Wonderwallweb.com - Article: Beautiful Katamari

Perhaps it was never intended to be a malicious lie, and to be fair it isn’t. A white lie? Maybe. Beautiful Katamari is not beautiful - or it at least - doesn’t look beautiful. Smacking you in the face the second you eventually get going, are the PS2 graphics. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all solid enough, it’s just the sheer lack of detail and textures leaves you wondering; how great this could have looked?

Beautiful Katamari is the fourth Katamari game, but the first to make the leap to the next-gen. Now, this is going to sound absolutely bonkers, the King of All Cosmos is playing tennis in what I can only assume is his back garden. During said game, the King strikes the ball with such velocity that it creates a black hole high above and the freshly created black hole sucks in every single planet, star and moon - except of course planet Earth. Your mission, as the Prince, is to go to Earth and roll katamari’s to repair the Cosmos. That’s the story and I’m under no impression that the Prince used to be a solider in the first person.

After a lengthy bit of dialogue and a tutorial, your delivered to your main hud. It’s from here that you get to actually get to have a proper go. Although it’s a nice idea ignoring a listed menu system, having to walk to various parts of the hub to change settings, check leaderboards and begin levels is tedious. The Prince seems to work in slow motion. Still, that’s not what this is about, and although a little irritating, easily forgivable. Once you select a level, you’re thankfully able to skip the King’s repulsive intro and jump straight in. The game controls exactly like the previous efforts, but for those unfamiliar with them…..You play in the 3rd person and using only the left and right sticks, you have to roll your Katamari. As you roll, things will begin to attach to your katamari. Starting out with coins, dice and sweets, your katamari will then be big enough to collect books and mice, keeping it up will result in you rolling a katamari that’s big enough to collect people, cars, houses and skyscrapers! As you progress, it gets insane to the point where you’re rolling up countries! Each level gives you an objective that you have to pass for your katamari to be counted as a planet, these objectives range from simply getting your katamari to 1m in width to rolling one that’s 10,000 degrees in temperature. You’re also rated on how well you fulfill a secondary objective, such as, collecting riches, food, plants and drinks. Complete a level with any rating and you’ll unlock time attack mode. Time attack basically times you how long it takes to roll a katamari of a designated size.

Far from being a walk in the park, surprisingly, Beautiful Katamari is very challenging, sometimes very frustrating. There is something appealing about rolling around collecting stuff, even more so when you get to a size where you can pick up cars and mopeds - trouble is, because of the time limit until later on you’ll barely scratch the surface of how much fun there is to be had. It often feels restrictive and you hope there’s a free play mode hidden away somewhere. *DING* There is a free play mode! But it does come at a cost - your insanity. The only way to unlock the eternal mode, a mode which was designed for kings - is to perfect a level, this is tough - very tough - for reasons other than the obvious…

Did I mention kings a few seconds ago? Well yes, I did. Now, lose the ‘S’ and we’re down to King. Add ‘of the Cosmos’ and we’re just about there. The biggest crime committed by Beautiful Katamari is the horrendous King of the Cosmos. The guy is ten thousand times more annoying than Tingle and Luigi - combined! He’s hideous! My main gripe with Beautiful Katamari is the King of the Cosmos, sure without him the game would still be tough, but before you even attempt a level, you’ll have to put up with his stupid nonsense. He’s not voiced, his words are represented in text form - now, this could be seen as a reprieve, I mean just imagine what the guy would sound like if he didn’t communicate through text!? Well, it could possibly be the lesser of two evils seeing as his text also comes with a sound effect. You know back in the 80’s when rap was huge? Remember the old scratching the record deal? Well get ready for it to be permanently inscribed into your head - every time the King of the Cosmos speaks - every single word - and there are lots - follows the record scratching sound effect. Aghhhh!!!!! OK, so you begin a level hoping to escape it and after a few words of idiocy before the clock begins, you’re away! As you happily roll around the level, taking in the sights and (compared to….) glorious Japanese pop music, all is well…..right up until you catch a cousin. Cousins are as odd looking as the Prince and become available to play as. Cousins make no noticeable difference to how well you roll. Anyhow, roll up a cousin and the King will pop up - remember the game is still being played - and spurts some stupid guff to the backing of record scratching. You have to press A (taking your finger off the right stick) to skip his words, several times. The same thing also happens when you roll over a present. Presents are just accessories to stick on your character. Again, you have to skip the King’s verbal diarrhea several times. He’ll pop up again when you’ve reached your target and to tell you, that you have a minute left…..it gets ridiculous and really spoils the flow of the game. But whatever you do, don’t just turn the console off in a rage - there’s no auto save feature, which is more of a knock on me for assuming there should be. I lost about 3 hours worth. I suck.

Going back to those ‘tank’ controls I mentioned earlier. Now, it’s a fairly easy assumption to make that because you’re only using the two sticks, that Beautiful Katamari will be easy to control. I sure made that assumption. Lesson of the day; Never assume. It makes an ass out of you and me. The controls never feel comfortable, you expect them to do one thing, but they do another. It’s not always the case, and some people I’m sure can get to grips with them instantly, but some people isn’t most people and I know I’m not the only one who has or is going to, find the control scheme awkward. Adding to the awkward controls is a sometimes poor camera. It’s not always this way, I’d like to point out. Sometimes you’ll breeze through a level with no trouble, but other times the camera will cause foul, dirty language to exit that thing between your nose and chin. The camera occasionally gets stuck, which when your battling against the clock - isn’t very helpful. I will mention that when the camera isn’t playing silly beggars, it’s very good, not just average.

Visually, as my opening may suggest, Beautiful Katamari isn’t going to win any pageants. It does look like a PS2 game, and although this isn’t a terrible thing on the PS2, it’s a big letdown on the powerful 360. Baby steps have been made, there are more things on the screen and the backdrops do have a bit of depth, baby steps are OK, but I’d prefer leaps. The quirky art style is very nice, but as I said, you’ll always have it in the back of your head, that it could and should, have looked much crisper. The music is certainly for an acquired taste, I could find it perfectly reasonable that some folks may hate it, whilst others love it. It’s upbeat and as pop as you can get. I found it best just slightly down on the default volume. The sound effects, obviously excluding the record scratching, are superb. Every piece of clutter you collect comes with noise and there’s something deeply satisfying about hearing blips and bops in rapid succession, knowing that you’ve just rolled over a massive stash.

Running through the single player isn’t going to last that long if you’re not keen on attempting a perfect, so it’s somewhat good to see efforts being made for multiplayer modes. First up a local and online co-op, which has player 1 in charge of the left stick, with player 2 holding the fort of the right stick. It sounds remarkable and is very original, but isn’t actually that much fun. It has a staggering ability to cause arguments. There are online competitive modes, objectives range from making a big katamari to collecting more of a set item. Beautiful Katamari can be fun online, but not in long sessions.

In many ways Beautiful Katamari should be commended for just being different, but being ’different’ doesn’t necessarily make a good game. In this case, it’s hit and miss. My enjoyment is clouded by my annoyance at the King character and the way the flow of the game is spoilt by him interrupting. When you’re not being interfered with, Beautiful Katamari is tremendous fun.