Review
Katamari Forever Review (PS3)
Balls. That’s what Katamari’s all about. Indeed, that’s what a Katamari is - a big, sticky ball. That’s what it’s been since Katamari Damacy debuted on the PS2 in 2004 and that’s still the way it is now, five years later. Katamari Forever couldn’t be more apt a title it seems.
We Love Katamari was one of our favourite guilty pleasures on PS2 and a surprisingly playable oddity, especially given the delightfully unconventional concept. For the uninitiated, the sole objective in Katamari involves rolling up various objects to increase the burgeoning size of your ball.
Starting with smaller items, your ball gradually grows in size until you can roll up larger and larger flotsam and jetsam, eventually developing in scale to the size of people, then trees, then structures, then seas, mountains, continents, planets and beyond.
For such a simplistic gameplay mechanic, Katamari Forever is every bit as compulsive as any of its predecessors, even though this next-gen update adds little, if anything to the overall formula. Playing as the diminutive Prince in the service of the King of All Cosmos, it’s your job to create the largest Katamari balls possible within the allotted parameters.
Some challenges require rolling up a ball of set minimum size within a certain time limit while others let you off the leash to build a mammoth ball of junk out of whatever happens to be lying in your path.
Quirkily esoteric and utterly insane, Katamari Forever maintains the series predilection for unreserved madness, tasking you with rolling through the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel, ploughing through candy canes, biscuits and chocolate before snaring the witch herself. One later level gives you ten minutes to roll up a cow or bear, before stopping the level instantly to tell you you’ve already caught a cow. What the?! Catching people, animals, and all manner of detritus in your ball’s wake is a constant source of pleasure that’s amplified by the accompanying strains of a soundtrack that consists of caterwauling vocals and discordant instruments.
The music is maddeningly catchy, the unrelenting perky rhythms worming their way into your subconscious without you even realising. And each partially animated, frankly bizarre painted sequence between stages can act as an annoying distraction, especially when the dialogue makes no sense whatsoever. But that’s all part and parcel of Katamari Forever’s weird and wonderful world, built purely out of rainbows, stardust and steaming hot ladlefuls of crazy.
If you’re interested, the story involves the King of All Cosmos falling into a deep slumber, encouraging the Prince and his friends to assemble a replacement RoboKing that then goes on a mad rampage, accidentally wiping out all of the stars from the heavens. The King then awakens with amnesia, which acts as thinly veiled grounds to replay old levels from previous Katamari titles within the King’s addled mind. These stages are presented in monochrome, with anything you collect slowly injecting colour back into the environment.
A perfectly serviceable excuse for pushing around a gigantic adhesive ball and sticking as many things to it as you possibly can then. As ever, your task is to simply roll as many massive Katamari balls as you can, which are then hurled into the stratosphere and transformed into newborn heavenly bodies. That is after the King has derided you for your always-unsatisfactory efforts.
A new story and a new menu interface are the only two genuinely fresh inclusions in Katamari Forever, the gameplay otherwise untouched save the added Sixaxis jump function allowing you to hop with your Katamari when you jerk the pad upwards. There’s also a ‘King Shock’ ability that attracts items to you like a giant magnet. No great shakes all told.
Essentially though, this is the same game you may have already played on another console. The visuals look bright and colourful in HD, but they’re little better than the PS2 incarnations that came out almost five years go. You can also pick up Beautiful Katamari on Xbox 360 for under a tenner if you shop around.
Nonetheless, Katamari is always irresistibly charming and effortlessly entertaining, offering a welcome break from blowing heads off shoulders with a high-calibre sniper rifle. Yet, the fact remains that Katamari Forever fails to do anything significant enough to warrant more than a cursory glance if you’ve previously played earlier entries in the series. If however, Forever is your first foray into the mad, mad world of Katamari, then you could do a lot worse.
Cold-hearted cynics will wonder what all the fuss is about while the more open-minded will embrace Katamari Forever’s excessive lunacy with open arms and be rewarded with a game experience like no other. A mixture of classic and new levels is a perfect introduction for newcomers, but perhaps only the ardent roll ‘em up fan will truly love this Katamari.
Top game moment: Rolling up screaming people is always a constant source of mirth.
