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sorarojas's Katamari Damacy (PS2)
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| [February 21, 2008 07:00:05 AM]
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Gameplay
Okay, the game is still esentially the same as it was before. There has been no change to the story and the drunkard king is still making you clean up his mess. You still control a katamari and your still rebuilding stars. Now that that's out of the way, I found out that the prince has cousins scattered throughout the levels and finding and picking them up unlocks them for multiplayer usage. It adds some level of humor in the multiplayer mode when you have different odd things pushing sticky balls around, one of which looked like a ball himself (herself?). Anyway, they don't have much too offer to the gameplay or experience of the multiplayer unless you have cousins like me who supply the audio commentary.
My continuation of single player mode led to many more surprises and amusements. Now many people wouldnt be at this point yet but I kinda sped through some things. On the last level, the objective is to build the moon. You would think the stars would have to be pretty large and that the katamari replacing them would need to be large too. Well compared to the moon, those specks of dust don't even come close. I dont remember if there was a time limit or not but it got to the point where I was uprooting forests just by pressing up on the d-pad once and at some point you find Godzilla fighting a robot. Eventually the islands became part of my moon and even the god of thunder. By the time I felt ready to put the game down I had grown large enough to pick up the clouds and possibly a few tornadoes or hurricanes. It's difficult to express how this experience felt but it was like drinking multiple bottles of Jones' Soda while watching UHF through a kaleidoscope.
Design
If I were to list one innovative element of the game it would probably have to be the use of the katamari. Afterall this is the first game in which we see an entire game based on rolling around a growing ball. To elaborate more on the game's design, it feels old but in a good way. It reminds me of games like Sonic the Hedgehog or Pacman where the entire game is based off of a singular simple objective (in Sonic, run to the end of the level; in pac man eat all the dots) without losing its replay value.
On the other hand, the games use of cutscenes seemed to be tacked on after the levels simply because people are used to them. I mean, after a star was completed a.k.a. a level was beaten, there was a funny little cutscene that served no purpose other than to amuse the audience and to give some sort of semblance of a complex story. In actuality, they have nothing to do with the games main plot and serve only to fill in the apparent void where modern gamers would view a cutscene that's purpose was to hold the gamer's attention and keep them from becoming bored with the gameplay. In the case of Katamari Damacy, it was an unnecissary addition to a great game.
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| [February 21, 2008 06:48:59 AM]
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Summary
In Katamari Damaci you control the prince of the universe who must roll things up with a ball shaped katamari and create stars from the resulting mass of objects to rebuild the universe.
Gameplay
When I first picked up the game I imagined myself getting bored within the first few minutes of gameplay, but once I actually started playing it, you couldn't get my attention for even five seconds. It's highly addictive due mostly because of its absurdity. I mean first imagine an ant pushing around a ball of dirt. Now imagine anything smaller than the ball getting stuck to it. Now imagine that five minutes later, your still the size of an ant but your pushing around a ball made up of buildings and cars. Aside from this, the most amusing experience I had was when my katamari was large enough to pick up people. It was hilarious to watch those block shaped people screaming and trying to waddle away as soon as someone near them got picked up.
Now the story of the game is almost as absurd as it is short. The "King of All Cosmos" as he's called in the game destroys the stars when he's out drinking and then makes his son go out and rebuild the universe with stuff on Earth (Gee! Thanks Dad!). That's it. Nothing else. There is a side-story but it doesn't make much sense. My guess is that the creators of this game set out to create a game similar to many of the classics where they focused on the gameplay itself and just threw the story parts in there as an afterthought.
Also the game did have a multiplayer mode. I'm not completely sure how to win yet (didn't pay too much attention to the rules) but I'm pretty sure its a race to make your katamari larger than the other player's. What made the multiplayer part fun was theability to ram your oponent to shrink his or her katamari by knocking off objects they accumulated. You can then take the objects for yourself and continue growing your katamari until either your opponent fights back or time runs out. Oh yeah, it's timed too.
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sorarojas's Katamari Damacy (PS2)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 16 February, 2008
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