Aaron McKenna: I Love Katamari

Anyone who’s been talking anything about videogames of late has heard of Katamari Damacy, the surprise PlayStation 2 hit from relatively unknown Japanese developer Keita Takahashi. The game is a completely non-violent, two button and specifically un-graphically complex creation which is so simplistic as to be laughable. It is also the most fun videogame to be released in the last five years.

Before we rush on and leave that monolithic statement behind, let’s consider that for a moment. I should point out to you that I’ve just dismissed out of hand Half-Life 2, Doom III, the entire Battlefield series, Civilization III, Rise of Nations and a whole bunch of other fantastic games. And I mean it.

Now let me tell you a little about Katamari, and do excuse me if it does sound a tad ludicrous, as this is a game which bothers about as much with storyline as Pac Man and Tetris did.

The storyline, according to that most wonderful of Open Source encyclopaedias Wikipedia, goes somewhat as thus :

The King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys all the stars in the sky one night, although the different versions of the game offer different explanations why he did this (the original Japanese release states that he was drunk ; this was omitted from the US release, although somewhat implied). He sends his son, the Prince (who is five centimetres tall), to Earth to gather material with which to reconstruct the galaxy.

...are you still with us ? Good, because it only gets better.

To gather material, the Prince pushes around his katamari, a magical ball capable of sticking to anything smaller than itself that it rolls over or against. Initially, the katamari can only pick up tiny items such as loose change, thumbtacks, and ants. As it becomes covered with things, the larger clump can pick up larger items, such as fruit, milk cartons, small animals, children, cars, houses, stadiums, office buildings, rainbows, clouds and sperm whales. There are also Royal Presents hidden in the levels for the Prince to pick up, including a camera with which he can take photos.

It’s that simple. There’s no bad guys, there’s no combat and there’s no limitations. You grab your katamari and roll it around the map, growing larger and larger as you collect more stuff in order to form stars. It’s fun. It’s addictive. The lesson of today’s sermon : Go and get a copy.

Katamari is a prime example of creative genius striking through to massive success in a world of by-the-numbers sequels, spin-offs and copycats. The game was originally released in Japan at 2/3 the price of a normal PS2 game on launch, and no release outside of Japan was planned as it was deemed that the game would have limited appeal.

After appearing in front of the press at several trade shows however enough interest was sparked that a US release was lined up - though still at only $20, half the price of a normal game once more.

The game quickly sold out in the States, and has gone on to become a cult classic worldwide. Publisher Namco naturally wanted a sequel, but intensely independent developer Takahashi wanted nothing to do with it, preferring instead to move on to other creative projects having spun out the Katamari idea successfully.

Takahashi is an interesting character, confessing that he’s not much of a gamer, considers most videogames on the market these days to be "boring" and he told MTV "I realize that a lot of these sports games that big companies like EA make are very enjoyable, but if you want to play a sports game, why not go outside and play sports ?"

Not your typical videogames developer then, and very outspoken. For all his protests against a Katamari sequel however, Namco held the rights to making one (an intellectual property issue many developers face) and they damn well wanted to milk this cash cow.

They basically told Takahashi that he either came onboard or else they’d make a novelty Christmas version of his creation without him and he’d be left by the side of the road. So, in order to protect Katamari and ensure that he’d get funding for other projects later on, Takahashi quite rightly gave in and developed the sequel.

"We Love Katamari" has returned to us with all the humour of the first, this time being a rather self-referential game pointing to the massive following which the original acquired. It’s even more fun than the original, being longer and introducing many new game modes. But it is the bastardisation of the series.

It is almost scary to think that if Takahashi had been more of an idealist and less of a realist that we might have a Christmas themed makeover for Katamari, as well as silly re-hashes to the point of Pac Man in the future.

This is an issue faced by many developers, as in order to first get a game published they must sign over the intellectual property rights to the publisher. As any astute businessman will tell you, if something is successful then it’s usually the sequel that’ll make the money for you, be it a film, a book or a videogame.

It’s a tough choice for the developers of creative videogames, who can either sell their ideas to the lowest bidder who is willing to take a chance on their title or see it wallow and die on the drawing boards.

It’s the price of creativity these days. In order to receive a break from the otherwise fairly by-the-numbers World War II shooters and strategy games, to play something truly refreshing and original we must be prepared to see the marketing hounds come in and rip it to shreds later on. The videogames industry is no longer about creativity, it’s about creating themed Christmas spin-offs to the most creative and intelligent videogames released in recent times.

Call of Duty 2 wouldn’t be made if it didn’t follow essentially the same "creative" template of about a dozen games before it, and We Love Katamari would have been a joke as opposed to a good laugh if its developer hadn’t bitten his tongue and bent over for the marketing hacks.

Enjoy Katamari while you can, and grab Lumines whilst it’s still hot, because they’ll be stuffed in bunny ears come Spring.