Beautiful Katamari

Added November 11th, 2007 by Jason Stafford

The world is full of a variety of things - buttons, erasers, mice, cats, people, houses, ocean-liners, airplanes, giant robots, rainbows, continents and everything in between. Have you ever wanted to grab a ball and roll up everything on the planet? If you answered yes and aren't clinically insane, then Namco Bandai's Beautiful Katamari just might have answers to questions you didn't even realize you'd asked.

For those unfamiliar with the Katamari series, Beautiful Katamari marks the fourth installment in the franchise. As The Prince, a member of the Royal Family and son to The King of All Cosmos, it'll be up to you to pick up the pieces of a mess left by your father. The King, you see, has a penchant for destroying the cosmos and turning to his beloved Prince in his hour of need. Following a terrible mishap involving The King's power during a tennis match, a black hole has opened and swallowed all the cosmos. Well, everything except the Royal Family, the planet Katamarius and wouldn't you know it? The planet Earth. It's fantastically off-kilter, and players put off by the bizarre will find nothing but in Beautiful Katamari. The story doesn't get any deeper than that and merely serves as an excuse for the peculiar game.

Beautiful Katamari continues its tradition of zany third-person puzzle-action utilizing the patented katamari. Essentially it's just a ball that you'll be using to pick things up. Our Prince, at a diminutive five centimeters tall, has the task of rolling this peculiar sphere around to remake the stars with pretty much anything in sight on Earth. The katamari is controlled using both analog sticks. A brief tutorial at the beginning of the game introduces the schematic. Newcomers to the Katamari world may find the controls awkward at first, and there certainly is a slight learning curve. The analogs are used in tandem to move the ball. Pressing both sticks forward will move the ball forward, while pressing both forward and at an angle will give an angled movement. Rapidly moving both sticks back and forth opposite of one another will result in a dash, while pressing each analog's button together makes The Prince jump to the other side of the ball. It takes a bit of working with, but once the scheme makes sense controlling the katamari becomes fairly intuitive.

Once the controls are mastered, Beautiful Katamari can start being the romp that it is. The game progresses by doing requests for The King, with most levels having a goal for the size of the katamari and a time limit to reach said girth. Beautiful Katamari manages to mix that up a bit in a few levels, such as merely bestowing you with the task of accumulating as many ringed objects as possible for Saturn. There's also an additional request for certain items, depending on which part of the cosmos is to be restored, so often it will be a matter of trying to reach the size goal within the time limit while picking up as many of the specified type of object as possible.

After a request has been beaten, the resulting katamari is given a score by The King. Scores range up to one hundred. Hitting that zenith mark grants the ability to play the level in Eternal mode, without a time limit. This is beneficial to further rounding out the Collection of gathered objects in the game, of which there are hundreds. A Time Attack mode will also be unlocked, although the level merely needs to be completed to unlock this. Time Attack places The Prince and his katamari in a challenge to reach the necessary size of katamari as quickly as possible. Times are uploaded to the leaderboards which can be checked for each planet individually to let you know how you stack up against other katamari rollers worldwide.

At first the katamari will begin as a demure object, capable of picking up but the daintiest of things. Pieces of candy and small coins quickly move to playing cards and chess pieces, and before long the levels evolve into ravaging entire cities of its denizens to restore the cosmos. You'll need to take things one step at a time, however, as objects that are too large to pick up may bump some of those hard-earned items off your katamari. It won't be too long before that menacing car is soon rolled up into the rest of the mess. Continuing to grow in size will further open new areas, such as being able to leave a house and venture into the streets, only to subsequently begin rolling around the city itself before rolling over it.

Watching your katamari slowly accumulate all the animals, vegetables, people and vehicles you roll up is quite satisfying, especially when one considers that certain objects can alter how the katamari controls. Items with a weird shape can make the ball roll off-center, such as a lamp post or bridge, and this can prove a temporary setback to the twirling menace. Once enough miscellaneous is accrued the ball will even itself again.

Though the katamari controls well enough, it isn't entirely uncommon to get hung up on an object. Be it a bad angle, an err in judgment or just dumb luck the end result can still be frustrating. Thankfully, the quick turn can overcome most of these unfortunate instances, though at times it can still take some effort to escape.

While this may all seem extremely pointless, it's ultimately a matter of racing against the clock to complete the goal in question. Some of the tasks can be difficult to accomplish and may require subsequent retries, but it never feels bothersome to give each level another shot. That especially comes in handy when attempting to hit the highest score possible for each restored chunk of the cosmos. Though failure means ridicule at the hand of The King, success means...well, not quite open admiration, but really, your dad cares.

Stowed away within the large areas are a number of hidden objects to keep an eye out for. The Prince and his parents aren't the only members of the Royal Family, and it will be up to you to locate the more than forty of his cousins getting into various hijinks on Earth. Any cousin that The Prince finds becomes playable, although they merely act as a change in appearance for the played character and offer no benefits. There are also quite a number of presents scattered around, giving The Prince the option of trying out different accessories for his head, face and body. Cousins and presents offer a fun little extra to replay each level, although being tied only to aesthetics and achievements may not be enough incentive to keep certain players coming back for more.

Beautiful Katamari features some multi-player, but the modes unfortunately aren't very exciting. The co-op mode, available only offline, requires two players to control the same katamari. Talking to your friend in order to coordinate moving the katamari can be entertaining for a brief window of time, though it quickly deteriorates into an experience that is at best frustrating. The versus mode is more playable, although still not entirely engaging. A certain type of item is shown to the up to four players at the start of the match, and the player with the most of that specific item at the end of the round wins. Hitting another player with a dash will rob them of the precious loot, allowing you or one of the more dubious opponents to pick up the fallen pieces. It can be fun, but some different modes would have certainly been a great boon to an otherwise forgettable multi-player experience.

Graphically, Beautiful Katamari retains exactly the same look as the first installment on the Playstation 2. Colors are used to a bit greater extent to create a more vibrant look and feel, but no other strides have been made on the graphical front. Though the Katamari series isn't based on its technical prowess, it makes the game feel like even more of a rehash for the series. The game world itself is even full of the same objects, further encouraging the thought that you've played this installment of Katamari already.

While the soundtrack hasn't changed over the years either, it's a definite plus. Picking up scores of people and houses to the catchy Japanese pop music is as perfect backdrop to the peculiar game mechanics. The track can be chosen for each stage prior to selecting a request in case a certain song is growing tiresome or another is absolutely adored. The only real downside here is that the chosen tune will last the entirety of the level, and when the requests reach up to twenty minutes long, it seems odd that the soundtrack just doesn't play normally.

Those who have lost interest in the katamari series may feel disappointed as no advancements on the formula have been made since the inception of the series. Newcomers should find its rolling action more than appealing, and it's charm still stands out to those who yet delight in rolling up everything in sight. Still, there's nothing else like Beautiful Katamari. Its befitting soundtrack of J-Pop, solid charisma and incredibly unique and quirky gameplay opens a door for an interesting game that's accessible for more casual players, yet plenty of extra meat on the bone for the completists. The multi-player may feel tacked on, but intermittent rounds of versus matches can be fun despite the lack of variety. It may not be trying to break out of the niche the series has carved for itself, but what's great about Beautiful Katamari is that it's just an oddball game about an odd ball.