The crazy Katamari Damacy universe returns for a third round of colorful quirkiness.  The new version of the little game that caught everyone by surprise doesn’t sport many fundamental changes to its basic gameplay.  However, if you’re a fan of the series, this probably won’t bother you one bit.  Beautiful Katamari retains all of the addictiveness of the previous games while bringing a whole boatload of new features to bear.  In fact, nearly everything new about BK is a marked improvement over the series’ previous entries – with the extremely notable exception of the core game engine.  

 

While playing tennis, the King of all Cosmos accidentally rips a hole in the fabric of space-time with an exceptional serve.  Strangely enough, the resulting black hole sucks up the entire universe – that is, except for Earth!  So begins your journey as the Prince of all Cosmos to dutifully roll up hundreds of objects to re-create the stars.  If this sounds all too familiar, that’s because it honestly is.  Anyone who has played a previous entry in the series will be instantly familiar with this one.  Unfortunately, learning to navigate the level select hub is not very intuitive and the game offers little assistance, so it may take a few moments of aimless wandering, reminisce of Namco role-playing games, before you figure out how to get into a level after playing through the spectacular intro.

 

The cumulative gameplay experience is, it turns out, spectacular once again.  The soundtrack in particular is back in full form, sporting some of the catchiest tunes on the Xbox 360 and easily trumping We Love Katamari.  The most memorable theme song since the NES days is still here with a new groovy remix.  The quirky music will keep you bouncing in your seat as you tumble through high-definition houses, candy stores, streets, and seas.  After three console installments, Namco has finally toned down the obnoxious beeping at the 30 second mark of each level.  The more powerful Xbox 360 processor pumps out a huge amount of objects on the screen, and the frames per second are silky smooth most of the time.  Occasionally the game gets bogged down by a drop in frame rate, which is somewhat disappointing given the simplicity of the graphical style and aesthetic similarities between this and its PS2 brethren.  The game’s graphical engine seems virtually untouched other than cleaner polygon models, less clipping, and an upgraded resolution.  In a series that is ironically parched for innovation, it would have been nice to see more graphical improvements than this.

 

Fortunately, level design is one of the few areas in which marked changes have been made to the series.  In previous Katamari games, most levels had a general layout but the levels themselves felt designed around the player rather than the environment.  Various arbitrarily chosen items would be strewn around in a field, for example - lined up conspicuously to easily snatch.  By contrast, Beautiful Katamari takes its level design in a slightly different direction, offering meticulously crafted levels that have an intuitive, explicitly stated theme.  This serves two purposes: to guide the level design, and to offer a subtle hint as to the best way to grow your katamari.  For example, one level sets you loose in a toy store.  There are push pins, mice, coins, and other various items scattered throughout the level.  However, the most efficient way to roll is to seek out the boxes of toys and candy that line the walls.  There are far more toys in the level than others, so it behooves the player to follow the clever guidelines given to them.  Don’t worry – there’s still enough stuff that’s just plain weird littering every inch of the game.

 

Katamari Damacy’s unique charm is largely based on its brand of bizarre and often disturbing humor.  The King of all Cosmos once again takes the cake in this department, verbally lambasting you at every opportunity with some truly hilarious dialogue, especially when you fail to meet his expectations.  In We Love Katamari, the King would pop in at inopportune moments and rarely seemed to say anything humorous or relevant.  This is still the case, unfortunately - you’ll often find your view blocked by a wall of text.   Fortunately, almost all of the chat aside from the repetitive parts is sharp and genuinely funny.  The writing on the whole feels much stronger than the prequels - a small detail, but one that helps the game mesh and creates a more immersive experience. 

 

Multiplayer modes have also been improved for this outing.  In addition to cooperatively rolling a single katamari with another player, two players can now roll competitively.  While the co-op mode is only slightly improved, rolling against another person is addictive and entertaining.  Solid multiplayer helps extend the replay value on what would otherwise be a short game – as with previous entries, you can blow through the single player campaign in a couple of hours.

 

Despite all the new features that Namco has offered up in Beautiful Katamari, the fact that the core gameplay is effectively unchanged is disappointing.  If you’ve played any of the Katamari games then you have essentially played this one too, despite the impressive new coat of paint and atmospheric improvements.  If you have never played a Katamari game before, this is definitely the version to get.  Something about Katamari Damacy is very primal and just plain fun.  The series has managed to prove that it still has staying power, despite its clear need to evolve.  The list of features is impressive, and the game’s crazy vibe hasn’t been done this well since the original.  The game is also value priced at $39.99, which is still an excellent deal for the amount of content included.  Of course, if this all sounds like you’ve played it before, you may want to let this one roll on by.