I never had to play Katamari before this and I forever wanted to play it. My beloved one offered me this game. She knows me well.
As detailled in my review of "The Finals", videogames are different from games, toys, cards and cardboards games because they are digital. This digital nature of videogames emancipate them from the unfun parts of games, like tidying, and allows for specific gameplay that won't exist otherwise : strange physics, deep mathematics, ordered-contextualised-randomness, destruction, huge & specific playgrounds, expansive stuff, unharmful stuff...
Now imagine katamari if it was a toy. It would be fun. For one use. Because afterwards you would have to wash the sticky toy and tidy your game space. This is without saying washing your toy would certainly make it less sticky, which means less fun...
So katamari by essence is fun BECAUSE it is a videogame. This is something really important to me, as I am convinced it was something thought about during all the development process by the team. Another specifity of videogames is that it needs a device, an interface to be played. Now, control binding is as unique as smart in katamari. The game doesn't feature classic bindings, in which left stick controls the camera and right stick controls the player. In Katamari, both sticks control the movements, which makes them as easy to learn as hard to master, while being unique in their propensity to orient the player in a precise direction in function of sticks orientations.
The world building and narration is also a very gamy one. In katamari, you move a ball which is sticky and you have to make a bigger ball by gathering stuff on it. This is your main goal that applies from ant size levels to building, cities, geological formations, continents or even the cosmos. Everything can be stuck on a katamari, and that why everyone is obsessed with katamaris. WE love katamaris. We stands both for everybody and the majesty of his highness your father, whom is both a parental figure, a regent, a lover, a nostalgic dreamer and a benevolent yet curious being. WE listen to we (NPCs) to accept, organize and detail we silly questions and demands that form actual quests. "Can we roll the clouds ?" -> Let's make a level out of it. "Can we roll school stuff so vaccations won't end because there won't be school furnitures anymore ?" -> Let's make a level out of it. You get the idea.
As said earlier, you have to roll very different things. This is a technical issue : if something is rolled, it means it moves, so it has to be well optimized. This is also an artistical issue : if we have to make both trivial items as coins and entire continents as Asia, we must have a very coherent art style as well as a technique to make these numerous assets in a good way. As a consequence, they went for a low poly art style which lessen the ammount of faces of each item, making them very cheap to use performance-wise (this game originally ran on a PS2). This art style, because of its very simple shapes and colors, leads to very funny animations and situations: everything moves in katamari, everything is fun to watch, everything is fun to listen to. Another constraint is the full 3D constraint. EACH items must be looked at upside down, from every angle, which trust the game dev I am isn't something obvious at all when it comes to videogames.
Another mind blowing aspect of game design of this title is the diversity of its level design. As I said, there are a lot of environments to play with, but there also are a lot of rules to play with! Sometimes you have to gather the bigger items of the map, which makes the game a dodging game. Another time you have to gather specific items, like animals. Another time, you have to reach the biggest size possible in a restraint time. Another time you have to reach a precise size, but they disable your size sensor so you don't know your diameter. Another time you have to make a big ball of fire that extinguishes if you don't add items to it. Another time they mess up physics, by making an underwater level. Another time they make a map full of very fast moving objects you have to gather... In a word: the level design is a masterpiece.
To conclude, as you've probably understood, it is a good game. I mean, a GOOD videogame. I mean, a good VIDEOGAME. That is important. It is as GOOD as it is a VIDEOGAME relying on the media specifity (which I thrill for). It is mind blowing this came out on a PS2. It has proven if it had to that it was fun in the past, it is fun nowadays and believe me it will forever be fun. It is a piece of art of human culture. It is a game we should put in the next Voyager space mission. Thank you, Keita Takahashi, Takashi Yoshida, Kazumi Yamabe, Namco, the teams and the others! This is a wonderful game I'm glad I had to play. I am glad this game serie met success, I am glad it is edited on modern consoles. This game is so good I put it in my temporary slot of "5 personal bests games" of backloggd.
