he King of All Cosmos has once again found a way to destroy the universe. This time, he does it during a friendly game of tennis. With his competitive spirit getting the best of him, he lets loose a mighty power serve that tears a hole in the fabric of the universe. All of the planets and stars are immediately sucked into this void, leaving nothing but an ominous black smear in sky. Rather than trying to find a way to reverse what he has done, the King calls upon you, the Prince, to hastily build a new universe. As amusing as this premise is, it pains me to say that this series’ wild originality and surreal charm have also been sucked into this black hole.
Like all of the other Katamari games, players are tasked with rolling a seemingly innocent ball around highly cluttered earthen environments. If this ball comes into contact with something small enough, that item will become a part of the ball. Grab enough random stuff and the ball will grow in size, allowing for larger items to be consumed. You’ll begin the game by rolling up small things like coins, pins, and soda cans, but the ball will eventually grow so large that you can grab skyscrapers, mountains, and entire continents. If you’ve played a Katamari game before, you should be familiar with this progression. This somewhat repetitive path has remained exciting largely through the series’ creative level designs. This is where Beautiful Katamari stumbles the most. Its environments are ordinary and lifeless, and don’t showcase the colorful variety exhibited in games past. I did enjoy being challenged to only roll up items that generate heat (cold ones lower you overall temperature), but most of the objectives center around aimless rolling. This installment is also void of the wacky human-based story, and the King of All Cosmos seems to be bored and doesn’t have the witty one-liners you know him for.
Beautiful Katamari does make baby steps forward in its multiplayer support. Players can now jump online to compete in four-player versus matches. As you race to collect as many objects as you can, a jolt to a player’s ball can send their hard work spilling across a level. The maps are simple in design, and the battles are usually nice and intimate. This leads to the competitions being rowdy right down to the wire. The game also hooks you with its unique collecting-based leaderboards. Even the online lobby can deliver some laughs. Here, you can play an impromptu game of rainbow soccer or emote to your hearts content. Namco also is pledging strong support for downloadable content from day one of release.
The game’s title screams of beauty, but in truth, with the single player experience not being up to spec, this is the ugly duckling of the Katamari series. It just doesn’t have that wow factor going for it like the previous entries did. It’s a decent game, but fans have seen far better.