Katamari Forever (PS3) videogame review

I really could play Katamari Forever.

Since I played the first one, Katamari Damacy has been one of my favourite games.

The first Katamari Damacy game is truly a masterpiece, in my eyes. Roll, roll, roll your clump of stuff round and pick up more and more things. Such a tactile game. Such a happy feeling. Such detail! Each level is crafted so that you start off small and scales up wonderfully, barely noticeably... you play it first of all to discover your landscape, then to figure out the best paths around the course so that you can end up with the biggest katamari possible. There were different goals on different levels.

The music was so good too. It would loop round to infinity - without a pause to restart tracks, and I couldn't get bored of it. It sang happy songs to you. Nonsensical songs about rolling things up and love and joy.

That first game had some magic which I think the later games could not capture. They possessed an almost maniacal attention to detail in creating memorable objects and worlds to roll around, arranging objects amusingly, and yet having level design that meant there was a distinct element of getting to grasp with the environment, learning your surroundings, figuring out what the best path through to success is.

In later games... the second game (We Love Katamari) was very good but didn't have the feeling of scaling up and felt a little too self-congratulory in places. Not only that, the first game feels eccentric but the second felt like it was trying to be weird and that just wasn't cool. The third game (Me & My Katamari) suffered from poor controls, levels that were just junk scattered willy-nilly leaving the game far too easy and levels far too short (I'd roll around with nothing left to roll up for the last few minutes) - plus, it was becoming for too into itself for comfort. The fourth game (Beautiful Katamari) is better than the PSP game, but is far, far, far too short and asks the player for too much downloadable content - plus its Xbox Live achievements system contains achievements for playing for 100 hours or something, which isn't an achievement, it's a waste of electricity. I wrote a little review of Beautiful Katamari in the past.

This new game is called "Katamari Tribute" in Japan. Perhaps that is a more descriptive title than Katamari Forever as this game is like a "Greatest Hits" of the older games. Various hand-picked levels from all of the previous games (including some that were paid-extra DLC) are in this game. There are also a few new levels, but not enough to really class the game as something new. It's on the PS3 so it's all in HD (in fact, it wil not let you play it on a standard definition screen, which was really annoying because it meant I had to buy a new monitor). You play the levels as before but with the ability to jump and with the inclusion of "broken hearts" which help you pick up lots more stuff. There is also a graphical filter on by default, which makes everything look like a chalk cartoon, which actually works really nicely. Later on you can unlock "drive mode" (the katamari moves faster and levels have shorter time limits), "classic mode" where appropriate (looks more like the older games and plays like them too).

It really is a game that I think serves as a good tribute. There's not much new content but I think they have chosen mainly good levels from the previous games and that to me is better than a slew of poor levels. The new gameplay modes do breathe new life into old levels as it sometimes encourages you to think up new strategies. The new graphical filters are mainly quite good looking. The music is mainly made up of remixes of old songs, and while it would have been nice for them to include the original versions of songs, these remixes are for the most part quite pleasant. Certainly there has been worse music in the 2nd to 4th Katamari games.

I do have some gripes with the game though.

The first is that the scoring system on the game seems quite harsh at first so even a seasoned katamari player like me got some not-excellent scores through my first playthrough. This is ok, it means you have to try harder and get better! What is not ok, however, is that the "King Of All Cosmos" and his robotic counterpart in this game use language in a way that seems far too abusive for what is otherwise a nice happy relaxing game. Even if you do reasonably well, they will insult and bully you. I just feel like... this game would be perfect for little children to play apart from that element. I would rather buy the Japanese version of the game and give it to them in a language they couldn't read than have them be abused in such a fashion.

In the past games... I used to really like the King Of All Cosmos, when I played the first and second games in Japanese. He spoke nonsense. Even though what he says is all in a language I am not fluent in, I could tell that a lot of his dialogue was often nonsense. And it sounded like someone messing round on a turntable, wiki wiki wah wah. When localised to English, his dialogue became proud and haughty as well as being random gibberish, and he would talk down to his son. I took a slight dislike to him, really. As time has gone on though, things have become steadily worse and in this game, he's just a jerk.

Maybe some people find that funny. I find it disharmonious to the rest of the game.

Plus, as the scoring system is stricter, you are more likely to have to suffer their abuse as you start, which is just plain unwelcoming.

My second gripe is that it's not entirely made clear how to unlock other modes, so the game ends up feeling a bit more repetitive than it ought to (even though I'm replaying levels I have replayed many times before).

I think I did originally have more gripes, but I can't remember them right now. Hehe!

Overall, I really like this game as a tribute to Katamari. I'm satisfied with it. I did wait and buy it for roughly 1/3rd of the original asking price though!

I'll leave this post with links I found to (yay!) translated stuff about the first game, just for the sake of golden memories.

Interview

How to build a King Of All Cosmos Kite

Meccha! Taiko no Tatsujin DS: 7tsu no Shima no Daibouken

There's a new Taiko No Tatsujin game out for DS! My copy is in the post, it hasn't arrived yet. There's a list of songs on Wikipedia here, though it says it's incomplete and I don't know how accurate it is.

Oh no! Not "Linda Linda", that's an annoying song... (though the cover versions seem to be better than the original song!)

Some of the songs seem to be repeats of tracks from other Taiko no Tatsujin games.

The official Japanese site is here.

It took a very long time to load for me, as it's in flash, but at least it sings to you. ^_^ I only watched one trailer because my internet connection is being quite slow. It seems to have a big story mode and some extra instruments... I hope it's not too distracting with the visual effects and things while I'm trying to play. I find these games hard enough as it is!

Tower of Druaga - free 1st episode

Following the announcement that the Japanese animation studio Gonzo will officially be streaming their brand new anime episodes with english subtitles, and the announcement that viewers are free to pay what they think the anime is worth, the first episode of The Tower Of Druaga - The Aegis of Uruk is available for free, and can be viewed on youtube here.

Normally I wouldn't bother going out of my way to watch an anime from Gonzo, but since it's linked to a Namco game, and is apparently rather funny, I might watch it. (however, not right now, since I'm busy...)