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Writer's note: This preview is based on the Japanese version downloadable demo. I wrote it about a month ago and just realized I hadn't posted it to Bitmob yet.
The original Katamari Damacy launched nearly five years ago in the United States and epitomized the meaning of Japanese-style quirkiness and was praised for its originality. The game featured a cutesy art style and boasted a plethora of different colors filling in its countless objects and diverse backgrounds. A sequel arrived the following year, but was more of an iteration of the previous concept than a full-blown sequel.
Katamari moved into the HD era with the release of 2007's Beautiful Katamari for the Xbox 360. PlayStation fans were understandably upset that the franchise was making a leap to a new console, but may find some relief in this September's Katamari Forever for the PlayStation 3.
The game is known as Katamari Damacy Tribute in Japan and appears to live up to its title in full capacity. The Prince controls the same way he always has, you have to collect random items within a stage, and yes, rapidly strolling animals still cause you damage.
A noticeable change within the game is the inclusion of a pencil-stroke filter over the entire game screen. This effect is quite appealing in most cases, such as when you're looking at a group of smaller textures on the screen. However, when I gazed at a large solid texture, such as a patch of dirt, the filter became nauseating. Most objects appear to be recycled from previous Katamari titles, and while they retain the series' art style, they are definitely beginning to show their age.
The demo included two stages: a desert oasis and a typical Katamari-style indoor house. I really enjoyed the oasis, which introduced a new gameplay mechanic and required the player to roll the Katamari ball into a fountain of water to make it wet, then roll over and pick up sand in order to release some grass and flowers pinned underneath. The visual contrast between the sand's subtle brown to a brilliant shade of green after the dirt was gathered was very appealing and I hope more levels in the final release employ similar transitions.
Indoors, things weren't so interesting. I'm fairly sure the stage was a remake of one of the countless other interior locales within the Katamari backlog, but honestly, the level was so bland I didn't want to verify. It's classic, traditional Katamari at its weakest, showing no iteration nor innovation from previous titles. Does going up ramps and running on shelves in some random person's kitchen with two minutes to collect 20cm of junk sound familiar? I'm hopeful the final release will minimize the number of these similar mission types and focus more on innovating the franchise.
Another staple from the Katamari series is frame rate hiccups and slowdown, and it's very apparent in the demonstration version. I hope those unfortunate technical problems don't present themselves in the retail version, but this close to release, things aren't looking good.
Fans of the Katamari games will likely flock to this new entry in the venerable series, but from what I have played, newcomers shouldn't be holding their breaths until the final reviews roll out.
By Sage Knox
