- [Cam] Katamari Damacy was an instant classic
on PlayStation 2, back in 2004,
and it's every bit as vibrant today.
Reroll doesn't mess with the original.
Its biggest change is to bump up the resolution
to ensure the deliberately low-poly aesthetic
works on a modern screen,
and that's all it really needs to do.
With Reroll, a whole new generation gets to experience
the Japanese fever dream that is Katamari Damacy,
and that's a wonderful thing.
♪ Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na, na, na ♪
♪ Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na ♪
- [Narrator] The real genius of Katamari Damacy
is its central, simple, bloblike idea.
Roll up things that are smaller than your katamari ball
in order to absorb them and grow,
which then allows you to roll up larger things.
It's a throughline that takes you from rolling thumbtacks
and takoyaki, all the way up to people and trees,
and then onto an apocalyptic scale,
where you're consuming cargo ships, skyscrapers,
and the clouds themselves.
As a big-picture concept, it's inspired.
The same environment is reinvented over and over again
within a single mission,
allowing you to see it from a new vantage point
and turn obstacles into fuel in the space of a few minutes.
Katamari's levels are nothing more than spaces
filled with stuff, everyday stuff at that.
But it taps into the innate motivation to collect things
and makes this its sole driving force.
Katamari has fun with the mundanity of its settings
and objects, twisting them into absurdist art.
Elevating the personality even further
is an infectious soundtrack that's wide-ranging
and well-produced, as well as a story that's anchored
by one of the most memorably offbeat characters
ever given life in a video game,
yes, The King of All Cosmos.
(dramatic music)
The self-obsessed space deity and absent father
to the player character's Prince.
He sets the story in motion by shattering all the stars
in the night sky while on a bender,
then demands that you help create new celestial bodies
by rolling stuff up with your katamari.
It's all the story Katamari Damacy needs,
and a jumping-off point for many of the side missions.
(speaking foreign language)
These riff on the celestial theme
by demanding that the prince replace the constellations
of the Zodiac.
Need to make a new Pisces?
Roll up as many fish as you can.
Gemini? Roll up some twins.
These levels feel particularly quirky
thanks to the narrower focus.
When you make Virgo, you roll up so many maidens
that your katamari ball will be a writhing mass
of flailing appendages, like a playful pop-art version
of Inside's final moments.
Unlike the main missions,
which are about hitting a certain size within a time limit,
these have no fail state,
but offer a good challenge for completionists.
There are a handful of other twists too,
such as make the North Star,
in which you're not told how big your katamari is
and must roll around
until you think it's about 10 meters in diameter.
The Eternal levels are also cool,
letting you roll up absolutely everything in an environment
with no time pressure.
Katamari Damacy's design is conceptually elegant,
and paired with controls
that are deliberately a little unwieldy.
Your ever-growing katamari is something
your tiny character has to wrangle to keep under control.
The battle to find precision with a massive, knobbly,
protuberance-laden ball of things is part of the charm,
even if it can be frustrating to get wedged somewhere
and shed a bunch of bits or to be blindsided
by a larger creature or vehicle.
♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪
- [Narrator] It only took me a couple of good sessions
to play through everything Katamari Damacy Reroll
had to offer, but the vast majority of those six
or seven hours was spent with an enormous grin on my face,
my head nodding along to the incredibly catchy,
eclectic score.
Katamari Damacy was a breath of fresh air on first release,
and it still is today, almost 15 years later.
For more of IGN's greatest reviews,
by yours truly, of course,
check out my thoughts on Donut County,
Flipping Death, and Ni No Kuni II.