Once Upon A KATAMARI – SoulsBallin’
There’s something that I find so deliciously frustrating and simultaneously rewarding about the Katamari series. Having played on-and-off-again since We Love Katamari debuted in Australia in early 2006, Once Upon A Katamari feels like a return to form for publisher Namco Bandai and new developer RENGAME, whose work here captures what made myself and many others fall in love with this unashamedly quirky Japanese roll-em-up two decades ago. For the uninitiated, Katamari games are all about pushing a ‘ball’ (Katamari Damacy translates roughly to ‘soul clump’) around levels, collecting small items it rolls over and progressively growing in size, thus picking up larger and larger items before a set goal, size or time limit is reached. It’s an addicting formula elevated by the sense of humour and surreal approach it takes to its subject matter – both the banal and the bizarre litter each area, while clear affection for Japanese culture is regularly evident.
Once Upon A Katamari brings the series’ iconic aesthetic to the forefront, with visual design not far removed from its PS2 heyday and an incredibly diverse soundtrack that combines classic tracks with newer entries from a range of genres. The King of the Cosmos is up to his old tricks, requesting the beleaguered Prince once again roll up a never-ending collection of items for his amusement, this time themed after specific historical periods. An entire cavalcade of weirdos populates Once Upon A Katamari, with the flamboyant King leading the charge and the Princes’ many cousins popping up as support to become playable characters. A gacha mechanic also unlocks further customisation options for the Prince, so players can adjust his expressions and fit to their hearts content.
Vibing very heavily off Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Once Upon A Katamari takes players on a whirlwind tour of Edo era Japan, the Wild West Frontier of America, Ancient Greece, swashbuckling on the high seas with Pirates and many more; in fact, there are ten different periods which unlock as more levels are completed. Using the SS Prince, a sort of time machine/UFO hybrid, the Prince can teleport between time periods and dive straight into levels or move manually through the small themed overworlds built for each era. The number of levels in each time period varies, each offering a thematic challenge, like tidying up a teahouse in Edo era Japan or collecting an assortment of Greek philosophers in Ancient Greece. Within each level are smaller collectibles including new Cousins, presents which hold more outfit options and three gold Crowns that can unlock more levels and eras when reaching requisite amounts. Like the Tony Hawk series, this approach encourages players to make multiple runs on a level and learn it’s layout to improve their scores and locate each collectible. Many times, I was able to complete a levels objective yet totally fail to locate a single Crown, let alone all three. Player performance is also rated on how many of a certain item they’ve collected or the size of the katamari, with obvious ‘lines’ of items in each level yielding faster Katamari growth. Some levels even contain hidden events which trigger when a certain item or sequence of items is collected, changing up the experience completely. Sure, it’s possible to blast through levels achieving the bare minimum requirements quickly, but without collecting enough Crowns many will remain locked out. Completing a level also unlocks progressively more difficult optional challenges on each replay, some of which will push players to their skill limit and others that are a fun diversion when repeating a level multiple times to unlock Crowns or Cousins.
From its inception, the Katamari series was known for its odd dual analogue control scheme, where both sticks needed to be pushed forward to roll forward, each altering the angle of the Prince to facilitate sideways movement and navigating tight angles. However, this always required a bit of skill and after lengthy breaks between games would frustrate me time and again. RENGAME have included a new Simple control scheme which uses a single analog stick to propel the the katamari as opposed to both. Switching to the new scheme partway through my time with Once Upon A Katamari, I found it surprisingly effective and should speed up play for almost all Katamari players new and returning, while definitely lacking the finesse the classic dual stick option provides. Players can choose freely between them in the Options menu, so it’s worth giving both a try to see what suits best, although I suspect the dual analog rewards time invested in the long run. While it may be remedied by incoming patches, I did have a few occasions where I became stuck in level geometry and needed to restart, but when the minute-to-minute play of Once Upon A Katamari is so good, such an occurrence is hardly a dealbreaker. Building on the Power-Ups in Katamari Forever, ‘Freebies’ scattered throughout levels are a key component of Challenges and collectibles, with rockets propelling players quickly around while a stop-watch slows things right down, the radar shows the location of optional and required items hidden around the level and the magnet automatically attracts any items able to be rolled up within a radius around the katamari. While it would have been nice to see a few more in single player, keeping such a tight variety ensures they’re always useful and worth grabbing when in the vicinity.
While the visual design aspects of Katamari might look kitsch, its fidelity level is up to 2025 standards with generally smooth performance at 4K resolution, although there is still the occasional loading screen when a level opens a new section to explore. While surprising given the game should hardly tax modern systems, neither of these issues really interfered with my enjoyment and may eventually be patched out completely. For the competitively inclined, early into the proceedings the online Katamari Ball mode will unlock. Available to play against the CPU as well as up to three opponents, players will race to roll up the most items, with a nice twist on the standard Katamari modes; it’s possible to send your collected items up the SS Prince’s tractor beam, securing points and shrinking your Katamari for faster movement. Of course, a small enough ball can see you rolled up by a larger opponent, so it puts some added wrinkles when staying too close to one another. A fun diversion, it will nevertheless depend on how large the playerbase can remain once the main game is completed.
There really is nothing quite like Katamari Damacy, Keita Takahashi’s original design standing the test of time in spite of many pseudo sequels that varied in quality. Once Upon A Katamari is, nostalgia aside, easily the best title in the series to date. Genuine laugh out loud moments alongside intuitive gameplay and family friendly content are incredibly rare to find outside of the Nintendo ecosystem these days, with both of my young sons falling under the Katamari spell as I did two decades ago. RENGAMES have shown they can recapture the magic of the originals for a new audience in Once Upon A Katamari – I hope Bandai Namco lets them shape the future of Katamari from here.
Once Upon A Katamari was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using code kindly supplied by the publisher.
