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Beautiful Katamari Review

Jon Wilcox

27/02/2008

The King of the Cosmos and the ball-rolling Prince make their next-gen stuttered frame rate debut...

Rarely described as more than a sleeper hit franchise, Namco's Katamari series finally arrives on European Xbox 360s, months after it launched across both Japan and North America. A quirky, camp, and ultimately kitsch franchise that's changed very little over the course of its lifespan, the roller-ball gameplay has always exuded masses of character from its simple visual style to J-pop soundtrack.

The first time that the series has migrated away from the PlayStation consoles, though Beautiful Katamari was originally rumoured for PS3 and Wii too (each will be getting their own adventure in the future), how has the Prince of All the Cosmos' transition to Microsoft's demographically hardcore platform fared? More importantly, does it do what a certain Nu Metal band recommends, and 'keep rollin'?

TVG gathered together our things into a bouncing ball of joy to find out...

Rubber Ball, I Come Bouncin' Back...

For newcomers to the series, here's a quick rundown on what a Katamari game actually 'is'. It seems that the universe is run and managed by the King of the Cosmos, a somewhat flamboyant character with a clumsy streak wider than an entire ocean. Being an intergalactic klutz is however something quite serious, as he generally manages to destroy things on a huge scale. This time, he's managed to rip space itself with a deft tennis serve, obliterating most of the planets (though thankfully, not the Earth) and satellites along the way.

Naturally, the King is the responsible type, so he sends his son - the Prince of All Cosmos - to repair the damage (once more). Being a mere five centimetres tall doesn't hinder the young protagonist however, as he has the attractive Katamari ball to aid his task. A ball that attracts objects of ever-increasing size, the aim for the Prince is to roll up enough stuff onto the Katamari so it fulfils the size requirements set by the King. And that's about it.

Ok, so the Katarmari ethos may seem simplistic, and it is, but where the franchise has succeeded in the past - and continues to achieve here - is creating just about the right level of challenging gameplay, balancing its simplicity with a frustration level that's just about spot on. Early missions for instance see the Prince set goals of creating Katamaris a few metres in diameter, before seemingly impossible goals of 500m and 10,000km are set. Yes the figures can get astounding and seemingly unattainable given the King's strict time-constraints (a mini-game involving the Prince or one of his cousins, and several fast moving pool balls are your 'reward' for failing), but the gameplay ensures that players will always return to the place of defeat, ready for another attempt...

For the most part, the Prince's actions are limited to creating a Katamari larger than the size requested by the King, although that's not always the case. Set the task of replacing Mars for instance sees the Prince collect enough hot items (such as hot dogs, bowls of noodles, and oven) to raise the temperature of the Katamari to 10,000 Celsius, whilst having to all together avoid the cold objects (such as ice cream and slushies). It's a very brief alternative to the main task at hand however, and it doesn't take long before the King continues pushing the adage that big is beautiful. It's also worth noting that once a level has been completed, players can return to it and take part in a Time Attack mode, which uploads the results onto the Xbox Live Leaderboards. Whether getting to the top of the Katamari board holds quite as much desire for gamers as some of the other titles out there, is another question though...

The Prince & His Extended Family.

The Prince isn't alone in his quest however, he also has his cousins that can take on the King's tasks...if players can find them. Lost amongst the junk, buildings, and vehicles of Earth (not to mention the planets of space itself), the cousins enjoy their own unique visual style from the beefy Macho to the star-shaped Twinkle. Despite their visual variety, they're little more than additional avatars for players to use instead of the default green look of the Prince himself - though they can be decked out in various presents found through the games...including masks, funny hats, and fake noses!

Where Beautiful Katamari impresses most is its level of epic scale, and the subtleties in the ball's growth. Key milestones, such as 3m, 12m, and 60m diameters for instance allow noticeable transitions in scale, and are undoubtedly used by the studio to streamline the technical challenges that they face in creating the Katamari experience. Far subtler, and more impressive because of it, is the slowly expanding diameter of the Katamari as it reaches those milestones. Growing at a barely noticeable pace, it can come as a quite a surprise when you realise that the Katamari can absorb the building that just a minute or two ago was dwarfing it. One surprise however, are the regular occurrences of frame rate stutters, which seem to happen early in a mission when there are more objects to pick up and navigate around. It's a bit of a disappointment, though it's something that can be easily overlooked - we're just surprised that slow down is an issue at all in something like Katamari.

It's not only the gameplay that's simplistic in Beautiful Katamari, the visual style and presentation are also very much cut down from the sort of games that Xbox 360 owners unfamiliar with the series, will be used to. Solid blocks of colour, and radically stylised game worlds and characters, add to the kitsch appeal of the game, extending and seeping into its premise. It's a game where the sinister actions of the Prince are wholly overlooked (let's face it, rolling up the entire human civilisation into a ruddy big ball of junk would be the actions of a crazed evil alien race in any other game), in a grand act of desensitisation that would get right-wing conservatives clawing for a Violent Videogames Act...

The control system is also very simple, retaining the analogue-sticks used in previous games (excluding Me & My Katamari on the single-nippled PSP) to deliver a direct and solid experience for players. Using them in conjunction with one another to shift direction, speed (including the turbo boost), and angle - not to mention the very handy quick turn - the control set up is also utilised to great effect in the game's Co-op mode, where two players split control of the Katamari between them. It doesn't take much of an imagination to understand how much carnage this generally ensures, though it's the sort of co-operative play that acts as a very natural extension to the main solo gameplay.

Beautiful Katamari is also the first title in the series to include online multiplayer, with up to four gamers going head-to-head in an attempt to collect the highest number of objects across a few of the gameworlds. While it's doubtful that the mode will reach into the upper echelons of the most popularly played on Xbox Live, it'll no doubt find a niche somewhere - perhaps in Microsoft's small band of causal gamers (you know, the ones who actually do go out and buy the 'Xbox 360 Arcades'). Halo 3 it is not, but it has to be said that the action can get a little heated, as turbo-bumping into an opponent causes them to lose some of their collected objects, raising an unexpected competitive edge to proceedings.