P.S: I did not even talk about the sound design and the musics. Just listen to them you'll smile. That's how good they are.
As detailled in my review of "The Finals", videogames are different from games, toys, cards and cardboards games because they are digital. This digital nature of videogames emancipate them from the unfun parts of games, like tidying, and allows for specific gameplay that won't exist otherwise : strange physics, deep mathematics, ordered-contextualised-randomness, destruction, huge & specific playgrounds, expansive stuff, unharmful stuff...
Now imagine katamari if it was a toy. It would be fun. For one use. Because afterwards you would have to wash the sticky toy and tidy your game space. This is without saying washing your toy would certainly make it less sticky, which means less fun...
So katamari by essence is fun BECAUSE it is a videogame. This is something really important to me, as I am convinced it was something thought about during all the development process by the team. Another specifity of videogames is that it needs a device, an interface to be played. Now, control binding is as unique as smart in katamari. The game doesn't feature classic bindings, in which left stick controls the camera and right stick controls the player. In Katamari, both sticks control the movements, which makes them as easy to learn as hard to master, while being unique in their propensity to orient the player in a precise direction in function of sticks orientations.
The world building and narration is also a very gamy one. In katamari, you move a ball which is sticky and you have to make a bigger ball by gathering stuff on it. This is your main goal that applies from ant size levels to building, cities, geological formations, continents or even the cosmos. Everything can be stuck on a katamari, and that why everyone is obsessed with katamaris. WE love katamaris. We stands both for everybody and the majesty of his highness your father, whom is both a parental figure, a regent, a lover, a nostalgic dreamer and a benevolent yet curious being. WE listen to we (NPCs) to accept, organize and detail we silly questions and demands that form actual quests. "Can we roll the clouds ?" -> Let's make a level out of it. "Can we roll school stuff so vaccations won't end because there won't be school furnitures anymore ?" -> Let's make a level out of it. You get the idea.
As said earlier, you have to roll very different things. This is a technical issue : if something is rolled, it means it moves, so it has to be well optimized. This is also an artistical issue : if we have to make both trivial items as coins and entire continents as Asia, we must have a very coherent art style as well as a technique to make these numerous assets in a good way. As a consequence, they went for a low poly art style which lessen the ammount of faces of each item, making them very cheap to use performance-wise (this game originally ran on a PS2). This art style, because of its very simple shapes and colors, leads to very funny animations and situations: everything moves in katamari, everything is fun to watch, everything is fun to listen to. Another constraint is the full 3D constraint. EACH items must be looked at upside down, from every angle, which trust the game dev I am isn't something obvious at all when it comes to videogames.
Another mind blowing aspect of game design of this title is the diversity of its level design. As I said, there are a lot of environments to play with, but there also are a lot of rules to play with! Sometimes you have to gather the bigger items of the map, which makes the game a dodging game. Another time you have to gather specific items, like animals. Another time, you have to reach the biggest size possible in a restraint time. Another time you have to reach a precise size, but they disable your size sensor so you don't know your diameter. Another time you have to make a big ball of fire that extinguishes if you don't add items to it. Another time they mess up physics, by making an underwater level. Another time they make a map full of very fast moving objects you have to gather... In a word: the level design is a masterpiece.
To conclude, as you've probably understood, it is a good game. I mean, a GOOD videogame. I mean, a good VIDEOGAME. That is important. It is as GOOD as it is a VIDEOGAME relying on the media specifity (which I thrill for). It is mind blowing this came out on a PS2. It has proven if it had to that it was fun in the past, it is fun nowadays and believe me it will forever be fun. It is a piece of art of human culture. It is a game we should put in the next Voyager space mission. Thank you, Keita Takahashi, Takashi Yoshida, Kazumi Yamabe, Namco, the teams and the others! This is a wonderful game I'm glad I had to play. I am glad this game serie met success, I am glad it is edited on modern consoles. This game is so good I put it in my temporary slot of "5 personal bests games" of backloggd.
P.S: I did not even talk about the sound design and the musics. Just listen to them you'll smile. That's how good they are.