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Me & My Katamari
(A Techtite Review) To be fair, it's pretty astounding how many native-to-PS games can be translated to the PSP with little sacrifice in the way of graphics, quality, or size of the original. This was made most clear when Grand Theft Auto 3 was redesigned into "Liberty City Stories" with few sacrifices and in the end, you had a GTA game world in one little UMD disc. But when the whole point of the Katamari game series is to roll up entire towns and cities into a little ball, one item at a time, how good can the miniaturized translation be? The answer may surprise you. Me & My Katamari is exactly what fans would hope for: a totally portable Katamari title with minimal sacrifice in quality. You still get to roll many items on the screen into a little Katamari ball. These items are still surprisingly diverse, starting with little pieces of dropped coins and other knick knacks, then moving up to toys and such, and right up to the animals, the people, the vehicles, and in later levels the small islands and landscape itself. It sounds silly to the agnostic gamer, but to those who played the two prior games, it's one whale of a good time. First things first: the controls. The Katamari games on the Playstation 2 use both controllers, for fluid control of the ball. Well, the PSP has only one thumbpad, so some sacrifice had to be made. The good news is that Katamari games have no need for the triangle/circle/square/"X" buttons, so those keys are used as direction keys on the right. The left controls can be either the arrow buttons on the left of the PSP, or the thumbpad. The good news is that these controls are a lot easier to get the hang of than one might think. The bad news is that since your thumbs are not gently pressing on controller sticks a la the PS-2 controller, you can get hand cramps very fast. We're not just talking numb trigger button thumbs; that's when you keep pressing the same button over and over. No; in M&MK, you must hold down the buttons constantly, and that means a major need for the pause button as you massage the thumb area of your palm for all its worth! Thank heaven this is such a fun game, or else these controls would get tiring, and very fast. Since the game is for a smaller system, the game rules are equally "smaller." The quest is not to make planets and stars, but rather islands for various animals on Earth. This has been retooled into an amusing PSP game, since any PSP disc can store a lot, but not as much as a DVD-size disc. That is: many Katamari worlds must be revisited, and quite frequently. But when one animal wants a "cold" world while another wants a "hot" world, the quest stays interesting. The first trip to a level may have you avoiding sharp objects while rolling up just "soft" items. A return to that level may have you seeking out snowmen and ice cubes, but no fire, for an animal that likes the cold. It's the audio that holds back no stops. Many of fans' favorite Katamari songs are played in the background, from the title theme of "We [heart] Katamari," to a new theme song made especially for this game. Rolling over items results in cool sound effects (as a Namco game, note the Pac-Man tune that plays when rolling over any arcade machine!). Roll over various people for various audible complaints, from an "Aaaiiigh!" to some exclamation in Japanese that I would presume would be something like "What the heck just happened" or "Would the other guy you rolled up stop kicking me in the leg?" If there's any major grievance I have with this PSP Katamari game, it's that the size of the levels needed for such a game, means that the overall game must be very short. Maybe it's a testament to the fun had in the game, that it's all over long before it's begun, even though there are indeed well over 15 levels to enjoy. Yet these levels are filled with multiple characters (or "cousins") to find, as well as little "gifts" hidden in the strangest of places (some are huge when you start a level small; others are tiny when you are huge...so look carefully!). Such gifts range from a cape the "prince" can wear to masks and antennae, to customize your character. Neat. Multiplayer, unfortunately, is more of a tacked-on asset. In multiplayer games on the PS-2, the screen is split as two or more players compete on one screen. It's a smoother game due to no need for wireless communications. Such split screen gaming is impossible on the PSP so wireless gaming is the only option. What's worse is that the only space available for multiplayer was for one level, and that level gets old very fast. Lastly, while you can "share" items with friends, they are just the same items you could find by yourself within the game, with no ability to customize this or that, and share your creations with others. I'd love to have a Playstation 3 Katamari game someday that allowed you to create objects of your own design --color, size, etc.-- and share with other fans online. That would be so cool...! Yet the truth is that beggars cannot be choosers, and therein is why there's reason to celebrate. It's astounding that ANY Katamari game was made possible on a tiny little system, and this is it. That said; this is great fun, and another worthwhile addition to your PSP game collection. Techtite.com's rating:
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Large Crater. This was fun!