Helping him through these journeys of personal self-discovery is his 5 centimetre tall son, the Prince of All Cosmos and his katamari, a boy and ball combo that act as an attractor to all they run over, initially limited in effectiveness but eventually growing larger than the planets themselves. All set to Japanese pop, beatboxing, and a cappella performances. Yes, it's pretty much as bizarre as it sounds. The latest in the series is Beautiful Katamari on the 360.
Rainbow power!
For those used to Katamari-land, the game design is largely the same as the previous editions, with a few tweaks here and there. Each level presents the player, controlling the Prince of All Cosmos, with an environment that scales to their katamari's size. Moving the two analog controllers directs the katamari, and as players run over items, assuming they're small enough relative to the katamari, the items stick to the katamari. While an immature katamari typically can't even pick up a stick of lipstick, a bit of work will see you capturing books, dogs, people, houses, and eventually landmarks such as the Eiffel tower.
A typical level may start on the floor of a candy store, picking up sweets discarded by inconsiderate customers, and end up on the streets of a city, picking up the cars passing by. It's an enormously entertaining way to pass the time, and given limited time is allowed in each level, there's a fair degree of pressure. Adding a little bit of complexity are level-specific requirements to focus on picking up certain types of items such as flowers and plants, hot things, or gadgets.
Once you've built your katamari to the required size within the stated time limits, your dear father provides "constructive feedback" on your performance and converts your katamari into a replacement planet. Fail to perform adequately, and father dearest becomes somewhat unhappy and starts throwing things at you in a rather amusing minigame. New to the 360 version are leaderboards to track your performance relative to your peers, achievements, and the co-operative play over Live is always appreciated.
I'm on top of the world!
The graphics are pretty much what you're expect from a Katamari game - items cover the gamut from the tiny right through to the massive, with the engine scaling to suit. While you may start by picking up coins and other detritus left by the terminally messy, over time you'll find yourself picking up gorillas, ships, crowds, buildings, mountains, and even eventually entire continents and planets. Random fact for the day - apparently, it's as easy to pick up Chicago as it is New Zealand. True story.
Still, while Beautiful Katamari may have had a resolution and small feature upgrade over the PlayStation 2 version, the engine itself otherwise seems much the same. There's a general increase in detail across the board, but as things get bigger, the world feels more and more like Lego-land. MegaTextures? Polygon detail? Real-time bump mapping? Real-time dynamic lighting? Surely you're joking, Mr. King of All Cosmos!
On the other hand, if camp rainbow power, masochistic physical and psychological self-abasement, and enormously quirky art design that is laughingly brimming with homoerotic themes are your cup of tea, you're going to be in gaming heaven. And, despite how that may read, it's not actually a bad thing - if every game had one tenth the character than Beautiful Katamari manages to cram into its environment, we'd probably live in a richer world. One with a stranger worldview, anyway.
Shorter than short.
Still, there's no getting over that this game is short, even by Katamari standards. Short as in, shorter than Martin Short, who's pretty short to begin with. An experienced, katamari-rolling, cosmos-kicking gamer will probably be able to clock the main game in under four hours. Maybe even three, if they obsessively beat everything the previous games had on offer. While a significant part of the attraction of the game is achieving perfect level run-throughs and item collections, three to four hours is very short. Additional levels are apparently going to be available on Xbox Live at some stage (as they weren't available at time of review), but there's no getting over that there's a remarkable dearth of content for a full priced game.
As the focus of a literary criticism, Beautiful Katamari is rich with symbolism. There are subtle references to Sophocles' Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, with the protagonist's eventual dominance against his father, the King, and his absorbing his mother in a grand finale, only to lose the universe in the process. It's packed to the gills with social commentary on the collateral damage caused by unrestrained growth and selfish personal achievement, eventually leaving the planet barren of all life. The inhabitants of the world lead meaningless, repetitive lives, with their excess materialism (represented by their willingness to leave their possessions strewn around their neighbourhood) apparently unable to provide fulfilment or even enjoyment. And, in what can only be considered a recreation of Shakespeare's King Lear and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, the self-appointed King of All Cosmos, while believing himself firmly in control, has descended into madness, following mindless ritual and hurting those around him, almost destroying his kingdom in the process.
Or not.
Sadly, there's more longevity in considering these postmodernist interpretations than there actually is in playing the game itself. And, to say the least, that's an issue - make sure you're going to love this at the price you're thinking of paying, because if you don't, you may shoot right through the ending and sit there in front of your gradually dimming panel, feeling a creeping sense of dissatisfaction. It's a good game while it lasts, filled with gloriously camp motifs and quintessially bizarre Japanese game design, but it doesn't last long. For the Katamari completionist, it's worth picking up. For everyone else, it's a great way of testing the waters, but be aware of the longevity issues.
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