Customer Reviews

Beautiful Katamari

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was really excited to learn that Katamari was coming to the 360. I thought we would be able to roll the biggest Katamari ever at lightning fast speeds, have 3 times as many areas to explore, a killer new soundtrack and tons of online playability. Unfortunately, Katamari fails to deliver on several of these expectations.

First, this game, like the other Katamari games: Katamari Damacy, We Love Katamari and Me and My Katamari, is a BLAST to play. For those who don't know, you play as the Prince of the Cosmos who has been sent by the King of the Cosmos to use a sticky ball known as a Katamari, to roll up items in the world to create stars, satellites and planets to re-populate the solar system after the King has done something to mess up the galaxy (always something funny). The Katamari starts out small and at first you can only roll up small objects, but as the game progress you'll be able to roll up people, cars, buildings and even landmasses (and much later... entire planets!). This kind of unique gameplay is addictive and fun to say the least. Here's where the game falls short...

I defeated the game in a day and a half (that includes obtaining the online achievements). The game is very short compared to other Katamari releases. Also, you end up re-visiting several maps that are being passed off as new levels simply because they have a few different items in them. With the 360's power, I really expected there to be tons of levels and none that repeated themselves, which isn't the case here.

The sound was a let down also. Most of the sounds are recycled from old Katamari games and the soundtrack is the weakest in the series. The Katamari games are none for their killer soundtracks: Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy, but there are only 2 or 3 good songs that stand out. They even seemed to run out of new songs worthy of the game, because you'll also hear cuts from "We Love Katamari".

The online portion of the game is the biggest letdown. You can play thru all 5 levels in under 20 minutes and the object of each stage is to collect as many of a specific item as possible before the game ends. Online opponents can run into each other, knocking their foes items off their Katamari, but all this gets boring and repetative... after you play all the stages. I was really hoping for an online competition, where cousins could compete to roll the biggest Katamari for the King in either an online version of the one player game, or a specific game for xbox live, but it didn't happen.

With that said, there is a lot to praise. The game looks amazing in HD. I disagree with some gaming critics who think the graphics should have been redone to take advantage of the 360's power, but to me, if you change the look...it's not Katamari. In this version, the items and characters pop with a vibrant colorfully clarity you don't get in previous games. I also got one of my wishes for the game, you will be able to roll the biggest Katamaris ever! I wont give anything away, but the last stage is absolutely amazing. The replay value is very high with the game too. To trully beat a stage, you need to find all the cousins and presents and be awarded 100 points by the King. Obtaining 100 points on a stage, will unlock an infinite mode, that lets you play that stage without being timed! Just press "X" to quit. This is a great way to locate presents and cousins you may have missed, as well as plot a strategy to grow your Katamari at a faster rate, when it does matter.

Overall, I'm pleased with the purchase. Die-hard fans of the series will love this version of Katamari, but I think you'll feel like the game could've been so much more.

I love the other Katamari games but I found this one a bit of a disappointment. The graphics are exactly the same as the other games in the series even though this game is on a new system and the stages look very similiar. Speaking of the stages, however, they may look similiar but there seemed to be a lot less that was interesting and funny to roll up.

The game was fun to play because the controls were quite simple to use, but the game is quite short and does not contain anything new. It is pretty cheap so if you like the Katamari games this is probably worth a purchase. If you are new to the series of games and have one of the other systems I'd think about getting one of the other games as you will probably get a longer game play out of them.

I'm very disappointed in the new Katamari game! One of the things I really enjoyed about previous installments was the variety of challenges, but so far all of the levels fit the profile of make a katamari of x size in y amount of time. There are "fast as you can" type challenges, but they're only for online rankings, not for level completion. Not having a variety of challenges means that if you aren't good at one kind, the game isn't going to be much fun.

I'm going to fully explain why this title deserves what i've given it, a 2 star.
First of all, i'm not a fledgeling roller, i've played and beaten the previous two katamari games on the playstation. and i have to say this one simply does not do them justice.

-the game gets a star for the menus, and ease of play, the game is directed in a different manner than most hardcore games while maintaining a nose to the grindstone type of play.

- it also gets a star for replay value, while not as high as previous katamaris, If you're really into it you keep trying to beat your times and sizes. Also this game has enourmous amounts of unlockables to find and outfit your cousins with.

-Now is where i'll explain why its lacking,
-It loses a star because of its overall play. The 360 controller feels odd with the sticks so far apart and the ability to quick dash is harmed. That is a vital component to speedily beating the challenges. The game is also very very short, only a few levels are brought to the 360 with loads of cousins and presents in each making the game get very repetitive as you must play the levels large amount of times before finding sometimes upwards of 10 unlockables.

-It loses a star for innovation. Being the third in its series, the game fails to innovate much, the second game brought snoballs fireballs, and even a sumo wrestler to the game for some odd but very challenging missions. This game focuses mainly on rolling stuff up, its much faster too, the katimari moves at a much faster clip and as such the timer is reduced, making the game obscenely quick. you don't roll for long and you have to get to rediculous sizes quite often within a small time limit. The story in this also is quite underthought and has more of a boring quality. The other two were boring as well but in a way they kind of made up for it by making a bit of an inkling where the game was going or just providing a backstory like the second one.

-If i could i'd remove 2 stars for this, in previous games, the king of all cosmos would speak to you in game to say random things as wow or something to indictae the game was moving on. In addition he'd make quick comments about cousins. His head shows up on the screen and he speaks rap sound text for a few seconds then goes away. In this game he commonly shows up and drones for sometimes a minute or two, blocing your vision and speaking so much nonsense that while funny the first few times it becomes so irritating i found myself "telling"(loudly) him to shut up. Especially with the large amounts of presents and cousins, over half of any given objective could have his head in the center of your screen. It wouldn't be so bad if he was in a corner or a ticker tape but he's dead center and takes up about 1/4 of the screen. that's a lot in a game and it really takes a lot from the experience.

-Overall the game felt unfinished, and not complete, namco didn't push the game to even attempt to be better than the previous one and mostly seemed to target fans for their hard earned money rather than giving them a good time. Its a good rental but its not even worth owning, the game can be completed in a few hours with little to no replay value. Buy we love katamari for the ps2 instead.

I loved the original Katamari Damacy. It knocked my socks off. It was fun, quirky, original; it was my favorite game. I loved We Love Katamari. The controls were a little less sensitive, which meant that the learning curve was not so steep. It captured the essence of the original perfectly and it seemed to go on forever. Every time it seemed like the game was over, the king popped up with one 'last' request. It was fantastic. I was so excited about the release of Beautiful Katamari, but it was not all I had hoped.
The levels which were included were fun, but the game was short. I didn't expect it to be as long as We Love Katamari but it was short enough that I couldn't believe it was over. I re-checked all the levels, sure I had missed something that would unlock the rest of the game. It turns out the rest of the game was available as downloadable content. This game was not cheap enough to justify it's length in my opinion. It really felt like they made a whole game, but only put half of it on the disk.
Additionally for those with a PS3 the newest Katamari game, Katamari Forever, contains all of these levels, including at leas one of the downloadable ones, and a better story line.

If you've enjoyed either of the previous Katamari games,you're going to love this one. Pretty much the same deal - start as a tiny little ball boy, and roll stuff up until you can roll up the world - then the solar system. Nice to see it on the Xbox 360, but it's still pretty much the same game.
Unfortunately, the ambient sounds have been almost all cut/removed (remember the bike guy yelling "Nanananana" as you rolled him up?)
The biggest issue I have with this is that it's so short. When I can finish the game in one evening after work, I begin to wonder if its worth buying - no matter how much fun it is. They also didn't change the existing maps much.
Overall - it's worth the money if you're a Katamari fan, but probably won't be worth going out of your way for.

While I admire the fact that this wacky franchise continues on to a next-gen system, and the same quirky humor can be found in many of the Kings rants and throughout the levels, they have just tweaked this game too much to really appreciate it. I found myself actually saying "I hate this" when I couldn't even complete the third mission. We have played/beaten the first two Katamari games many times, and even we found the controls, camera angles and level goals insanely difficult.

*The king talks way too much. How can you see what you are rolling up with his big hovering face and lines of text in the middle of the screen? It is too difficult to click the button to make him go away without disrupting your momentum.

*The level goals are insanely tough. You fail more mission than you pass, and even then you barely scrape by. This makes appreciating the level design and exploring the nooks and crannies of each level impossible. I'm sure there are many clever things in the game, I'm just frantically skimming past them looking for small enough things to absorb. A difficulty setting would make this problem moot.

*The controls feel even messier than they did before, if that is even possible. I am a tense player, so I find myself clutching the control, thus making my character flip all over the Katamari. I can't really turn corners and I get stuck a lot.

*I find my Katamari gets stuck in between items or walls/corners/shelves a lot more than before. And when the camera gets stuck behind walls and stuff, I literally cannot see where I am on the screen.

I do love finding all the presents and cousins in the levels, but with the problems in this game, these rewards just aren't as sweet when I find myself cursing the King and his stupid demands.

It sucks to say this, but this could have been a lot better. I am disappointed, and will just go back to the previous versions of this game I already own. Maybe the next one will be better!

Beautiful Katamari feels like a port or an expansion pack. It packs competent levels that play well but do not really innovate. It plays well enough to be worthwhile for fans of the series, but has too many problems to be recommended as someone's first Katamari game.

First, what it does right:

The graphics are certainly improved. Widescreen 1080i really helps the visibility of your target objects, which makes the game fun to play and watch. Object detail is probably double what it was in the PS2 installments. Which, to be fair, still isn't saying much compared to most next-gen games. But it is noticable and nice.

The overworld is whimsical and fun. It is similar in concept to "We Love Katamari," but minus the annoying conversations you were forced to have with the people in that world.

