Opinions may be divided over Katamari Damacy (personally I rather like it, but then as Al has said, I’m a bit weird like that ;-b) and the capsule headed Prince is an odd piece of design it has to be said, but it has to be said that the King Of All Cosmos is a nutty as they come.

The stuff that the King comes out with is completely bonkers, though whether this is completely intentional or just some odd Japanese translation I’m not sure. Either way, he’s hilarious. The story of the game goes that the King was “at one” with the cosmos when he accidentally destroyed all the stars in the sky. For “at one” I think you need to assume that some kind of intoxicating substance must have been involved somewhere along the line…


Anyway, in order to rebuild the night sky, you must roll up items from Earth using a Katamari (basically a big ball) until the ball of stuff is of the size deemed worthy by the King. The ball starts off small so you can only pick up small things like paper clips or tacks, but as the game progresses the ball gets so big that you can start to roll up cats, cows, people, cars and even buildings! If you make a big enough ball quick enough, then the ball gets launched into the sky by the King, and becomes a star.

If the game sounds odd, wait until you hear some of the meandering speeches that come from the King, especially when you fail a level. The poor prince is insulted by his father far more than is necessary, being told he’s pathetic and too lazy because he’s not as tall as his father. All this accompanied by torrents of rain and flashes of lightning!

Even during the game he does some crazy stuff, informing you that your Katamari is as large as 37 handbags or commenting on objects you roll up. One level for example has lots of bananas that can be collected. You collect a few, and the King appears and says “BA”, a few more and he’ll utter “NA”, with a final “NA” to follow later.

It’s all pretty crazy stuff, so why not give it a go yourself. Yes, even over here in the UK you’ll be able to try rolling up rubbish early next year, as we reported a while back. It certainly makes a change from killing aliens or racing round a track in a sportscar, and reminds me of some the weird and wonderful stuff bought to us in the 8-bit and 16-bit days.

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