Katamari Forever
Feb. 1st, 2011 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe King of All Cosmos is problematically unconscious, and his robotic replacement RoboKing went haywire and knocked the stars out of the sky. It’s the Prince to the rescue again, rolling up everything on earth to make new stars.
Also, Roboking hates himself, but that's okay, because I'm not terribly fond of Roboking. He's kind of a dick.
It's not really as good a game as We Love Katamari was, and a lot of that is because it re-uses a lot of material from previous games. Almost all of the stages are direct ports from Katamari Damacy or We Love Katamari. (And they retain the original game's quirks--the KD stages are much more "definite best path" oriented, it's easier to lose things, and the relative size of objects to your katamari is different between the two. You need to remember where certain optimal items are and go straight for them if you want to finish the level in time. The We Love Katamari stages tend to be more forgiving, allowing you to win them by remembering simple strategic rules (if you can get trees, GET TREES) but otherwise allowing variation.) The two things they add are the prince hop, which allows you to jump a little, and "broken hearts" which suck everything nearby onto your katamari with you pick them up. (They can also turn into "party mode" when you get about 10 seconds of the vacuum effect, though I still have no idea what causes that.) You can prince hop using the motion controller, but it's much, much easier to press R2. I wish the tutorial had mentioned that.
The rating system has be changed and made more straightforward: You get a score from 1-100 for each completed stage, determined by size and objectives. Many of the levels are a combination of "roll big" and "get a lot of a certain item", and you get a grade for both, which figures into your point total.
The difficulty level jumps around, often dependent on which game the level came from. Two of the “make it bigger” levels ported from Katamari Damacy pretty much come down to reflexes and memory; but most of the others allow you flexibility—easy to win, hard to get a perfect score on. Except, of course, the Campfire level, and the I-didn’t-think-this-could-be-more-frustrating-but-it-is Hot/Cold level. That level requires you roll up hot things and keeps a temperature level that slowly ticks down—or quickly ticks down if you pick up anything cold, and there’s an abundance of ice cream, slushies, snow rabbits, snowmen, and especially cold drinks around.
Oh, and I forgot one more annoying bit: A lot of the repeating stages are re-skinned into grayscale, witch objects only turning color when you pick them up. You can turn this off (and choose a bunch of other skins) when you’ve completed the level once, but that doesn’t help when you’re trying to do the hot/cold level for the eighth time and can’t tell if something is a soda or a bottle of hot sauce.
The new levels: Sprinkler, which requires you to roll over as much ground as possible while periodically returning to refill water. There’s a trick to doing really well at that, I just haven’t found it yet. Disassemble Roboking, which is a gimmick stage based around the broken hearts. King's Dreams, a stage that pretty critically depends on using the prince hop. I just barely passed it without jumping, then Jethrien pointed out to me how she got her far, far better score.
The new modes are the best part of the game. All the same stages, but with a new quirk: Drive Mode lets you do them all as if they were the Race stage (essentially--you can still stop and move carefully if you need too, and you only really ricochet at high speeds). The Katamari moves and accelerates faster, but you have less time to do each stage. Eternal Mode turns off the time limit and requirements, allowing you to explore each stage at your leisure looking for cousins, presents and rare items. Classic Mode (which is kinda lame and thrown in) removes the prince hop and broken hearts, makes the stages identical to the way they originally were. Drive Mode is unlocked by beating the game. Classic Mode is unlocked by beating Eternal Mode. Eternal Mode…seems to come from a high score on Drive Mode? Or playing Drive mode several times and getting high scores? It’s not made particularly clear.
The game also includes the ending minigame from Beautiful Katamari and a new ending minigame. (The "rolling up the countries" minigame from Katamari Damacy has been incorporated into several of the "make it bigger" stages. Tip: Always head for Africa/the middle east. Leave North America for last.)