We Love Katamari was one of our favourite guilty pleasures on PS2 and a surprisingly playable oddity, especially given the delightfully unconventional concept. For the uninitiated, the sole objective in Katamari involves rolling up various objects to increase the burgeoning size of your ball.
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 |
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| Things start small with bedroom floors and the like… | …before taking you to otherworldly places like under the sea. |
Starting with smaller items, your ball gradually grows in size until you can roll up larger and larger flotsam and jetsam, eventually developing in scale to the size of people, then trees, then structures, then seas, mountains, continents, planets and beyond.
For such a simplistic gameplay mechanic, Katamari Forever is every bit as compulsive as any of its predecessors, even though this next-gen update adds little, if anything to the overall formula. Playing as the diminutive Prince in the service of the King of All Cosmos, it’s your job to create the largest Katamari balls possible within the allotted parameters.
Some challenges require rolling up a ball of set minimum size within a certain time limit while others let you off the leash to build a mammoth ball of junk out of whatever happens to be lying in your path.
Quirkily esoteric and utterly insane, Katamari Forever maintains the series predilection for unreserved madness, tasking you with rolling through the witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel, ploughing through candy canes, biscuits and chocolate before snaring the witch herself. One later level gives you ten minutes to roll up a cow or bear, before stopping the level instantly to tell you you’ve already caught a cow. What the?! Catching people, animals, and all manner of detritus in your ball’s wake is a constant source of pleasure that’s amplified by the accompanying strains of a soundtrack that consists of caterwauling vocals and discordant instruments.
The music is maddeningly catchy, the unrelenting perky rhythms worming their way into your subconscious without you even realising. And each partially animated, frankly bizarre painted sequence between stages can act as an annoying distraction, especially when the dialogue makes no sense whatsoever. But that’s all part and parcel of Katamari Forever’s weird and wonderful world, built purely out of rainbows, stardust and steaming hot ladlefuls of crazy.
If you’re interested, the story involves the King of All Cosmos falling into a deep slumber, encouraging the Prince and his friends to assemble a replacement RoboKing that then goes on a mad rampage, accidentally wiping out all of the stars from the heavens. The King then awakens with amnesia, which acts as thinly veiled grounds to replay old levels from previous Katamari titles within the King’s addled mind. These stages are presented in monochrome, with anything you collect slowly injecting colour back into the environment.
A perfectly serviceable excuse for pushing around a gigantic adhesive ball and sticking as many things to it as you possibly can then. As ever, your task is to simply roll as many massive Katamari balls as you can, which are then hurled into the stratosphere and transformed into newborn heavenly bodies. That is after the King has derided you for your always-unsatisfactory efforts.
A new story and a new menu interface are the only two genuinely fresh inclusions in Katamari Forever, the gameplay otherwise untouched save the added Sixaxis jump function allowing you to hop with your Katamari when you jerk the pad upwards. There’s also a ‘King Shock’ ability that attracts items to you like a giant magnet. No great shakes all told.
Essentially though, this is the same game you may have already played on another console. The visuals look bright and colourful in HD, but they’re little better than the PS2 incarnations that came out almost five years go. You can also pick up Beautiful Katamari on Xbox 360 for under a tenner if you shop around.
 |
 |
|
| Later in the game you’ll roll up much bigger things like huge chunks of land mass… | …or entire planets, stars and galaxies. It’s all strangely random, like the word flobbedyboopdoop, which I just made up. |
Nonetheless, Katamari is always irresistibly charming and effortlessly entertaining, offering a welcome break from blowing heads off shoulders with a high-calibre sniper rifle. Yet, the fact remains that Katamari Forever fails to do anything significant enough to warrant more than a cursory glance if you’ve previously played earlier entries in the series. If however, Forever is your first foray into the mad, mad world of Katamari, then you could do a lot worse.
Cold-hearted cynics will wonder what all the fuss is about while the more open-minded will embrace Katamari Forever’s excessive lunacy with open arms and be rewarded with a game experience like no other. A mixture of classic and new levels is a perfect introduction for newcomers, but perhaps only the ardent roll ‘em up fan will truly love this Katamari.
Top game moment: Rolling up screaming people is always a constant source of mirth.
Comments
By stuntkid (SI Elite) on Sep 30, 2009
