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Saturday 26 January, 2008
(Gameplay Session 2)
[GAMEPLAY]
That's it--I'm addicted. It was extremely difficult to put the controller down, and the theme song of the game is stuck in my head (naaaa na na na na na na na, na na na na na-na-naaaaa...). Watching the game unfold and seeing your katamari progressively get bigger (and thus, able to roll up larger, more obscure objects) quickly became something that kept my hands wrapped around my controller and eyes fixed on the screen. I think at one point, someone came into my room while I was playing and said 'hello', and I merely gave them a light grunt in return and as recognition of their existence (okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but you get the idea of how much I've come to love this game).
The music is one element of the game that definitely has spawned a fan base. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the title theme song has a tune that is almost instantly recognizable by anyone else that's played the game. One of my other friends came in the room, realized I was playing Katamari, and promptly started humming the theme song.
Throughout the game, I constantly felt like I was progressing through the levels and accomplishing things. Occasionally, I wouldn't meet my goal of having the katamari a certain size (the King of All Cosmos tells you how big he wants the katamari to be by xx:xx amount of time), but I would replay the level and complete the goal the second time around. The level select screen is represented by different points floating above locations on Earth, so seeing more and more completed points show up made me feel proud that I was successfully progressing through the game.
[DESIGN]
The most blatant innovative gameplay aspect of this game is the idea of collecting things by essentially rolling them up. In other games, you collect objects typically by walking over them; however, in Katamari Damacy, the idea of collection is a main aspect of this game. Using only the two analog joysticks on the controller to move your katamari around, you must roam around the levels and collect various random objects to increase the size of your katamari.
There are limitations on your Katamari at various points however. For example, if you are only 50cm big, you won't be able to roll up a pet cat, but will be able to pick up something like a paperclip or thumbtack. By accruing lots of smaller objects, you are able to "expand" your Katamari, eventually being able to pick up larger objects or characters so you can meet your goal.
The levels reflect the initial size of your katamari. For example, the first few levels of the game are based in one or two rooms inside a house, and thus your katamari is small. As you progress through the game, you are placed in much larger levels, such as an entire city; as such, your katamari starts at a much larger size. Seeing your katamari grow bigger as you move through the levels and similarly seeing the levels you play in get bigger really supports the feeling of progressing through the game.
Not all levels are just "roll up as much stuff as you can in x amount of time to make a big star". Some levels are "roll up as much of one kind of thing in order to make a cool constellation". Certain levels have specific goals in which you have to focus on making your katamari big at the same time that you collect as many of one kind of thing as you can. For example, one level requires you to collect as many crabs as you can in order to create the constellation for Cancer. These constellation levels interspersed within the regular gameplay allow for the player to not feel like they're just doing a repetitive task over and over.
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