The king of all party fighters vs. the king of all cosmos
I loveSmash Bros. I love it when it’s fair and I love it when it’s tragic. I love the way it sounds and I love the way it feels. I love the way it transforms non-stop carnage into a silly, joyous romp. I love how it invites my imagination to soar in any direction, presenting me with a world where anything is possible. I love the spirit of the game. I love what it represents, and I love what it delivers.
But I loveKatamari Damacyfor all those reasons and more, and that’s why I’ll be playing it first today.
Let the good times roll
Katamari Damacyis a wholly whimsical romp with few rivals in its field. Structurally, it’s a racing game where you create your own course. But instead of trying to get to the finish line first, you’re working to grow as large as possible by lobbing objects onto your ball-machine. Nothing too much larger than you will stick though. You’ll need to develop your instincts before you know for sure exactly how big you need to be before you can roll over a sumo wrestler and make him your own. At the start, you’ll be struggling to bump a mouse on your mound. By the end, you’ll be running over skyscrapers and storm clouds without a problem.
It’s non-stop, slapstick absurdity that upends expectations in ways that few others ever have.Smashis the king of physical comedy in the domain of fighting games, but in the grand scheme,Katamaribeats it out in that arena.
It’s got the whole world in its hands
TheKatamarigames use the same low-poly aesthetic that was later popularized byMinecraftto craft a world where everything appears to belong together. It is extremely impressive thatSmashhas managed to make Duck Hunt, Snake, and Cloud all look right next to each other in a drag-out brawl, butKatamaricombines bullfrogs, school girls, Kaiju, corn cobs, bear-men, woolly mammoths, tornados, and Thunder Gods together in a cohesive way that never challenges your suspension of disbelief.
Katamari Reroll‘s recreation of Earth feels completely cohesive, despite the fact that it contains an entire planet’s worth of stuff. It feels like a real place, and I want to live there.
A soundtrack that swings from a star
Smash Ultimatehas one of the largest, most consistently well-crafted soundtracks in the history of video games, butKatamari Rerollhas one of the best soundtracks in the history of anything. Comparing the two is largely a quantity vs. quality conundrum until you factor in originality. I love hundreds of the tracks on theUltimatesoundtrack, but I can find nearly all of them elsewhere. While it’s extremely convenient to have access to them all in one place, I’ll still have to sort through hundreds of other tracks that I’m more lukewarm towards before I get to the gems.
WithKatamari Reroll, all but maybe one or two of the songs are anything but all-time classics. When it comes to originality and one-of-a-kind charm, it doesn’t get much better thanKatamari on the Rocks,You Are Smart,The Wonderful Stars,Que Sera Sera,Lonely Rolling Star,A Crimson Rose And Gin Tonic,Wanda Wanda, and, oh my dear God,Cherry Tree Times.
Cherry Tree Timesmakes me cry literally every time I hear it. No other song in the world can do that to me. I’m literally crying as I type this right now because I let myself listen to the first 45 seconds ofCherry Tree Times. The intense innocence, earnest kindness, and sincere power of good woven into each note of this beast are just too strong.
Laugh all you want, but show me one other song that can make a 41-year-old game blogger cry in 45 seconds or less, and maybe I’ll change my mind. Until then,Katamarigets my vote for the most affecting score of all time.
A violent world where everything will be alright
Conflict is everywhere today, in part because it’s never been more profitable. Social media, TV news, political science, and reality TV have blurred into one giant mass of top-rated, 24-hour drama, fueled by painting “the other team” as villains and “our team” as heroes and/or victims. Post something on Twitter that catches the ire of a big name provocateur and they may prop you up like a pinata for their followers to beat with a stick for days on end. And that’s just talking about the relatively “safe” emotional warfare that fills the lives of the perpetually online. If I were to touch the tip of the iceberg of violence and death you may find on TV, online, in movies, and of course, real life, I’d need a lot more space than this short paragraph in aKatamari-praise blog could provide.
So how do you cope with all the intense pain that people are inflicting on each other en mass on a daily basis? One way is to play with it in a safe way.Smash Bros.certainly allows for plenty of that. Need to blow off some steam from a stressful day of dodging emotional bullets? Why not pretend to be a giant wrestlingPokemoncat and body slam Simon Belmont into the stratosphere? You could definitely find worse ways to let off some steam after a long day in the trenches of life in 2018.
But is there any better way to make light of the ridiculousness of modern-day power plays, while acquiring a supreme sense of control over your surroundings, than to roll a marble sized ball around the town until it grows to the size of a football field, conquering anything that dares stand in its way, while never actually doing any actual harm to anyone?
As Obi-Wan Kenobi once said to a crabby four-armed droid who coughs a lot – “Oh, I don’t think so.”
The last of a dying breed
Smashappears to be the last of a dying breed of AAA-crossover-local-multiplayer-4-player fighters. There were a bunch of them at one time or another.Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble, DreamMix TV World Fighters, andPlayStation All-Stars Battle Royaleimmediately come to mind. Ironically enough, it’s the Battle Royale genre that seems to be taken dominance over the genre. If you want to play King of the Hill with your friends, old-fashioned fisticuffs appear to be on the way out while the likesFortniteare one the way in. That’s why I’m guessing thatUltimatemay be the last traditionalSmashgame we see for a little while. It’s hard to imagine what else they could add to the formula beyond more fighters, and at a whopping +74 playable characters at present, it’s arguable that any more would go beyond gluttony and into full-on bloat.
Still, it’s hard to imagine that Nintendo would ever stop making traditionalSmashgames for good. The series is beloved by millions, and the central gameplay mechanics are just too perfect to let go of.Katamari, on the other hand, is part of a movement of low-detail, high-personality Japanese retail games that appear to be on their last legs these days. There was a time when the like ofChibi-Robo, Chulip, Jumping Flash, One Piece Mansion,Under The Skin,Ribbit Golf, andCubivorewere regular sites at high-class brick and mortar establishments like Babbages and Electronics Boutique. These days, games that ilk are usually relegated to indie developers and online storefronts. EvenKatamari Rerollis being released in extremely limited physical quantities, despite being the progenitor of a series thatbirthed a book,a fashion line, and no less than five full sequels.
That’s why I encourage you to pick up the game at retail if you may. This it the first time aKatamarigame has been released outside of Japan on a Nintendo console, and if it doesn’t to well, then it will also surely be the last. If that’s OK with you, then sure, save your money. Just don’t come crying to me when Namco goes the way of Konami and the only newKatamarititles past 2019 are pachinko machines.