Overall, a lot of fun and worth my money, but We Love Katamari is still the winner for best game in the series. I may have some pause if they release another sequel, because it’s obvious from this that they’re running low on ideas and are mostly stacking new gimmicks onto the older material to re-sell.
Also, Roboking hates himself, but that's okay, because I'm not terribly fond of Roboking. He's kind of a dick.
It's not really as good a game as We Love Katamari was, and a lot of that is because it re-uses a lot of material from previous games. Almost all of the stages are direct ports from Katamari Damacy or We Love Katamari. (And they retain the original game's quirks--the KD stages are much more "definite best path" oriented, it's easier to lose things, and the relative size of objects to your katamari is different between the two. You need to remember where certain optimal items are and go straight for them if you want to finish the level in time. The We Love Katamari stages tend to be more forgiving, allowing you to win them by remembering simple strategic rules (if you can get trees, GET TREES) but otherwise allowing variation.) The two things they add are the prince hop, which allows you to jump a little, and "broken hearts" which suck everything nearby onto your katamari with you pick them up. (They can also turn into "party mode" when you get about 10 seconds of the vacuum effect, though I still have no idea what causes that.) You can prince hop using the motion controller, but it's much, much easier to press R2. I wish the tutorial had mentioned that.
The rating system has be changed and made more straightforward: You get a score from 1-100 for each completed stage, determined by size and objectives. Many of the levels are a combination of "roll big" and "get a lot of a certain item", and you get a grade for both, which figures into your point total.
The difficulty level jumps around, often dependent on which game the level came from. Two of the “make it bigger” levels ported from Katamari Damacy pretty much come down to reflexes and memory; but most of the others allow you flexibility—easy to win, hard to get a perfect score on. Except, of course, the Campfire level, and the I-didn’t-think-this-could-be-more-frustrating-but-it-is Hot/Cold level. That level requires you roll up hot things and keeps a temperature level that slowly ticks down—or quickly ticks down if you pick up anything cold, and there’s an abundance of ice cream, slushies, snow rabbits, snowmen, and especially cold drinks around.
Oh, and I forgot one more annoying bit: A lot of the repeating stages are re-skinned into grayscale, witch objects only turning color when you pick them up. You can turn this off (and choose a bunch of other skins) when you’ve completed the level once, but that doesn’t help when you’re trying to do the hot/cold level for the eighth time and can’t tell if something is a soda or a bottle of hot sauce.
The new levels: Sprinkler, which requires you to roll over as much ground as possible while periodically returning to refill water. There’s a trick to doing really well at that, I just haven’t found it yet. Disassemble Roboking, which is a gimmick stage based around the broken hearts. King's Dreams, a stage that pretty critically depends on using the prince hop. I just barely passed it without jumping, then Jethrien pointed out to me how she got her far, far better score.
The new modes are the best part of the game. All the same stages, but with a new quirk: Drive Mode lets you do them all as if they were the Race stage (essentially--you can still stop and move carefully if you need too, and you only really ricochet at high speeds). The Katamari moves and accelerates faster, but you have less time to do each stage. Eternal Mode turns off the time limit and requirements, allowing you to explore each stage at your leisure looking for cousins, presents and rare items. Classic Mode (which is kinda lame and thrown in) removes the prince hop and broken hearts, makes the stages identical to the way they originally were. Drive Mode is unlocked by beating the game. Classic Mode is unlocked by beating Eternal Mode. Eternal Mode…seems to come from a high score on Drive Mode? Or playing Drive mode several times and getting high scores? It’s not made particularly clear.
The game also includes the ending minigame from Beautiful Katamari and a new ending minigame. (The "rolling up the countries" minigame from Katamari Damacy has been incorporated into several of the "make it bigger" stages. Tip: Always head for Africa/the middle east. Leave North America for last.)
Overall, a lot of fun and worth my money, but We Love Katamari is still the winner for best game in the series. I may have some pause if they release another sequel, because it’s obvious from this that they’re running low on ideas and are mostly stacking new gimmicks onto the older material to re-sell.
