[REVIEW] Katamari Damacy Reroll

 I adored the original 2 Katamari Damacy games on the PS2, and played them for hours, having a great time and grooving to the music. I was always a fan of We 🤍 Katamari more than Katamari Damacy, but that doesn't mean I wasn't excited to be able to play Katamari Damacy Reroll, the remaster of the original game.

Katamari Damacy Reroll was released in December 2018 for the PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch, XBox One, and a few other smaller systems. While on a fundamental level there's almost no difference between the original game and this remake, it does give those who didn't play it back in the day on the PS2 a chance to play it now, with redone graphics to make it suit modern graphical quality.

And frankly, it didn't really need to be any more than that.

KEEPS ON REROLLIN'

If you haven't played Katamari Damacy before, the story behind the game is that the King of All Cosmos got really drunk one day, went on an intergalactic bender, and destroyed a lot of celestial bodies. You play as the pint-sized Prince, tasked by your newly-sober father to roll up objects on Earth to replace the destroyed objects in the sky.

Sounds silly. And it is. But it's just window dressing for the actual gameplay, where you, well, roll up objects on Earth, working toward different goals in each level. The Prince rolls up things into a ball known as a katamari, and has to reach a certain size as quickly as possible, or get as large a katamari as possible within a time limit. The gameplay is really simple, and Katamari Damacy Reroll is a great game to pick up and put down as you feel like it.

Or do what I did, and binge the entire game in a single sitting.

Katamari Damacy Reroll has the same catchy and upbeat soundtrack as the original game, so whether you're a series veteran or a newcomer, you'll likely find yourself grooving to the rhythm as you roll up all the detritus of humanity. Each level has its own associated song, and I can't think of any of them that are particularly bad, per se, though that is a subjective statement; my musical tastes might be different from yours.

But I also have yet to meet anyone who dislikes that soundtrack.

Just saying.

A GREAT REMASTER, BUT NOT PERFECT

 The original release of the game had rather stiff controls, and sometimes the Katamari could be sluggish to respond. Which did, admittedly, add a sense of weight to everything you were doing onscreen, but after a while it became tiring, frustrating.

Happily, the controls in Katamari Damacy Reroll have been tweaked to be more responsive. Still a little slow at times, but eh, not everything is going to be perfect. It's still better than the original game in that regard, so that's something,

It does suffer from lag, though. Now, this might be a limitation of the PS4, where I played the game, rather than an overall problem. I can't honestly say, having not played it on other systems. But for my part, the larger that katamari got, the stiffer the controls got and the slower everything responded. The Katamari Damacy games accommodate for the katamari growing larger by unloading smaller objects once you're past a certain size, to prevent the console getting overloaded by having to account for so many things. And I can't help but wonder if in this remaster, something like that didn't happen quite so well. If the items already rolled up, for instance, didn't unload properly, then the system would still be using resources to account for those small insignificant items, slowing everything else down.

Either that or it's a complete coincidence that larger katamaris suffered from lag.

Plus there was this one bridge in one single level that caused everything to drop to about 10 fps whenever I was near it, for some reason. No idea why. But that happened. So the game isn't free from bugs or anything.

But overall, I do think it's a solid remaster of the start of a much-beloved franchise, and it's great to be able to play it in glorious 4K. Or for people who didn't experience it back in the day, you can experience all the weirdness right now. It's a fun trip back to the days of experimental Playstation titles, and if you're anything like me, you'll settle down to play it for maybe half an hour, and then suddenly an entire afternoon is gone.

Katamari Damacy Reroll is a time-thief, and I kind of love it for that. It's definitely worth playing if you're in the mood for something wacky and fun.