Randomly rolling

Sometimes you just feel like rolling. Rolling a Katamari that is. Once the compulsion hit me I decided to direct my efforts toward Beautiful Katamari, mostly because it's the only Katamari game I haven't quite played out yet. Unfortunately, as I do not have a Playstation 3, Forever Katamari is not among the games I have access to. I have an inkling that it's better than Beautiful Katamari however.

Beautiful Katamari is one of the weaker entries in the series I think and a significant reason for why is it easily has the weakest soundtrack. Not a single one of my favorite music tracks from previous games made it into the score, and although there are a few decent songs nothing really stands out. There are even fewer tracks I want to listen to repeatedly or for as long as some of the courses last. Considering in my last post I said I don't really have an ear for music, this may sound like a reversal, but music has been a unique strength of the Katamari series and is pretty important to enjoying the gameplay for me.

Fortunately, the gameplay remains very good and Beautiful Katamari does introduce some interesting new environments to roll in. The interior areas that smaller Katamari have access to like the restaurant, store and supermarket are fun and interesting. The themes of the stages this time around are pretty easy to ignore and for the most part you really only have to worry about making the Katamari as big as possible as fast as possible. There are some unique exceptions, like trying to roll up the cheapest or lowest calorie items in the supermarket to make the biggest Katamari possible, but usually you can ignore what the King of All Cosmos says. I consider that a plus, considering I like to actively ignore him. On the other hand, it doesn't have the variety of wacky levels that We Love Katamari has. One of the main things I'd yet to do in the game since I first played it were the DLC stages, which were rather expensive last I looked. They've now dropped in price to about half of what they were, which is more reasonable. So I tried them and enjoyed them for a period of time, but not so long as to really make it worth even the lowered prices. The graphics are basically unchanged from the games on the Playstation 2 from what I can tell. Screen resolution and how clear smaller objects look seem to be the only major changes visually, but that's fine considering the unique look of the game has aged well.

It's still a decent Katamari game and the regular content is worthwhile if you can find it for a lower price. A better game in the series is Me & My Katamari, oddly enough, which remains my favorite just under We Love Katamari. Me & My Katamari has a very nice selection for its soundtrack and a good assortment of levels too. The PSP controls take some getting used to, but they end up working surprisingly well. The only real problem I have with that game is the tendency for some levels to transport you from one area to another after getting to a certain size, rather than the more seamless method featured in every other Katamari game.