Beautiful Katamari

"I rolled up the moon today."

Yeah, bring that up at the dinner table someday.

Surreal and ridiculous as that may sound, any gamer who has experienced the bottomless reserve of disturbing randomness that is the Katamari series will be able to remember the marvelous moments of the Katamari universe. The original Katamari game wasn't just over-the-top: it was actually a blast to play. Who would've thought that simply rolling up stuff could be so much fun? Katamari became a staple in gaming history, emphasizing a strict lack of order in its environments while piling on a crazy charm, unforgettable soundtracks, and some of the most simplistic (though addictive) gameplay ever seen on the Playstation 2. With its sequel We <3 Katamari, the world grew bigger and the series instantly rolled its way to cult classics. Now, for the first time, Katamari rolls its way into the Xbox 360 library with Beautiful Katamari. With a powerful new hardware system ready to go, can Beautiful Katamari continue where its predecessors left off without sacrificing the series' charm?

Beautiful Katamari controls the same way that it always has: with the two analog sticks. By tilting the analog sticks in a specific direction together, you roll the Katamari. Tilt only one to change the camera. You get a selection of the same moves that you've seen in other Katamari games: quick turns, faster camera movement, and the revving roll of dashing technique all come standard. Essentially, if you've played the Playstation 2 Katamari games, Beautiful Katamari will be very familiar. I did find the sensitivity to be a bit too much initially, but with practice, I found it to be very easy to play. The 360 controller doesn't shift many abilities, but it works well, even if the sensitivity was a little odd.

The King of All Cosmos sends the miniscule Prince to Earth once more to roll up crap to make stars. Like the games before it, Beautiful Katamari's version of Earth has absolutely no sense of order. We <3 Katamari had me shocked enough, but Beautiful Katamari really sells it in terms of absolute chaos on Earth. You'll find elephants atop skyscrapers, umbrellas randomly in the streets, and the typical block-headed people going about their daily business only to start flailing their arms once your Katamari actually rolls them up. This is weird, very weird in fact, but it keeps a captivating charm that really puts the whole thing into an odd perspective. As your Katamari grows, you soon become that omniscient leadership and begin to toy with the rest of the world as your Katamari harvests the many objects on Earth. The empowerment and transcendent might of the Katamari has always been the series' trademark, and Beautiful Katamari doesn't do that incorrectly by any means.

The really serious problem is that the game doesn't offer the same simplistic freedom that past games have created. Most of the time, the King of All Cosmos will set your aim to a specific type of item, essentially saying that you must collect a great amount of this particular item. This has been done before in past Katamari games, but it's pushed far too much in Beautiful Katamari. One of the most satisfying parts of the Katamari was the ability to transcend different sizes at your own leisure, but in Beautiful Katamari, you're basically on a scavenger hunt for the best versions of what the King is after. If you've played past Katamari games, you'll no doubt yearn for the simple “make your Katamari this big” assignment. At the end of each round, the King gives you points depending on how well you did your job. You can unlock Eternal Modes, where you can roll up as much as possible with no time limit, but unlocking these means doing what the King asks and in great excess. This limitation hurts the game severely, and while it can be fun in short bursts, doesn't offer much freedom in making your Katamari as colossal and amazing as you want.

Along with a blatantly short single-player, Beautiful Katamari brings the rolling antics to Xbox Live with online versus battle multiplayer. However, it's the same types of missions that saturate the single-player: collect the most of one type of item. Even worse is that the online community is sparse at best. I was lucky enough to get a single game going. The game did have its moments, but it really doesn't act progressively for the franchise. Though it's an interesting idea, online multiplayer doesn't turn out to be the best plan to innovate in Beautiful Katamari. You can also play versus offline, and the classic co-op mode returns, though it's still pretty difficult to coordinate your Katamari as a team. The multiplayer in Beautiful Katamari is relatively ambitious, but it never really gets off the ground, and you will most likely want to roll alone after the chaos subsides.

The presentation in Beautiful Katamari can pretty much be described as safe. There's really nothing particularly wrong with the presentation, mostly because the game doesn't push any of the Xbox 360's abilities. The jumbled and random worlds still look like they did on the Playstation 2, though load times have been considerably cut down. The quirky aesthetic is still great to see: the characters' blocky style and the many items' simple designs look as good as they always have. There are times when the game moves smoother than its PS2 predecessors, but when things get frantic, it doesn't look much better than the past Katamari games. The soundtrack, for better or for worse, retains the same ridiculous variety of the past games. You'll here the poppy Japanese music (along with the traditional na-NA theme) along with everything from lightly performed serenades to soft crooner tunes. The sound effects of the King's record scratching speak and the Katamari's plucking up of items all retain their charm. The entire presentation doesn't do much to set itself into the next-generation, but if you really liked the past Katamari games and their obscure presentations, then Beautiful Katamari will be a nostalgic joyride.

Pros
+ Gameplay is still relatively fun
+ Great soundtrack and quirky graphics
+ Level design is as crazy and weird as memory recalls

Cons
- Seriously, not much has changed
- Mission structure is limited
- Multiplayer is flawed and near-vacant
- Did I mention that this is pretty much the same game?

Beautiful Katamari is recycled content. That's not to say that it's bad recycled content; it's just that we've seen all of this before. The few changes that the game does present don't work out as well as expected, and the multiplayer is still critically flawed with its slim community. If you can overcome that fact that you've played this game before, Beautiful Katamari still delivers the addictively simple, though incredibly deep gameplay seen for a while now. The presentation retains every bit of quirkiness that the series has collectively shown over the past few years; you'll most likely be humming at least one of the tunes that the game plays. However, Beautiful Katamari is a disappointment. The game just doesn't seem to have a functionally progressive piece in its design. As much as I wanted to happily roll the Katamari through a city to pick up random people as star fuel, Beautiful Katamari put far too many limitations on the gameplay. All in all, unless you're a die-hard Katamari fan, just rent this. There's fun to be had, but the gameplay limitations, flawed multiplayer, and general opposition to doing anything new hurts what could've been the best Katamari yet.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/12/09

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