Gaming We <3 Katamari

[Sandy]

I know there's a thread about [B]Katamari Damacy[/B], but as this is a sequel, I felt it needed a thread of it's own.

So, the first game never reached the European shores, but [B]We <3 Katamari[/B] did, and having preordered it from the net, I just got it yesterday.

After two days of playing, I must say it feels more addicting than Sims or Pokémon (at least to me), and it's so different from any other game that I can't help to just <3 it! ;D

To those who don't know, the game is all about rolling special balls called Katamari through various stages (like a room, a school, a garden, a town etc.), collecting stuff lying around (they stick to the Katamari if it's big enough). The more stuff you collect, the larger the Katamari grows, and you can collect bigger stuff. Starting from clippers, pens, coins and such to toys, cutlery, animals, plants, vehicles, people, houses... I'm not far enough to know how far it actually goes, but eventually you get to collect even the planets made from finished Katamaris.

The stages may seem simple, but with special requirements it quickly becomes very challenging. How does it sound to bring a 15 cm diameter Katamari to a 3 metres in just 10 minutes? ;P

The best way to enjoy the game is with or against a friend. You start as the Prince of Cosmos, but very quickly you will start finding your cousins all over the stages. They act as optional characters, and they allow a second player to join.

You can complete every stage co-operating with your friend (both pushing the same Katamari simultaneously, or it doesn't move), but there's also special versus-stages, where both players have their own balls to roll.

The gameplay is quite unique, but so are the graphics. At first you feel like your playing a kids' game with it's colorful and psychedelic world (the style reminds me very much of Powerpuff Girls, actually), but in reality the difficulty alone prevents it from being aimed for small children. I think the best word to decribe the feel of the game is simply "overly Japanese". ;D

The game will most likely not interest those who are into war-strategy or gory FPS-games, but to a casual gamer like me or an Anime fan it's a real treat. Girls may like it more than boys, but if you keep an open mind to all the quirky and cutesy stuff in the game, anybody can enjoy it. I surely do, and my fingers are itching to return to it as I write it (it's just so dang late here... X/ ).

Now that I've reviewed the game, I'd like to know what are other people's experiences with this game? Anybody outside Europe play it anymore? And if you know this, how does it differ from the prequel?

I really really [I]really[/I] <3 Katamari! ;D

[Zidargh]

Ha, yeah I got this one the other day.

All I can say is... "God, it's strange." But it's so strange that I can't help but be entranced by it. I wouldn't quite go as far and say I love it, but I can definitely tell it's going to sneak up on me.

Currently my favourite song is "Katamari On The Swing".

I'm not going to say much as of yet because you've covered everything I was going to say really, however, I've been carrying out a lot of fan demands. Am I right in thinking you can never satisfy the fans? And is it very open-ended in that you can make Katamaris by any means possible?

[Sandy]

Oh, I think you [I]can[/I] satisfy the fans, but only by doing the tasks perfectly (which is totally impossible). XP

Thankfully there's a lot of variation on the missions, so it's not only "make the katamari [I]this[/I] large in [I]this[/I] amount of time". Those are in my opinion the trickiest kinds, though. In one mission I had to make a 1 meter katamari into a 500 meters in just [I]17[/I] minutes! I kept falling about a 100 metres short, until I played the stage in co-operation mode with my bf, when we got 19 minutes' time. ;D

Seriously, the game has been haunting my dreams ever since I got it, so I decided to keep a katamari-free day today. I needed it, I'm feeling much more sane now. ;D

[Zidargh]

I know, tell me about it. I showed my girlfriend the level I am currently stuggling with, 'Make the Katamari 50 meters in 12 minutes!'. (I think that was it anyway.) And after it, I think we both walked away feeling a little bit over the limit, in that we felt completely insane.

I swear that Savannah song should be played during interrogation.

I'm beginning to enjoy it much more as I begin to roll up larger things but do you happen to know if it's a long game? Because that's my biggest worry at the moment, in that it's going to be fairly short.

[Sandy]

I have no idea about the lenght, but I assume that you can keep playing it for like eternity if you have the interest. ;P It's all about collecting objects, really. Kind of like Pokémon with items. ;P

[Guest AnimeRules15421]

It's a time waster game that has a horrible tehno soundtrack. Horrible theme and horrible animation. But it's a good game if you're bored or have alot of free time.