Once upon a time, there was this quirky, unique and geniusly inventive game called Katamari Damacy. It’s simple yet compelling premise (roll everything up and get bigger so you can roll more things up!), its fascinating control scheme and memorable aesthetic choice made it a stand-out hit.
But after sequel after sequel after spin-off-game after sequel, the ball just stopped rolling. Until Bandai Namco revisited the original with a remaster release, and then a remaster of the sequel.
And so, the katamari rolls once more.
Once Upon A Katamari is a proper new entry to the Katamari Damacy series. Its inventive creator may not be involved anymore, but Bandai Namco has now gotten the ball rolling for this fascinating blend of puzzle and platforming adventure. A new developer is at the helm, Rengame, but you couldn’t even tell at first glance, because Once Upon A Katamari is a faithful sequel to the series, to a fault.
Presentation
The Katamari Damacy games are defined by its sense of aesthetic: a mix of whimsy, Japanese hip, and low-poly beauty. Once Upon A Katamari hit all the marks graphically, making it look unmistakably a Katamari Damacy games. The bright colour palette, the lack of contrast, the intentionally simplistic animations that makes it all the more slapstick when physics shenanigans happen, it’s all here.
The music of a Katamari game is also an important aspect of the series. I’d argue that second best thing Katamari Damacy created was a soundtrack of delightful tunes spanning various genres with a very pop theme.
Once Upon A Katamari is no exception, with songs that cover various genres. From the city-pop beats of “skyscraper(s)” to the delightfully hyper-pop tunes of “Diver” and “Yangyang” and from the sweet rendition of Katamari Damacy as sung by a choir of school boys to an Japanese folk anthem that blends in disco beats. “Ice Cube Soul” is worth a listen outside of the game simply for its funky bass slaps and jazzy guitar reminiscent of a racing game from the 90’s. The main theme, “Katamari Time,” didn’t do it for me, however. Not a fan of the dubstep beat. And no, there’s not that many songs that will give you the highs of Katamari Damacy’s evergreen mixtape.
The style that defines Katamari Damacy is all well and present in Once Upon A Katamari. From the record scratches that accompanies The King Of All Cosmos’ speech bubble, to the King’s overly-present self hogging the screen as you to unlodge your katamari between a rock and a hard place, for better or worse it’s all here. Even the level transitions where the King gets a bit dizzy is still here, it’s now just an indicator that all the items from the previous katamari size thresholds have been despawned, as your katamari grows more organically this time around with not much visual trickery to hide the size change.
Also, on the PS5, Once Upon A Katamari runs smoothly with barely any noticeable framerate drop.
All in all, Once Upon A Katamari successfully recreates the vibe to match the original and its sequels from all those years ago. It’s like the game never aged—the decisions that defined how a Katamari Damacy game look, sound and feel, remain appealing even today.
Gameplay
Once Upon A Katamari starts like any old Katamari Damacy game: The King Of All Cosmos makes an oopsie-woopsie and uh-oh- the universe is gone! This time, the King, being the sufferer of generational trauma and the master of work delegation that He is, has decreed for The Prince (and his many cousins) to restore the universe by rolling up various katamari, like always. But this time, they have to roll those katamari back in time.
Such is the fate of The Prince (and his many cousins), enduring the Sisyphean task of rolling katamaris in perpetuity, as the King continues to be universe-destroying levels of clumsy, time and time again.
And that’s new theme for Once Upon A Katamari: Time. You’ll be travelling to various time periods of human history to roll up “spirited clumps” as requested by that guy that uses the royal “we” to refer to himself in the first person. From the Ice Age up to modern times. Though you’ll be spending a lot of time rolling up during Edo Japan, the series is defined by the nation’s culture after all, but being able to experience some other time periods that isn’t focused on Japan is nice.
For the uninitiated, a Katamari game revolves around you, a ridiculous tiny being of power, rolling up these katamaris. Roll up small things and have them get attached to the katamari, and from there, you must keep rolling rolling rolling rolling (what?) until it gets as big as you can, or to fulfill some objective, usually under a time constraint.
Katamari is a game about snowballing, specifically the more general definition where things exponentially gets bigger, And when I say literally about snowballing, I do mean that as at least one level you have to roll a tiny ball made out of snow until it gets bigger.
What makes the game of simply rolling stuff around so enticing is the unique control scheme. If you opt to roll the “usual way,” it’s a dual-stick affair as you push forward, turn and strafe by moving either sticks in a specific way. I wouldn’t describe it as tank controls, as I think the better metaphor is a shopping cart/trolley rather than a tank. Push with two hands/stick forward to move forward, have one hand/stick push with a stronger force to turn.
(Yeah, I do imagine rolling katamari balls in the shopping mall, it certainly would make for a good level in a Katamari game!)
You can opt out and just roll it with one stick, if this is too much for you to handle. Though I recommend trying the default scheme, you barely see such a unique control scheme in other games.
Rolling the katamari ball is how you’d expect, it’s nimble and reactive when it’s like centimeters in diameter, but then it becomes a lumbering hulk of a rolling mass when the size starts measuring in the meters. Navigating tight spaces, learning where to ideally move (not uphill, obviously), negotiating tight platforms like rolling on two pieces of chopsticks, are just some of traversal challenges you have to face in Once Upon A Katamari. Thankfully each level has a flow to it, with lots of ways to roll about.
There’s a linear set of levels you must play through to see through the end of the game, but from time to time the King will ask you to collect enough Crowns, three available per level, before progressing. It’s the classic 3D platformer progression, where Crowns are regularly hidden away and are not required on passing the level, but you will want to collect nevertheless. So expect from time to time to be asked to either play a previously completed level, or try some of the optional levels you might have skipped previously, to get them Crowns.
