Beautiful Katamari

"A fun game for beginners, though a bit short"

Beautiful Katamari is the forth game in the Katamari Damacy franchise. It is also the first next-generation Katamari game. In my personal experience, I have only played a demo for We Love Katamari and the demo of Beautiful Katamari before actually getting Beautiful Katamari, so I would consider myself a beginner to the Katamari series. In terms of current completion, I have about %95 of the items, so I am through a great majority of it. I also have the Downloadable Content, or DLC, so I'll talk about that too, but that will be in a little bit.

I will first talk about the characters. You start with the Prince. He is a fun, green guy. He is probably the most boring cousin, however. Cousins are what the game calls the playable characters. These little guys are incredibly cute, with an exception of a few that look like homunculi. One is a freakin' donut. That is awesome. Another is a ninja. They even have a camouflaged one. The sheer amount of characters is great. Also, they are fully customizable with Presents, which unlock accessories, everything from a giraffe hat to a sword.

Another thing that I find fun about this game is the easy controls. It's not hard at all to learn the controls. It is actually quite easy to learn. The learning curve, I understand, can be a little difficult, but I think it's a good one.

The stages are fun and colorful. There are a few stages where I just want to go in there and roll the Katamari myself, but those are outweighed by the many stages that are just beautiful. A new addition to the game, I understand, is an increase in size of the Katamari. It can now go into space. You can even roll up the King of all Cosmos, the Queen, and the King's dad. It is quite amazing. My personal favorite is rolling up countries of the Earth. They look like puzzle pieces.

Achievements for this game make replay value increase quite a bit. I go through each stage trying to get a 100 point review so that I can get enough planets to roll an astronomical Katamari (1.5 million kilometers, you'll understand how hard that is when you try rolling 1 kilometer).

Online play is great. I have never played any past Katamari multiplayer games, but I love how it's essentially a Katamari battle. It's also cool how you can roll up your opponents if you're big enough (though it spits them back out, just to be fair).

The downloadable content is actually quite fun. People complain that Namco ripped us off by not making the DLC free. I think that the game is already quite cheap and the DLC doesn't really fit in with the whole game's idea. I do have one complaint though. In terms of %100 cousin and present completion, it's impossible on a U.S. game. Only Japan got all 7 of the downloadable levels. We only got 4. Basically, Namco dropped the ball for us American players (if you are American). However, they could easily pick up the ball and score the game winning basket by releasing the last 3 levels.

The downloadable levels they gave us are pretty good. They have an interesting collection scheme. One is just a regular one where you collect yarn stuff. It has fun yarn shapes. Another one is one where you collect things that represent constellations. I learned that there's a "curry constellation". Another one is one where you collect food and try to get as many calories as possible. This one is my favorite. It makes me feel like I'm not a skeleton with skin stretched over it. The last one is fun, but hard. This one is a shopping one where you have a budget and must roll over cheap items only or you'll be screwed in the long run. It's fun, but not really. It causes stress to even the best players. It's still a good stage, just a bit too hard.

The music and graphics are great. If you were a fan of the past game's Japanese pop, you'll love this. If not, you can listen to your own music and still hear everything fine. Halo 3 should take a lesson from this. Personally, I enjoy listening to Mastodon while playing this game. It doesn't match it at all. The graphics are also quite good. Looking at videos of the past games, this game definitely has sharper graphics. They are also not realistic at all. This is good. I could not roll up a child that looked real. Also, NOTHING ABOUT THIS GAME IS EVEN REMOTELY REAL!! You roll up swords and immediately afterwards children. They don't get impaled or nothing. They don't even get squished when you roll over them. You can even roll up the white house! I like the graphics because they are insane, just like the game. Also, I wasn't kidding about rolling up the white house. You can roll up Dubya.

Overall, this game is very fun, though short, and is a great entry game to the Katamari universe.
Also, Namco needs to release the other levels. Just throwing that out there. Begin writing angry letters...NOW!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/07

Game Release: Beautiful Katamari (US, 10/16/07)