You Can Thank The GameCube For Katamari Damacy, According To Creator Keita Takahashi

I MAY have enjoyed it... The games never appealed to me.

this game appeals to me cause its like being in control of a giant dung beetle! (kind of)

@paihia I can see where you're coming from. The idea is kinda neat, just never got me to buy into the games.

@paihia 😂🤣 best comparison ever.

@Kalmaro same here, I mean it's known the game has a rabbit cult following but never really had a ton of interest in the game. I might pick it up depending on price or on a steep sale. Although that Dung Beetle comment really has me cracking up wanting to try it now lol.

@ReaderRagfish If they had, I probably would have picked it up JUST to be contrary.

I've never played this before but I'm interested to see what the hype's all about. And I'm all about weird, quirky games, so if it really does control like a giant dung beetle then I'm all in!

So they just used the GameCube dev kit with full intention to release it exclusively on a rival platform? That's... I don't know what to call it. But I don't like it.

I adore Katamari. Everyone, please buy this game - you won’t be disappointed.

Played this on Xbox 360 and the humour and visuals are pretty cool but the gameplay is just a little bit rubbish and head ache inducing for me.

@bluemage1989 The 360 game isn’t great. Try the original two.

The premise of this game is so deliciously weird that I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

@justin233 I adore Katamari. Everyone, please buy this game - you won’t be disappointed.

I was.

@justin233 didn't realise there was such a quality difference between the titles. Anything in particular make the originals better??

It would so awesome to have Katamari on GameCube. I would buy it today! I love all the games, but I do wish they could somehow keep evolving the gameplay further. I like the touchscreen support for making the Katamari skinny and tall or fat and wide on Vita. Also, there's so much interesting and weird music in the various games. That's another highlight of the series.

I liked it back on PS2. And I guess I would have enjoyed it on GameCube, but it was never released for it so not much I can do about that. I will definitely get this on Switch though.

One of my favorite PS2 games and was one of the few games we could openly play in front of my mom cuz MGS 2&3 showed cleavage and killing. (We never had a GTA game)

Shame. Gamecube was my favorite system of that generation (granted it never got sequels that appeared on the others...Bloodrayne 2, Soul Reaver 2, Balder's gate 2, Gauntlet Seven Sorrows), but it was still a great system! This is definitely a game that would have been played! Glad to know it will at least arrive on the Switch!

I’ll be picking this up with Smash! I think they’re still the same day in NA, anyway. The mechanics are very simplistic, but it has a warm relaxing vibe. The music is where it shines, to me. It goes together like Bart and his skateboard.

Even though I had both a PS2 and a Gamecube back then, I remember largely preferring to play things on Gamecube. It's hard to say now, what I thought then - whether it was more a taste in the games, or a preference for the controller but I do remember usually choosing Gamecube when I had the choice to make.

@bluemage1989 Well, I guess if you don't like the gameplay of the 360 version, you probably won't like the others either as the gameplay is basically the same. I just feel like the music, humor, and level design of the first two are superior in general (plus the box art of the PS2 games are some of my favorites ever).

lol, cows

One of the greatest, quirkiness games ever. Yes, the dung beetle comparison is spot on, like if a dung beetle rolled up progressively larger objects for the sole purpose of creating new stars to replace the ones your dad broke while on an out-of-control galactic bender. This is the game's actual story, and it's amazing. Definitely picking it up for Switch once I have gaming funds!

When I played this on PS2, I always wondered why it wasn't on the Gamecube! Come on Sega, get Monkey Ball on Switch so I can have my favourite 2 games ever on Switch!

@MaSSiVeRiCaN "rabbit cult following"? yeah, those bunnies, eh? I hope they don't get rabies....

Looks like a stupid game anyway, give me Mario or Zelda anyday over this.

He could properly thank Nintendo when Reroll sells better than any other entry in this boring series. Or talk crap about their greatest games while propping up the craptastic Last Guardian...

So much irony.

Really liked Katamari for PS2 but at that time I always bought GameCube versions of games if there was an option. But hey, I am a Nintendo fanboy after all.

I’m mostly excited about the end of November release confirmation in the article. I previously saw winter, so I know what to ask my wife for Christmas. Still can’t see it on amazon (uk) for pre order yet though.

I'm so glad this game was released regardless of how it was made. The ads in magazines during the PS2 release alone intrigued me.

For those who don't know the difference between the games here's a breakdown of all the ones I played:

Katamari Damacy (PS2 and now Switch):
The story is quirky and very charming albeit incoherent, which just adds to the hilariousness of the game, my favorite line comes from a little girl who says "I feel it, I feel the cosmos". The game play is difficult because the collision is very punishing, but that's the appeal of the game; masochism and beat the odds. You quickly become the master of the dash attack if you want to get to later levels. The game does have a bit of luck to it and there are some stages that are Dualshock 2 throwing frustrating but overall it was a great $20 game.

We Love Katamari (PS2 and hopefully Switch):
The sequal of the game is much like the first one but has vastly improved graphics and way better collision (less punishing). The story line is bizarro like the first game but after playing the first one you're desensitized to its quirkiness. The final stage of the game is so satisfying that I found myself playing it over and over again (spoiler alert: you can roll up the King if you're good enough). As far as I know, this is the last game Keita was a part of. It was a really good deal at a $30 price point.

Me and My Katamari (PSP):
I didn't play this game much since the game used digital buttons instead of analog sticks but from the little I did play it had promise but was overall unplayable. I don't remember the price point of the game but I think it did try to sell at $40.

Beautiful Katamari (XBOX 360):
This game was a terrible entry point for people who were unaware of the series on PS2. But as far as the graphics are concerned this had the best filters of the game so far. The Xbox 360 controller though was a very poor fit for the control style of the game because of the uneven analog sticks, which is my concern for the switch as well but we have motion controls so it's all good, but besides that The Dashing didn't work as well either. If you couldn't look beyond that though the game was just a rehash of the first and second game for the most part. There was no original content at all, it was really just showing off the graphics engine and trying to sell the game at the new $40 price point. If I remember correctly though it did have a co-op mode which was kind of cool. I think we love Katamari had that too though. This game was a timed exclusive for the 360.

Katamari Forever (PS3):
Katamari Forever is pretty much the same as Beautiful Katamari but in a much worse way. Rather than having a storyline or having you unlock content through a story-driven process they take you to a main menu in the form of a book and it's kind of bland. Unlocking new graphical filters was okay but overall they killed the game because without keita the game didn't have a creative designer to create new levels or better dialogue for the king and Robo King. The game felt more nostalgic than it did feel like a brand new title. And for new adopters to the game who didn't play it on PlayStation 2 it was probably an infuriating game because you had no clue what was going on or why. I think this game also had a $40 price point. The game was still great though considering they never made an HD remaster of the previous games in their original form but it just wasn't the same as keita's creations. Because the progress was less fluid it made quitting the game much easier when things got hard.

Touch my Katamari (PS VITA):
I never played it but the game looks to introduce touch controls which probably would have worked better on the Wii or the PS Move platform. I think this game was a $50 game but I'm not sure. By this time the game had lost its majority following and Namco was looking for ways to cash in on the IP. Which leads me to my next one.

Tap My Katamari (Android/IOS):
Completely ignoring the first Android release of the game which was a neat concept but very poorly developed, tap My Katamari was an idle game that played a lot like Cookie Clicker except for there was an obvious ceiling. The development team was also a part of a school from what I can tell and the intentions of the game was to be profitable and figure out how to build a community. Ultimately the game failed and is now discontinued due to an obvious cash grab and no true content. I tried to Rally people around the game but the broken mechanics and the imbalance gameplay even made me bitter. After being the number one user on the game for the majority of the game I quit because the Developers made it very obvious the game was only to raise Capital, but for what? This game is free to play but had in game transactions and even a $5 bonus that was required to get to the end game content.

Amazing Katamari Damacy (Android/IOS):
After the failure of tap My Katamari, Bandai Namco made the attempt of making a Subway Surfer Style game. The game was more true to the series because you actually did work instead of tap but the game was increasingly punishing and also had obvious cash- grabbing. Unlike tap My Katamari though most of the game could be progressed through just waiting. The game is actually really fun. But it definitely left more to desire from a game that came from rolling up large buildings and people. To be honest this is still installed on my phone but I haven't opened it in a long time. It just doesn't feel right without the progressively larger and constantly rewarding side of things. Both mobile games had a huge punish Factor and the game was only enjoyable because it was constantly rewarding. Getting bigger felt great on the PlayStation 2 Originals. But these mobile games were very punishing and took away the pleasure of getting an increasingly huge Katamari. Sure, all Katamari games are about starting a level over and trying to get bigger again, but starting over wasn't the mechanic that everyone enjoyed, it was the Super Mario effect where you really wanted to beat the level even though you were constantly punished. Resetting in tap My Katamari or having to start over because you had a portal in this game just were bad mechanics for the IP despite them being great in the mobile setting as a whole. As far as I know this game is still being supported by Bandai Namco.

So anybody who played it for the 360 on that demo or the PlayStation 3 on the demo there, the game may not have been enjoyable because you didn't know everything that happened on the PlayStation 2 games in keita's world but hopefully this reboot will get you hooked like obviously I am.

I've always wondered how Breath of the Wild would've looked on the PS4... I really do. I love my Switch and all, but those PS4 games are looking mighty fine these days.

@GrailUK The fact Katamari didn't come out on the Gamecube never made sense to me. I know the system didn't have a big user base, but it was the kind of fun and goofy game that tended to do well. Much like Super Monkey Ball, the second best video game of all time

That’s messed up. I wonder if it would have looked better since gcn was the stronger system.

I never had a GameCube or PS2 (I had an Xbox; I used the others at my sister's house), but I've got a backwards compatible Wii and would've loved playing it on that. This year I finally got a PS3 and bought "Katamari Damacy" and "Katamari Forever" for it.

Looking forward to playing on the Switch.

Sadly it never came to Gamecube.