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Namco's Bizarre Object Conglomeration Game Rated
Thanks to Game Science for its review of Namco's extremely odd PlayStation 2 game, Katamari Damacy, recently released in Japan. The game's premise involves fixing your father the King's drunken heaven-trashing exploits by "...collecting a load of junk from Earth, rolling it into clumps, and sending it up into the Cosmos to make stars." The gameplay is also distinctly unconventional: "Starting with a clump no bigger than the Prince himself, you must roll around the deepest crevices [MPEG link] of a house, picking up tiny things like drawing pins, moving up to Shogi tiles and batteries", before moving all the way up to "picking up giant octopi and huge monsters." The reviewer ends by noting: "A European release can't be ruled out, but a US release seems very unlikely. It's likely to become hot property when word spreads of its goodness, so I recommend a quick purchase if you're teetering on the brink of buying it."
is not advised. The people are likely to copycat the game and stick things like pins and other sharp objects into themselves.
Oh wait...
The developer of the game presented at GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop. Personally, I'd love to try the game out. It looks like a lot of fun.
For everyone else wondering where the fun is, it's probably no different than Super Mario Brothers (collect stuff/coins on a level within a time limit), but of course the mechanics are vastly different. It should be noted that the arrange of stuff on the ball changes how it rolls. E.g., a pencil sticking out of the side will make it difficult to turn. That and the ball grows in level, making it possible to roll over large objects by accomulating small objects.
Anm
Do not actually attempt to roll around and collect things as is done in the MPEG, no matter how fun it looks. Not only will attempting this likely be painful, it might get you in trouble with the law and would also probably be very, very embarassing.
Because Pikmin just isn't weird enough.
When you get to the last level you get so big that u can roll over clouds and gods. THe soundtrack is very catchy and is available online at various places. The game can be beaten in a few hours though, but the replay value is in getting better at certain objectives such as getting a bear for a constellation. You can get any bear, but u want to get the big bear; however the whole stage is filled with bears. You also get presents.
It looks like a bit of a puzzle game to me. Obviously I am not on the design team so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that the difficulty of the game would hinge on beating time limits or being able to solve puzzles/defeat enemies. The size of the ball is continually growing and things that might hurt or kill you at one size would actually be "food" once you were big enough to absorb it (I could say a Microsoft simulator if I wanted to seize an obvious pun) Its merit would hinge on whether the game play and level design keeps in interesting after the aesthetic appeal of crushing the world under a ball of garbage wears off.
I think it looks like it could be entertaining, it is at least a unique idea for a game, and for as much as a lot of people constantly complain that there are no new ideas in the gaming industry, I have to say that I am surprised how quickly people are ready to try and nab that +1 funny by making some smarmy comment about a game they can't immediately classify and pigeon-hole. Wait a second no I'm not.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
So, katamari translates roughly to "lump", "cluster", or "ball", but does anyone have any idea what Damacy means?
---- Just another spud server.
It's a short game. You can definitely finish it the same day you bought it.
However, it's also a damn fun game, in a very simple, straightforward way. Controls are extremely simple (left and right thumbsticks and L3/R3 (clicking the thumbsticks) only). There are only three basic game goal types: Collect as much stuff as you can, collect as much of one type of thing as you can, and get as big as you can before collecting a certain type of object.
The music is great. Like a laid-back JSRF.
The game tries to be cute, and it works.
And the only big problem I can see with exporting it to other countries is the sheer amount of Japanese stuff that you pick up:
And on and on and on and on.
(And boy is it awkwards to write a list of things that don't exist in the target language. Can't really translate, but can't really leave the words as-is).