Roll up, roll up...

Let's get one thing out of the way right from the off. It cannot be stressed enough how much sense this game does not make. The storyline… has never even seen a wall, let alone come off one. The main character looks to be the result of a night of passion between a Poddington Pea and a ball-peen hammer. The dialogue (such as it is) jumps from almost-lucid-at-a-push to completely bonkers. The gameplay is so crazy it might just work.

And that's why I love Katamari.

If you're coming into this with little to no idea of what this game is about, please take into account that any description I offer will come not come close to accurately depicting the carnage, the joy, the pandas, the laughter, the wonderment and the insanity that can be found within. Basically, you play the Prince of All Cosmos (the aforementioned pea/hammer-based creation) who has been sent to Earth by his father (the King of All Cosmos, naturally) to fulfill the wishes of your fans and make ever bigger katamari to fill the Cosmos (which was empty, because your father, the King, destroyed everything. By accident. Whilst drunk.)

Katamari, in case you were wondering, are balls of stuff, or translated literally, "clumps". I'm not being lazy there and using "stuff" for want of a better word, because there simply is no better way of describing what goes into making a katamari. Apart from "everything and anything" maybe. As the Prince, you push your magical ball around locations all over the world, from bedrooms, classrooms and gardens to larger areas like campsites, zoos, seaside towns and… erm… Egypt? The ball is magical in that it exerts a kind of gravitational pull, making things stick to it. As it gets bigger, the force exerted by the ball increases and you're able to pick up larger and larger… stuff. The goal is generally to make as large a clump as you possibly can in the allotted time, although there are several deviations from this standard.

As gameplay mechanics go, it's towards the simple end of the spectrum. But as gameplay experiences go, it's magical.

Right from the off the tone is joyous, the visuals and the soundtrack working together in perfect harmony to create a glorious world of bright colours and gleeful melodies. This feeling permeates every aspect of the game, with the possible exception of the ominous failure screen that appears should you not get the katamari to a satisfactory size (you failed, you have no right to be any kind of happy), and is one of the fundamental differences between this and most games currently on offer.

At first the controls seem slightly alien, as it's controlled entirely on the analogue sticks, utilizing them both to good effect. This soon passes though, and it quickly becomes second nature. The physics of the ball are convincing (albeit exaggerated), with rolling up hill being much harder than down, and control of the ball being more difficult when going sides on a slope. Also, everything that you pick up changes the shape of the ball, and therefore the rolling properties, so if you have something large protruding awkwardly from one side of the clump, it'll drastically change the way in which the ball reacts.

The graphics are heavily stylized, with the game world resembling something built from childrens building blocks. It's bright but not brash, the pastel shades colourful but hardly full-blown psychedelia. The scale of the worlds is particularly impressive, the world zooming out seamlessly to display wider and wider landscapes as your ball grows. The longer stages in which this is most evident are definitely the most fun, when your ball starts off just a couple of centremetres in diameter, only able to pick up loose change and sweets but soon growing to massive proportions - uprooting dogs, people, cars, trees, houses, national monuments and continents.

It also features a soundtrack which is quite simply sublime. A masterpiece of Japanese pop music, it's incredibly catchy and will seep into your mind. It really accentuates the general feeling of cheeriness in the game, making it even more of a joy to play (my personal favourite, if you're wondering, is the song that plays at the end of each level as the King assesses your katamari.)

Also of note is the two multiplayer modes. Each level in the single player game can be played either with, or against, a friend. In cooperative play, each person controls one half of the katamari - leading to extremely intense teamwork as the players have to coordinate very closely with one another to get the ball to go in the intended direction. In addition to that, there's the battle mode in which you duke it out against a friend to see who can amass the biggest clump in a given time, or who can achieve a certain size the quickest. Both of these modes are immense amounts of fun to play, with the cooperative mode in particular leading to some hilarious (if sometimes heated) exchanges between players.

In short, it's a joy to play and it's a joy to watch. It's basically a shiny silver disc of pure joy. And you honestly haven't lived until you've rolled a large burning katamari at a Scout troop.

GAME's Verdict

• An absolute joy to play
• One of the best soundtracks ever
• Gives an impressive sense of scale

• Could be too weird for a lot of people
• A couple of the levels get slightly repetitive
• Err...

Review by: Iain Thomas
Version Tested: PS2
Review Published: 09.02.06