GOTY 2018 - NUMBER FIVE
Video version
Right, this is something of a technicality. The qualifier for getting on one of these lists is that a game couldn’t have been released in Europe before the year it’s contending for. Remasters are the same game, and proper remakes are new games. I know full well that the original Katamari Damacy had never come out in Europe before the Switch “Reroll” release. I read the previews, watched the gameplay videos and begged for it to come over before eventually buying a Japanese copy. The ability to finally honour the game with an entry on a GOTY list feels massively cathartic.
Katamari Damacy is the zenith of what made the PS2’s library so fantastic. It was a time when Japanese publishers just weren’t paying attention. The era of games like Under the Skin, Gregory Horror Show and Kuma Uta. Katamari Damacy is the king of those games (ironically, not Ribbit King). It isn’t just a stupid skin on a well-worn concept; it’s daft to its core. But on top of that is a game idea that’s entirely unique.
If there’s one person in the industry who always has my back, it’s Keita Takahashi. This is a guy who thinks the vast majority of videogames are boring. He likes Balloon Fight and ICO, but pretty much everything else is tired, nasty or not worth paying attention to. Somewhat paradoxically though, he’s the self-titled “video game romantic”. He thinks everything can be a game, and should be a game. One of my favourite periods of his career was when he wasn’t making videogames at all, and instead musing on how pavements could be more fun or how playparks should have special slides for dogs and employees who would ride down them afterwards, dressed in bristly outfits to clean the slides. He’s an oddball artist and inventor who’s only making videogames because he wants to make fun stuff that people all over the world can enjoy. He expects nothing of his audience, but if you’re susceptible to his thinking, you’ll find your way to his stuff.
I’ve loved all his stuff, but Katamari Damacy is the closest thing he’s made to a proper videogame. It’s the only one with clear goals, and is designed in a way that rewards practice and skill. You’re rolling a big ball through open levels, trying to pick up as many objects as you can. As your katamari rolls, it picks up everything smaller it touches, slowly growing with all the clutter. Do that a few dozen times with different goals and time limits and that’s your game. It’s everything it needs to be.
Katamari Damacy’s levels are covered with beautiful, stupid clutter. Statues, wrestlers, islands, stacks of matchboxes, anything. Everything has been modelled and textured to keep in the game’s weird boxy style, contrasting with the big round alien ball that’s crashing into it all. It’s not a game that benefits massively from an HD upscaling, but the additional effort to remaster this game without touching the source assets is greatly appreciated.
The controls are unique, and almost comparable to some of the more eccentric stuff Treasure have came up with, except much more relatable and easy to get your head around. Each analogue stick mimics how The Prince rolls either side of the ball. Two sticks forward to move forward, two stick back to roll back, and variations of back and forth on either stick to turn around. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but there’s great freedom to develop techniques for turning corners of different degrees, or moving at specific speeds. Unfortunately, this is one aspect of the game that doesn’t translate perfectly to the Switch. Ideally, the analogue sticks should be symmetrical on the controller to get a balanced feel for rolling, and that’s something Nintendo’s controllers don’t offer. I know you can get 8bitdo controllers with symmetrical sticks, but I haven’t had the opportunity to try them with the game. It shouldn’t put you off, as the game’s still quite playable as is, but if you’re looking for the definitive release of Katamari Damacy, this is a factor.
I also have to mention the music. I might have to think a little harder before hitting out with this stuff, but Katamari Damacy might be my favourite video game soundtrack. On first listen, it sounds weird and funny, but underneath lies a deep exploration of the game’s core concept and setting. Some of it is frantic and bizarre, but it also presents romantic ideas of being rolled up in a big ball with everything and explores the underlying eroticism of such a surreal concept. It could play as a joke, but it comes across as sincere and celebratory. It’s little wonder to me that Keita Takahashi ended up marrying one of the game’s composers. The music believes in his ideas even more than he does. It’s one of the loveliest things in video games.
For most, Reroll is just about the ability to play a Katamari game on a modern platform. For dedicated European fans of the series, it’s about getting to play the original title that they were once denied.
That’s why I feel duty-bound to celebrate this release. In this modern era of regionless consoles, we’ve kind of forgotten how things were back in the PS2 days, when it took a minor miracle or a first-party publisher to release something as weird as this in our continent. We didn’t even start getting anime licences until the terrible PS1 Dragon Ball games came out around 2000. In my eyes, Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun and Katamari Damacy Reroll have put the last nail in the coffin of that awful era. And they’re both Bandai Namco games. So is Dragon Ball FighterZ; another game that’s made it onto this list, and another that may have skipped a PAL release a few console generations ago. I’ve got to tip my hat to them, this year. Without wanting to spoil anything, they’ve got more games on this list than Nintendo. How the fuck do you do that?
I don’t think Katamari Damacy is quite as varied or slick as its PS2 sequel, but I still think it might be the most charming entry in the series. If you’re into this stuff and you live in this continent, I think you really owe it to yourself to pick it up.