There are some quality-of-life changes Once Upon A Katamari brings, but you need to be die-hard fan who suffered from the quirks of the series’ past to really find it impactful while relatively newcomers like me will find it a no-brainer to have and as such don’t really feel noteworthy. Restarting levels is past, you can opt to restart a level when the timer’s up should you wish to do it again and try getting a higher score and you can see the score threshold for the next rank, so you know how much to roll to get that S-Rank.
The developers have managed to recreate a new Katamari game that feels like the old Katamari game, which leaves me with one point of criticism: what’s actually new here? Other than the time-travelling theme, which brings in new assets to roll into your katamari, a lot of the objectives and level style I have seen in a previous Katamari game.
My favourite Once Upon A Katamari levels are the ones where you feed noblemen until they grow really fat so they can put on a samurai armour, and this sounds like a repeat of those levels in Katamari Damacy and even We Love Katamari where you have to grow a sumo wrestler by rolling them into food. There are levels where you have to roll a certain size under a time limit, roll to a specific size with no size indicator so you have to eyeball it so that it feels “just right” (or as the Malaysians like to call this, the art of “agak-agak”: estimating using only vibes). There’s even a race level where the katamari refuses to stop rolling, so you have to keep rolling rolling rolling rolling (what?) which has done before. Underwater levels and level where you literally roll a snowball? Been there, done that.
Still, despite Once Upon A Katamari’s seemingly lack of innovation, the core gameplay is just as solid fun as any previous games in the series. Once Upon A Katamari is banking that with 14 years of the series’ absence, not counting the remasters, the people yearn for good ol’ Katamari.
And if you do yearn for the good ol’ times of Katamari, then you’d be rightfully pleased with Once Upon A Katamari. They haven’t rocked the boat, just made new levels and made them feels as faithfully as the the early games in the series. If you’re fine with that, Once Upon A Katamari is basically perfect. But if you’re seeking an evolution for the series, then you’d be awfully disappointed.
Content
Once Upon A Katamari feature a good spread of levels, though you can roll the credits in under 10 hours. You can still keep the ball rolling should you wish to complete all the levels and unlock everything there is to offer, but the runtime of the game here is more or less on par with the recent Katamari remasters I’ve played.
There is actually one new game mode in Once Upon A Katamari: KatamariBall. It’s a take on how a multiplayer Katamari game where you compete with four other players (or CPU bots if you play offline) and see who can score the most points—the bigger the katamari being rolled, the more points, but you can opt to roll multiple smaller katamaris or go big with one large katamari banking on that other players won’t screw you and you have enough time to roll it home to score those points. It’s interesting and well thought-out, but I don’t see myself playing this online, or even see a community forming up to regularly play competitive katamari rolling. It’s a neat idea still, but it’s better when you can rope in friends to play this with.
The cousin customisation is cool, in that you can make your very own cousin by tweaking the colours, swapping their face and putting on accessories on.
It’s a shame that the photo mode from We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie (i.e. the recent remaster of We Love Katamari) didn’t carry over.
Expect mostly more of the same Katamari experience in Once Upon A Katamari if you’re a veteran of the series. If it’s been a while since you’ve played one, or haven’t tried any of the games, the content you have here is fun and won’t outlast its welcome. Just under 10 hours is the most you can get out of a Katamari game.
Personal Enjoyment
Despite Once Upon A Katamari feeling like another one of these Katamari games, Katamari games are just plain fun. I love these. Never really played them when they were new, but after the playing the remaster of the original after been so long listening to the soundtrack and only watching playthroughs, I’ve been a fan since. A casual one, I can’t name any of the 69 cousins. But I will gush over how fun it is to slowly but surely see the ball of clump that started off rolling a bunch of paper clips eventually grow big enough to be rolling entire buildings.
Once Upon A Katamari, like its predecessors, is the embodiment of video game fun. It’s the player feeling joy interacting with its unorthodox controls. It’s the innocence of having the story be all fun and games perfect for the young and young at heart. From the silly things you can roll up to the silly interlude cutscenes that feels like a Tom & Jerry skit (The Queen’s Adventures certainly has Saturday morning cartoon vibes), Once Upon A Katamari just wants you to have fun and enjoy yourself playing this silly video game. And I find that liberating.
Video games as a medium have been getting more matured and serious not only to keep up with the aging of its consumers but also to chase prestige like much-established medium. That’s cool and all, but I hope that silly, fun games that exists simply because it’s fun, like Once Upon A Katamari, can still exist. Bandai Namco bringing the series back after two good remasters is a baller move. It’s the perfect time for us to play what’s more or less the same game but can still have fun instead of feeling being nickel-and-dimed for buying the same game over and over again.
In short, if you love short, fun, whimsy games like Astro Bot, Once Upon A Katamari will certainly be up your alley. Games like these are becoming rarer to be made by big-name publishers, and it’s worth supporting if you don’t want to see every other release by these established names to be another prestige single-player experience that you need to a whole weekend of uninterrupted free time or a live-service multiplayer game.
Verdict
Once Upon A Katamari is a safe sequel that brings back the fun, quirky puzzle-platformer that the initial games of the series had, with a set of fresh new levels and theme.
Most of the actual new features are okay at best, but when the core gameplay is as timeless as Katamari Damacy, and the series having been dormant for so long, a game like Once Upon A Katamari is a welcome addition. It’s all that you know and love from the series, presented like how you think you remembered it, plays like how you think you remembered it.
In case you need remembering, these Katamari games are good fun, and so is Once Upon A Katamari.
Played on base PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher.