe me. Rated E for Everyone, Katamari Damacy is a game you must not miss.