Japan is a country whose culture is not very understandable to Westerners, even in these times of globalization. The residents of the Land of the Rising Sun have very different needs and perceptions: very different from those of Russians, Europeans, and Americans. A good example of this is the two-year-old Godzilla movie, which was a big hit at home, but most Westerners will only be puzzled by its strange plot and themes. We regularly see similar differences between worlds in games as well, including projects by major publishers. How crazy, unusual and original Japanese games can be is perfectly demonstrated by Katamari Damacy, which debuted a decade and a half ago on PlayStation 2, but has now been re-released for Switch and is not at all outdated.
Official science doesn’t acknowledge this fact, but the universe is ruled by a specific individual – the powerful, eccentric, and crooked King of All Space. Once all the stars disappeared from the sky because of a mistake of the wretched ruler, and now the young prince, his son, has to fix the situation and at the same time demonstrate his right to the throne. It is this weak, but hardworking heir to the throne and controls the player in Katamari Damacy.
The king of the cosmos has come up with only one way to put the stars back in place: collect all sorts of junk on Earth, roll it into a ball and launch it toward the sky. Surprisingly, this plan even works, but to bring it to life must be the protagonist, who for the sake of such important things landed on the planet. Over the course of twenty levels, players will have to roll living and inanimate objects into the ball, from pins and rats to overpasses and kaiju. There are no other activities in Katamari Damacy, but it turns out that collecting stuff is a lot of fun – the level designers, artists and composers did their best, creating weird but interesting and colorful world.
At the very beginning of the first level, the protagonist begins with a catamaran ball with a radius of five centimeters. The task is simple: in four minutes to double the size of the future star, collecting needles, screws, dice and other small household items that are found along the way. You can roll in the catamaran only what is smaller than its size, and therefore to successfully pass the level you need to choose targets wisely and plan your route so as not to beat in vain on some stool, with each blow even losing part of the previously collected. As the game scales up and on the last of the main level the hero has half an hour, but the task is worth it: to increase the radius of the catamaran from one to three hundred meters! Here, as you understand, erasers and cufflinks are not limited to: the balloon grows at the expense of trees, people and skyscrapers, and if you exceed the result, then at five hundred meters you can navigate the sea and consume islands.
Each level of Katamari Damacy is divided into several zones, between which you can move freely – if the size of the katamari ball allows you. Sometimes the path to the location is blocked by a high curb or a pile of too large objects, but in most cases these obstacles are surmountable – you just need to grow taller. However, herein lies the main and animating the entire game puzzle: sometimes it’s very difficult to find what else to roll in the ball! At times it seems like there’s no solution, but after a couple of tries you’re bound to find a previously overlooked room of junk or a specific object you need to grow. An additional interest is that the route is rarely linear: even near the starting point there may be a lot of large junk, which a little later will turn out to be necessary and important. In addition, it’s simply fun to move through the levels: going down mountains, jumping off tables, trying to climb a building – all this ensures that it will be fun to play, at least for the six to seven hours that Katamari Damacy is designed for.
Additionally to liven up, diversify and decorate the game is supposed to graphical style and verging on absurd filling levels: the gamer will have to roll in the ball and gymnastic schoolchildren, and revolver-shooting Japanese patrolmen, and even a huge robot that walks on one of the straits. The object models here are angular, but thanks to the almost cartoonish design this simplicity looks an organic part of the game, not a sign of its age. Thanks to the higher resolution of the picture and the better lighting, Katamari Damacy Reroll (that’s the name of the Switch version) feels like something quite modern. In addition, the music in the game is very appropriate: very unusual jazz, electronic and pop compositions that I would never have downloaded to my iPod, but not without pleasure listened to as I created the stars. The howls of various animals and people complete the overall picture, making Katamari Damacy’s audio-visual series look like a canvas woven of colorful pieces, which as a whole is even more appealing than each of its individual elements.
