Beautiful Katamari

"It's Beautiful, but it's only kinda Katamari."

Katamari Damacy and We <3 Katamari are some of the best games on the PS2. The first one was kinda short, but it had all sorts of charm and fun to it. We <3 Katamari was significantly longer, just as charming(if not moreso, considering the King of All Cosmos took on the role of someone boasting about their popularity in the first game), and it improved on a lot.

Beautiful Katamari, however, just seems like...another Katamari game. It didn't really improve on much. It's worth a play, however, and here is why!

Plot:

The plot of the Katmari games is a little ridiculous. In this one, The "Family of All Cosmos" is playing tennis. The King decides to do a wicked volley or something, and hits the ball up into the sky where it smashes through the background and creates a massive black hole that threatens to suck everything in. So your goal is...to roll up all sorts of objects to recreate the sun and all the celestial bodies. Once you do that, you are to pick up as much stuff as you can so that you can clog the black hole with it.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is the same as the other two. For those who don't know, in Katamari you are The Prince of All Cosmos- a very tiny little prince whose job it is, for some reason or another, to roll up all the things he can using a "Katamari". As you roll over things, they stick to your katamari and it increases in size, letting you pick up even larger objects. You'll go from the size of a thumbtack to being able to pick up people and cars and houses and whole towns. You can also find and collect your "Cousins" lounging around earth doing their own thing, and once you collect them you can play as them.

You use the thumbsticks to do this- left one controls your left hand, right one controls your right hand. Meaning if you push both forward, you go forward. Push one forward, you turn in the opposite direction. Push one forward and one back, and you turn faster. That probably sounds confusing, but that's the thing- you get used to it very quickly.

That's pretty much it for the gameplay. You can't pick up things that are bigger than you, and after a while smaller things become insignificant.

HOWEVER, the Gameplay is also the main problem with Beautiful katamari. The game is very short. There are very few levels. And whereas the focus in the other games was always on size, this game has you "Pick up hot things!" or "Pick up expensive things!" instead of going for a size goal. That means that instead of going around picking up everything you can, you have to slow down and pay attention to specific items...which, frankly, is not very fun! There are simply too many levels where you don't focus on size. On top of that, a good chunk of the levels are DLC only, and they are quite expensive. The game, in terms of the levels, is absolutely not worth paying full price for, and while I have not played any DLC levels they are very likely not worth the price(and are mostly all "Pick up <type of item>" levels).

Graphics:

The Katamari series relies on very simplistic graphics- probably as a way to help the game handle the sheer number of objects available to pick up at any given time.This isn't a bad thing, however- the game looks nice and it is usually very well designed. The environments in Beautiful Katamari are a tad bland compared to the other two games, however. They're pretty boring to look at and pretty forgettable.

The game looks much like the first two, except there is less aliasing, more lighting, and father away objects are blurred. This adds a lot to the way the game looks.

Audio:

Katamari is pretty well known for its music. It's pretty strange, always upbeat, usually follows a specific theme for each level, and often is a remix of the game's main theme. The music in Beautiful is a little bit more forgettable than the first two, but it isn't exactly bad. Besides, you can always use the Xbox 360 media center to play the original music while playing, instead!

Overall:

Beautiful Katamari is just too short. The pick-up-this-item levels are boring and a chore, and there are far too many of them. The charm is missing, in part because there is not as much interaction with The King, and the environments aren't very memorable. It is still worth a play, but not at full price, and if you own it you will probably pick it up again eventually.

If you don't have it already, get We <3 Katamari. If you have it already, and want to try Beautiful, pick it up if you can find it cheap- but don't pay full price. It isn't worth full price.

7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/09

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