Number 35: Katamari Damacy
I’ve been sitting at my computer staring at a blinking cursor and wondering how to begin talking about Katamari Damacy. I can start by saying that is extremely Japanese. It’s more than just a culture shock of bright colors and bizarre humor that we’re unaccustomed to in the states. The game is manic, joyful, and defiantly its own unique thing, which is clear from the moment you lay eyes on the box art. There’s a blue sky, a rainbow, a huge ball of....objects? Rolling through a city, a couple of cows hanging out in the foreground, and a name I can’t pronounce. It prompted a response of “What the fuck is THIS?” that stayed with me through the entire game.
Katamari Damacy is a game about rolling things up into a ball. Lots of things. All of the things. In a ball. You start off rolling up thumbtacks and chess pieces and it gets progressively larger from there, up through dogs and bicycles and all the way up to continents and planets. You play as the little prince, son of the King of All Cosmos. You are rolling up all of the things in order to replace the stars in the sky because your father lost them all one night while on a drunken bender.
In each stage the king gives you a specific task to achieve within a time limit, usually a Katamari of a certain diameter. The stages include a living room, a city, a nighttime campsite, a grocery store, and a lot more. Typically you start off relatively small, then as your size increases you gain access to new areas of the stage. You can also then roll up bigger things that used to knock you around. The game tracks the items you’ve picked up in a journal, and gives them wonderful descriptions such as:
- Barn: A place you can put things. You can also live here if you like - Bulldozer: A powerful car that goes ahead, no matter what is in the way. Don't park in front of this! - Pickaxe: This can be used for digging hard surfaces. Make sure to use the correct end - Tall lighthouse: Lights up the sea at night. This doesn't send signals to space aliens.
As lighthearted as the game is, it’s not always easy. I often had to retry stages multiple times. And even when you’re successful, the King of All Cosmos is always disapproving. Every compliment is backhanded, and his disappointment is heavy like a wet sponge. The King of All Cosmos is one of my favorite characters from any game. He is written as the ultimate disapproving father, while still keeping in step with the game’s manic tone. Still, his criticism can be genuinely biting. The Prince is almost certainly going to be a part of some dysfunctional relationships later in life.
Katamari is not a perfect game. The controls can be sluggish and frustrating. You can get caught on a part of environment or stuck in a corner where you are fighting against the game’s camera. Sometimes you roll up an oblong thing like a pencil or a canoe and suddenly your katamari isn’t so round anymore. And there were times when, after failing the same stage 5 times in a row, I wanted to tell the disapproving king to fuck all the way off.
Whatever the game’s flaws, it makes up for all with its endless charm and personality. The game’s soundtrack ties the entire experience together with J-pop, jazz, A capella, and more. Starting with the unforgettable opening theme,* the music makes for the perfect backdrop to this fever dream of a game. Most games can be described by saying “It’s like This Other Game but you also do X.” Not Katamari Damacy. It is possibly the most aggressively unique and weird game I’ve ever played.
*Na naaa nuh nanana