Video version
Right, this is something of a technicality. The qualifier for getting on one of these lists is that a game couldn’t have been released in Europe before the year it’s contending for. Remasters are the same game, and proper remakes are new games. I know full well that the original Katamari Damacy had never come out in Europe before the Switch “Reroll” release. I read the previews, watched the gameplay videos and begged for it to come over before eventually buying a Japanese copy. The ability to finally honour the game with an entry on a GOTY list feels massively cathartic.
Katamari Damacy is the zenith of what made the PS2’s library so fantastic. It was a time when Japanese publishers just weren’t paying attention. The era of games like Under the Skin, Gregory Horror Show and Kuma Uta. Katamari Damacy is the king of those games (ironically, not Ribbit King). It isn’t just a stupid skin on a well-worn concept; it’s daft to its core. But on top of that is a game idea that’s entirely unique.
If there’s one person in the industry who always has my back, it’s Keita Takahashi. This is a guy who thinks the vast majority of videogames are boring. He likes Balloon Fight and ICO, but pretty much everything else is tired, nasty or not worth paying attention to. Somewhat paradoxically though, he’s the self-titled “video game romantic”. He thinks everything can be a game, and should be a game. One of my favourite periods of his career was when he wasn’t making videogames at all, and instead musing on how pavements could be more fun or how playparks should have special slides for dogs and employees who would ride down them afterwards, dressed in bristly outfits to clean the slides. He’s an oddball artist and inventor who’s only making videogames because he wants to make fun stuff that people all over the world can enjoy. He expects nothing of his audience, but if you’re susceptible to his thinking, you’ll find your way to his stuff.
I’ve loved all his stuff, but Katamari Damacy is the closest thing he’s made to a proper videogame. It’s the only one with clear goals, and is designed in a way that rewards practice and skill. You’re rolling a big ball through open levels, trying to pick up as many objects as you can. As your katamari rolls, it picks up everything smaller it touches, slowly growing with all the clutter. Do that a few dozen times with different goals and time limits and that’s your game. It’s everything it needs to be.
Katamari Damacy’s levels are covered with beautiful, stupid clutter. Statues, wrestlers, islands, stacks of matchboxes, anything. Everything has been modelled and textured to keep in the game’s weird boxy style, contrasting with the big round alien ball that’s crashing into it all. It’s not a game that benefits massively from an HD upscaling, but the additional effort to remaster this game without touching the source assets is greatly appreciated.
The controls are unique, and almost comparable to some of the more eccentric stuff Treasure have came up with, except much more relatable and easy to get your head around. Each analogue stick mimics how The Prince rolls either side of the ball. Two sticks forward to move forward, two stick back to roll back, and variations of back and forth on either stick to turn around. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but there’s great freedom to develop techniques for turning corners of different degrees, or moving at specific speeds. Unfortunately, this is one aspect of the game that doesn’t translate perfectly to the Switch. Ideally, the analogue sticks should be symmetrical on the controller to get a balanced feel for rolling, and that’s something Nintendo’s controllers don’t offer. I know you can get 8bitdo controllers with symmetrical sticks, but I haven’t had the opportunity to try them with the game. It shouldn’t put you off, as the game’s still quite playable as is, but if you’re looking for the definitive release of Katamari Damacy, this is a factor.
I also have to mention the music. I might have to think a little harder before hitting out with this stuff, but Katamari Damacy might be my favourite video game soundtrack. On first listen, it sounds weird and funny, but underneath lies a deep exploration of the game’s core concept and setting. Some of it is frantic and bizarre, but it also presents romantic ideas of being rolled up in a big ball with everything and explores the underlying eroticism of such a surreal concept. It could play as a joke, but it comes across as sincere and celebratory. It’s little wonder to me that Keita Takahashi ended up marrying one of the game’s composers. The music believes in his ideas even more than he does. It’s one of the loveliest things in video games.
For most, Reroll is just about the ability to play a Katamari game on a modern platform. For dedicated European fans of the series, it’s about getting to play the original title that they were once denied.
That’s why I feel duty-bound to celebrate this release. In this modern era of regionless consoles, we’ve kind of forgotten how things were back in the PS2 days, when it took a minor miracle or a first-party publisher to release something as weird as this in our continent. We didn’t even start getting anime licences until the terrible PS1 Dragon Ball games came out around 2000. In my eyes, Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum ‘n’ Fun and Katamari Damacy Reroll have put the last nail in the coffin of that awful era. And they’re both Bandai Namco games. So is Dragon Ball FighterZ; another game that’s made it onto this list, and another that may have skipped a PAL release a few console generations ago. I’ve got to tip my hat to them, this year. Without wanting to spoil anything, they’ve got more games on this list than Nintendo. How the fuck do you do that?
I don’t think Katamari Damacy is quite as varied or slick as its PS2 sequel, but I still think it might be the most charming entry in the series. If you’re into this stuff and you live in this continent, I think you really owe it to yourself to pick it up.