Review #294: Katamari Forever

 What the hell, Namco...?

 I like the Katamari franchise, they are quirky, fun games that can be enjoyed by anyone. But as creative as the premise is, why is it that Namco always fails to put the same amount of originality into the sequels? The fact that the original creator jumped ship after the second one might be the reason...

 The story this time around involves the King of all Cosmos losing his memories, while the Prince and his Cousins build a RoboKing and... stuff happens. Story has never been an important part of the Katamari games, but they've always offered funny cutscenes, specially the Vita storyline, but this game just didn't make it for me. I don't remember even cracking a smile during the cutscenes. Again, this didn't affect my overall enjoyment of the game, since the story is always fluff, but still...

 For the uninitiated, in the Katamari games you play as the Prince, or as a cousin if unlocked(They all have the same abilities), as you roll a ball around different environments. This ball, the Katamari, has the special property that rolls up onto it anything it rolls over smaller than itself, and slowly grows in size. Basically, roll up small stuff in order to increase the size and then roll up bigger stuff. Some levels, my favorite ones, have you starting from the bottom, rolling up mice and nickels, before eventually going around grabbing entire pieces of land. It's fantastic. This time around levels are divided into two 'branches', the Roboking and the King of all Cosmos. Usually the RoboKing has the more straightforward levels, 'make the biggest Katamari you can', while the King gets more gimicky levels, like 'Roll up hot stuff', or 'grab the biggest Bear or Cow you can'. Oh, and I should mention this game doesn't take itself seriously, at all. Everything is done in a very cartoony style, and you'll see all kinds of weird characters doing weird stuff, or even stuff in weird places, like cats underwater!

 This game will either be the best Katamari game you play, or the worst. Before I get into the meaty stuff, I'd like to delve into some of its features. Firstly, you can unlock different graphical styles for when you replay levels. There's Sepia, Wood, Comic(Cell Shaded/traditional) and New, which looks as if everything has been painted by hand, which is beautiful. It's a neat addition, but you can only switch styles when replaying a level, and only on Modes that you've already played that level in. Modes are another addition, almost every level has 4 variations: Forever, which is the standard, that lets you jump(Which, unlike the awesome stretch ability from the Vita game. is fairly useless and unwieldy) and grab power ups(There's up to two per level, they either instantly attract all nearby stuff to your Katamari or makes nearby stuff attract to your Katamari as you roll around for a short while), there's Drive Mode, which is Forever but sped-up, Eternal, which lets you play a level without any kind of time limit and finally Classic, which removes the Jump ability and the power ups. This is a great addition, since it adds variety, buuuuuuut, the conditions for unlocking Eternal and Classic variations for each level are unknown to this day, seems to have to do with how much you replay a level and how you score. I've read that some people replayed a level up to 24 times before they unlocked one of these modes. Plus, the game doesn't tell you if you can unlock Eternal on a level(Since not every level has Eternal), which is a bit of an oversight.

 Had I not foreshadowed it before, so far everything sounds really cool. Multiple graphical filters as well as modes? Sounds like the best Katamari game, and it could be. It could. The problem is that this game is the ultimate example of everything that's wrong with the Katamari series: Originality, or lack there of. The game has 34 levels, which sounds like a ton, until you realize that only 3 of these levels are entirely new.  About 14 of them come from We Love Katamari, another 14 from Beautiful Katamari and the rest from the first game. Almost every unlockable customization item is recycled from previous games, and there's only two new cousins. So you see, if you've played both We Love Katamari as well as Beautiful Katamari, you've basically played most of this game already. Now, in my case, I haven't played We Love Katamari(Yet) or Beautiful Katamari(Since I don't own a 360), so most levels were new(Except the ones from Katamari Damacy and, well, the levels that the Vita Katamari game would use in the future) to me. But that's me. I got a ton of new levels, cousins I hadn't seen before, a ton of modes and even graphical filters, which makes it the best Katamari game I've played yet. But that's my case, if you've been following the franchise, there's almost nothing new for you here, and there's no real reason for you to invest on this one.

 All that said, the game still has the same issues it has had ever since I can remember: A rather low draw distance and some framerate issues. On weaker consoles, this was understandable, but why is this still happening on the PS3? Sure, there's a lot of stuff on the screen at the same time, but everything is so simple that it shouldn't be taxing the system so much. For what it's worth, the framerate issues are fairly unusual, and the draw distance seems to grow as... well, as your Katamari grows in size. It seems that when the Katamari is smaller, the draw distance is smaller as well, so you'll see a lot of stuff just pop into view as you move forwards.

 Katamari Forever is a hard game for me to score. I loved the game to bits, I really did, but it's hard to ignore the fact that most of this game is recycled content. So you see, if you want to get into the series, I'd say that this is the game to get. If you've played either We Love Katamari or Beautiful Katamari, then it's a tougher sell, as you've played half of the levels already, but maybe the new filters and additional levels can make it worth it. If you've played both, just skip this one.
 8.0 out of 10