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Katamari Damacy
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| Developer(s) | Namco |
| Publisher(s) | Namco |
| Designer(s) | Keita Takahashi |
| Aspect ratio | 480i (SDTV) |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 |
| Release date(s) | JP March 18, 2004[1] SK August 12, 2004 NA September 22, 2004[1] |
| Genre(s) | Third-person puzzle-action |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | CERO: All Ages KMRB: All Ages ESRB: E (Everyone) |
| Media | DVD (1) |
| Input methods | DualShock |
Katamari Damacy (塊魂 Katamari Damashii?, lit. "Clump Spirit") is a third-person puzzle-action video game that is published and developed by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was first released in Japan, and then later in South Korea and North America. The game resulted from a school project from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory, and was developed for less than $1 million. In designing Katamari Damacy, the development team aimed to maintain four key points: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor.
The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations and Moon, which his father, the King of All Cosmos, has accidentally destroyed. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to people to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. Katamari Damacy's story, characters, and settings are bizarre and heavily stylized, rarely attempting any semblance of realism, though the brands and items used are based on those current in Japan during the game's production.
Overall, Katamari Damacy was well received in Japan and North America. Though the game sold well, it received mixed comments about its gameplay. The game was dubbed a sleeper hit, and won several awards. Katamari Damacy inspired the development of other video games, and led to the release of three sequels in Japan and other territories: We Love Katamari, Me & My Katamari, Beautiful Katamari.
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The primary story in Katamari Damacy deals with the aftereffects of the planet-sized King of All Cosmos' binge drinking spree that wiped out all the stars and other celestial bodies from the sky. The King charges his 10-cm-tall son, the Prince, to go to Earth with a "katamari"—a magical ball that allows anything smaller than it to stick to it and making it grow—and collect enough material so that he can recreate the stars and constellations. The Prince is successful, and the sky is returned to normal.[2]
A side story follows the Hoshino family as the Prince works at his tasks. The father, an astronaut, is unable to go to the moon when it is wiped out by the King, and the daughter senses the Prince's work. Ultimately, the family, along with their house and town, are rolled up in the katamari that is used to remake the moon.[3]
The player controls the Prince as he rolls the "katamari" around various areas in order to meet certain parameters set by the King of the Cosmos. The player uses the two analog sticks on the DualShock controller in a manner similar to the classic arcade game Battlezone to control the direction which the katamari rolls. Other controls can be triggered by the player to gain a quick burst of speed, flip the Prince to the other side of the katamari, and more.[2]
Objects that are smaller than the katamari will stick to it when the player comes in contact with it, while larger objects can be obstacles or even chase down the Prince; colliding at high speed with a larger object may cause objects to fall off the katamari, slowing down the player's progress. The game uses both the concept of size and weight to determine if an object will stick to the katamari. This allows long, thin objects, such as pencils, that are larger than the katamari to be picked up, and which then alter how the katamari rolls until more objects are picked up.[2] As objects stick to the katamari, the katamari will grow, eventually allowing objects that were once obstacles to be picked up and creating access to areas that were previously blocked. In this manner, the player may start the game by picking up thumbtacks and ants, and slowly working up in scale to the point where they are picking up buildings, mountains and clouds as the area which they can roll the katamari increases in scale.[2]
The typical mission given by the King of the Cosmos is the "Make a Star" mode, where the player needs to collect enough material within a given amount of time to get the katamari to a specific size in order for the King to make it into a star or other cosmic object. Selected missions require more specific collecting rules, such as collecting as many girls (interpreted liberally, thus including objects such as dolls or female animals) within a given time period, or collecting the largest cow or cow-like object before touching any other similar cow-like object.[3] The player can attempt a score attack mode for any level, attempt to make the largest katamari as possible in the time allotted. Certain levels can be unlocked for "eternal mode" by meeting the size requirement within a shorter amount of time; in eternal modes, the player can explore the level as much as possible with no time limit.[4]
Levels feature two secret items to be found. The first item are gifts that contain objects that the player can have the Prince wear; most gifts are non-functional but one includes a camera that can be used to take in-game screenshots.[4] The other secret item are the Cousins of the Prince, which, once unlocked, can be used as characters in the various multiplayer modes. The game also tracks which objects the player has collected at any time, allowing them to review all the various objects within the game.
There is a two-player game in Katamari Damacy. A player can pick either the Prince or one of his numerous Cousins to play as. The screen is split vertically; player one is on the left, and player two is on the right. Both players compete simultaneously in a small arena to collect the most objects within three minutes. The playfield is replenished with new objects periodically. In addition, if one player leads by a fair amount, they can even collect their opponent and the opponent's katamari.[4]
Toru Iwatani, head of research and development for Namco, stated that the idea for Katamari Damacy resulted from a school project from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory, a similar sponsored institute for game development education as in the same manner as Nintendo sponsors DigiPen.[5] An unnamed student's final thesis bore out the core gameplay ideas, while the team of ten (including the student) developed the final product and story around the project. The game was developed for less than US$1 million, a tenth less than the cost of Namco's blockbuster titles such as Ridge Racer or Soul Caliber.[5] The game took a year and a half to develop, with eight months of protoyping.[6]
Lead developer Keita Takahashi revealed that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor.[7] Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man, aiming for simplicity and innovation, and a template for future games from the company.[5] At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase the complexity of the game.[7] The game was also not supposed to be the first appearance of The Prince; Takahashi demonstrated a prototype of a racing game where the Prince would control a boy steering a go-cart, running over buildings across the world; the game was dropped by Namco.[7]
The game was originally revealed at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show, with the press initially calling it a "snowball simulator".[8] The image of the game showed a "Tamakorogashi", a large ball used in "undoukai", a game played by Japanese schoolchildren, and an influence for the game.[6] Plans for releasing the game in Western countries was to be tied to its performance in Japan.[9] Katamari Damacy was first shown in the United States at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop during the March 2004 Game Developers Conference. Due to the popularity of Katamari Damacy at trade shows and a write-in campaign, Namco decided to release the game in the United States.[10] Katamari Damacy was released in Japan at about two-thirds of the cost as a new title,[11] while the cost was less than half the cost of a new game for its United States release.
