Finally, a great new idea for Katamari Damacy
Review: The new Once Upon a Katamari offers ridiculous historical tourism.
The people behind God of War had a great idea about a decade ago, when they decided to introduce their series’ ultra-violent warrior protagonist to the stresses of parenthood.
The crew that makes Zelda was spot-on when they decided their series needed to involve more tree-chopping, more cooking, and more wandering.
I’m not going to declare the recently released Once Upon a Katamari as its series’ God of War (2018) or Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
But it’s the closest that Bandai Namco has gotten with its long-rolling franchise about wheeling up ever bigger wads of stuff.
Going to the past is, it turns out, what the Katamari Damacy games badly needed.
I played this new one to the credits over about 10 hours across the last few weeks. In it, players no longer simply go from level to level rolling up thumbtacks, chopsticks, cats, radios, cars, trees, elephants and office towers, getting bigger all the time as one does in a Katamari game.
In Once Upon a Katamari, I’m rolling up samurai, dinosaurs and cavemen (in their respective era-themed levels, for the most part). Even better, I’m rolling up the bric-a-brac of their respective timeframes.
It was cool when Assassin’s Creed went to Ancient Greece. But who knew that Katamari Damacy also needed to go there, too? Finally, we have a game where we can roll up Olympic torches, pots, oxen, Spartan warriors, (a sumo wrestler for some reason), Aristotle and Plato into one huge rolling cluster.
The historical settings explored in Once Upon a Katamari allow for fresh visual gags. They also trade on players’ expectations of what they might encounter as their Katamari grows and the camera zooms out to show more of their surroundings. There’s a Cerberus! Or, in a different era, a sarcophagus and a pyramid! Etc.
Game File readers might be a little thrown by my delight that the Katamari games are finally doing something new. It was just this past May when I was writing about “a terrific, new Katamari Damacy.”
Wasn’t the series already in a good place?
My article in May was about Katamari Damacy Rolling Live, a barely-noticed new Katamari game released exclusively for Apple Arcade in April. It was very fun, but, as I wrote at the time, it was not revolutionary. It was classic Katamari and all the familiar trappings, with better graphics and more of the familiar stuff to roll up.
As fun as Rolling Live was, its lack of novelty offered evidence that, after a half dozen major games in a series born back in 2004, there might not be anything new for a Katamari game to offer. Original creator Keita Takahashi was long gone and publisher Bandai Namco had seemingly shifted toward commissioning remakes of the early games.
Surprisingly, though, they’ve made a brand-new one and built it around the really strong idea of rolling up the past. (Amusingly, Bandai Namco is also pretending that the game that I wrote about in the spring doesn’t exist; the official Once Upon a Katamari webpage declares it to be: “the first new entry in the Katamari Damacy series in 14 years.” Nope!).
Once Upon a Katamari is developed by Rengame, which is a relatively new grouping of three Japanese development studios. One of those, the absurdity specialists Monkeycraft, developed the two recent Kamari remakes, 2018’s Katamari Damacy Reroll and 2023’s We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie.
Rengame is proving it has what it takes to steer the series into the future. Or, if they prefer, I’d be happy if they steer it even more through the past.
Item 2: In brief…
👀 PS5 Pro one year late, per Digital Foundry: “Our verdict: The PS5 Pro difference has certainly been evident, but there’s no real guarantee that you’ll get a genuinely game-changing experience with each new game you buy. And generally speaking, the PS5 Pro has not delivered as definitive a console-power win as its elder PS4 Pro sibling.”
🤔 The Game Awards’ Future Class, a program that highlighted young, diverse people contributing to gaming culture and the industry, appears to be no more, Game Developer reports.
Previous honorees told the outlet they felt “hurt,” “disrespected” and “disappointed but not surprised” by the wind-down and by what several said were insufficient programs to support Future Class members.
Item 3: The week ahead
Monday, November 10
Ambrosia Sky: Chapter One (PC) and Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) are released.
Tuesday, November 11
Goodnight Universe (PC, console), Lumines Arise (PC, Playstation) Wall World 2 (PC) and Possessors (PC, PlayStation) are released.
Wednesday, November 12
Winter Burrow (PC, Switch, Xbox) is released.
Thursday, November 13
Anno 117: Pax Romana (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) is released.
Friday, November 14
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) and Where the Wind Meets (PC, PlayStation, mobile) are released.
Saturday, November 15
Escape from Tarkov (PC) officially hits its 1.0 release.