The music, when it is not remixes of the previous two games, is very good. There are no painfully annoying songs as in WLK, and some of the J-pop is really catchy.

The larger stages expand the scope of gameplay nicely. Difficulty is ramped up, so if you can beat the other two games with your eyes closed, this installment offers more challenge for your gaming dollar.

What doesn't work:

The framerate issues are just unforgivable. Even though detail has been increased over previous games, it is nowhere near other more stable next gen games on the 360 or the PS3. Yet, when a lot of movement is on the screen or you are swinging the camera around quickly, the framerate chugs to a very frustrating degree, and exacerbates control issues. This is just sloppy coding. We all know the 360 can handle this amount of polygons without turning into a slideshow.

Speaking of controls, it is difficult to put my finger on, but my thumbs get a lot more sore playing this that the PS2 games with the dual shock. Other players I've talked to have confirmed this. Either it's the response programmed in, or the controller itself, but you can feel it. I tend to think it's the game, because it's more noticeable on the larger levels than the smaller ones.

The difficulty, while welcome for a veteran, will probably be painfully frustrating to a newbie. Several levels are timed so that it takes extremely fast and consistent play to even make the minimum objective. Control and framerate issues add to the frustration.

Online modes add interest, but do not really evolve the gameplay in any new directions. It's the same stuff you could do on split screen on the PS2. Also, you need a Live Gold membership, at $50 per year, to do it. Given the overall lameness of 2-player Katamari modes, this is unjustifiable.

I find myself wishing the game were on PS3. The controller is better, perhaps the framerate issues could be solved (again, I think this is the programmers' fault, not Microsoft's), and the online play could be free and wireless.

Nonetheless, it's a good game which fans of the series will enjoy. I bought it for around $30 and felt this was a fair price. Now that it's $20, it's not a bad cheap title to get for your 360. If you want to get a friend into the game, though, get them the original game on PS2. It's better balanced, has fun story cutscenes which help set the tone, and doesn't have the framerate issues of this installment.

The creative force behind Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari did not work on Beautiful Katamari, so I didn't expect this game to have as many new gameplay mechanics as those games. But a new Katamari game full of new levels with new objects and maybe a few new challenges sounded appealing to me anyway. As near as I can tell, there is such a game on this disc. Unfortunately, you can't play all of it just by buying the game.

When I first played through the game, I thought it was a bit short. Even including bonus unlockables, there are only about 9-12 levels and several of them are very similar to each other. Almost every level on the game has the same kind of goal: get as big as you can while picking up as many objects of a particular type (drinks, cold things, "powerful" things, etc.) as possible. The only exceptions are one level where you have to raise the temperature of the katamari by picking up hot things and avoiding cold things (very difficult), one where you need to pick up as many "rings" as possible (which is pretty fun), and a bonus level where the type of object you need to pick up changes every minute or so. There are no get-an-exact-size challenges (like Saturn in the previous installment), no pick-up-only-one-X levels (like the CowBear level), no katamari-on-fire levels, no underwater levels, no snow levels, no pick-up-lots-of-one-item (as in the firefly level), and not much clever at all. So when I completed the game, I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't much more to do.

That's when I heard about the "downloadable" content. There actually are more levels in the game, but you just can't play them unless you pay (about $3.50 each level) to "download" them. I put "download" in quotation marks, because the levels are already on the disc. You just can't play them unless you pay extra money. In theory, this wouldn't be a big deal; it just saves downloading time, I suppose. But since the game already seemed short to me, it felt like they created a complete game, and then locked up some of the levels. And that's just obnoxious.

Even so, the game wasn't completely unenjoyable, even if it was cut short, and I'd already spent the money, so I kept playing. I completed all of the levels, including the bonus level. I started collecting presents and cousins, and I planned on collecting every object in the game, as I'd done in the previous installment. But when I got all the cousins and presents, a funny thing happened: nothing. No unlocks, no achievements, not even a message saying "good job!" This struck me as strange because they had listed achievements for collecting all the cousins and presents, and the game even gave progress mini-achievements (10 cousins, 20 cousins, etc.) So I dug around a bit and discovered that you can't even get the achievements without buying the downloadable content. That was the last straw, and I put the game back on the shelf. I really want to play those last few levels (which include some of the challenge types that I thought were missing), but I'm just so pissed off that they needed to squeeze an extra $10-$20 out of me that I can't justify spending the extra money.

Buying the downloadable content would be sending a message to Namco that they can take full games, lock up some of the levels, sell the game at full price, and then charge extra money to unlock the rest of the game. And as much as I love the series, I can't condone that kind of behavior.

Katamari is a good series and this title allows you to play it on the xbox. For those of you who havent played previous titles picking this up will be a good thing. First off you will be able to enjoy a game that is unique and addictive.In the process you will be gaining points for your gamerscore, if you care about things like that. Overall it is very entertaining and easy to get into. You will find that the premise of rolling the ball around is much more fun than you think. Adding to the experience are the characters, the KING, being the most enjoyable. Only downside is that it is short and can be beaten very quick.