In Japanese, Katamari (塊?) means "clump" or "clod" and Damashii is the rendaku form of tamashii (魂?) which means "soul" or "spirit". Therefore, the phrase approximates to "clump spirit" (in the same sense as "team spirit" or "school spirit", meaning "enthusiasm"; cf. the use of "damashii" in Yamato-damashii). The two kanji that form the name look nearly identical (sharing the same right-side radical) in a kind of visual alliteration. The name is officially transliterated as Katamari Damacy in most releases. In an interview with Dengeki Online, producer Keita Takahashi said when asked about the title, "It just popped into my head suddenly, and this is what it has been from the beginning."[12]
The music in Katamari Damacy was widely hailed as imaginative and original (winning both IGN's[13] and GameSpot's[14] "Soundtrack of the Year 2004" awards), and was considered one of its best features. The soundtrack was released in Japan as Katamari Fortissimo Damashii. Its eclectic composition featured elements of traditional electronic video game music, as well as heavy jazz and samba influences (Shibuya-kei). Most of the tracks were composed by Yu Miyake, and many of the tracks feature vocals from popular J-pop singers such as Yui Asaka from the Sukeban Deka 3 TV series, a vocal sung and written by Charlie Kosei, composer of the Lupin III soundtrack, and anime voice actors, including Nobue Matsubara and Ado Mizumori.
Katamari Damacy enjoyed moderate success in Japan. The game was sold at about two-thirds of the price of a new game at the time. It was the top selling game the week of its release with 32,000 units sold.[5] Nearly 156,000 units were sold in 2004.[11] However, Namco originally estimated that over 500,000 units would be sold in Japan.[9] Katamari Damacy was one of the recipients of the 2004 Good Design Award in Japan, the first time a video game has won this award.[15] The game was not released in PAL territories such as Europe and Australia, since publishers thought it was too "quirky" for these markets; however, Electronic Arts picked up both sequels, We Love Katamari[16] and Me & My Katamari,[17] for release in Europe.
The North American release of the game was very well-received by professional reviewers, was mentioned and praised on TechTV, and was a featured sidebar in the May 23, 2004 edition of Time magazine. Time continued to praise the game in its November 22, 2004 "Best games of the year" special, calling it "the most unusual and original game to hit PlayStation2".[18] Most retailers underestimated the demand for such a quirky game, and only purchased a few copies of this sleeper hit; it rapidly sold out nationwide, with sales passing the 120,000 units mark in North America.[19] It also won the U.S. award for "Excellence in Game Design" at the 2005 Game Developers Choice Awards,[20] and G4techTV awarded Katamari Damacy its "Best Innovation" prize in its G-Phoria of that year.[21] University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor James Paul Gee has stated that he believes that Katamari Damacy is one of, if not the, most beneficial games released in terms of how it helps brain development.[22]
Although the game has rapidly achieved a cult following and has been praised by many reviewers, it also has its share of criticism. A common complaint is that the game is relatively short and repetitive—it can be completed in under ten hours, and the gameplay stays virtually the same all the way through. However, others, such as Electronic Gaming Monthly reviewer Mark McDonald, argue that the game's limitations are made up for by its strengths: "Sure, you're basically doing the same thing each mission, but Katamari's elegant controls, killer soundtrack, and wicked humor make it perfectly suited for replay."[23] As a well-executed, non-traditional game, Katamari Damacy has been influential in the game development community. Now, more than three years after its release, a number of designers have developed works inspired by Katamari: among them Isostar, The Wonderful End of the World, and Cloud.
The first sequel to Katamari Damacy, We Love Katamari (みんな大好き塊魂 Minna Daisuki Katamari Damashii?, literally Everyone Loves Katamari Damacy), was released in Japan on July 5, 2005, North America on September 20, 2005 (some retailers, such as Target, released it early) and Europe in February 2006. We Love Katamari is essentially the same as Katamari Damacy in its gameplay, controls and graphics, but adds several new options, such as co-operative play and new scoring system in different levels; monetary value of the objects picked up, the weight of a sumo wrestler depending on the food he has eaten, etc. The sequel is substantially longer, and its plot is very self-referential—it deals with the fans the King of All Cosmos and his son have attracted since the first Katamari game.
Namco has also brought the Katamari franchise to the PlayStation Portable in the form of Me & My Katamari (僕の私の塊魂 Boku no Watashi no Katamari Damashii?, literally My My Katamari Damacy using the two words in Japanese for "I" which connote a masculine ('boku') or neutral ('watashi') speaker). This sequel is set on an island ravaged by a tsunami (brought upon by the Royal Family's vacation, where they were splashing around in the ocean), and features a day and night system, as well as different seasons. WindySoft, a South Korean developer, has announced plans for a Katamari Damacy Online game, which was due to be released later in 2007, but never made it to the US.[24][25] Beautiful Katamari was released for the Xbox 360 in October 2007.[26] A PlayStation 3 version was announced but was cancelled shortly after.[27] Director Jun Morikawa stated, however, that a PS3-version, as well as a Wii-version, will make it to the consoles soon.[27]
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