December 05, 2020 Opinion Opinion
November 20 on PS4 And Xbox One I went out Katamari Damacy Reroll – The updated version of the most cheerful game of 2004. Since the original s PS2 never got to Europe, fans PlayStation For the first time they can evaluate a cult game that fell in love with tens of thousands of players (owners PC And Switch received Reroll back in 2018). If you missed the PS2 era and do not understand what is happening – it doesn’t matter, now we will explain.
Keep Rollin ’, Rollin’, Rollin ’, Rollin’
There was a king of all space – and he was so powerful that one day all the stars in the sky was inadvertently smashed. Sobrazvev, the ruler decided to correct the consequences of his own brawl, but not the royal thing – the work of his hand to stain. Therefore, the responsibility fell on the tiny shoulders of the prince, who himself was the size of nails. He was punished to go to the ground and, with the help of a sticky catamari ball, collect enough items that could be spulled into heaven as new stars.
For the prince who rinses the magic ball, we have to play. Catamari does not lose his “lipbery”, even when other objects are completely covered; on the contrary – increasing in size, he can absorb more and larger things. We start with buttons and screws, continue with playing cubes and bones for Majong, then we gradually go to the erasers, pencils, land, oranges … Catamari grows and grows; Mugs, slippers, clubs, dogs, fences, boxes, people, cars, trees, houses, factories, islands, clouds, your hopes and dreams begin to stick to him … And all that you do at the same time is the ball ahead.
The fascination of this process is proportional to its simplicity. Partly, it resembles the transformation of the snowball into a snowman, partly – the pumping close to every gamer. This is now a cat casually throws us with paws through the half -study, forcing us to lose a couple of adhering objects; Nothing, back after we will feed ourselves in the kitchen and in the yard, and the cat will be assimilated! Resistance is useless – everything will come to the catamari one way or another.
No less interesting and just look for new items. Katamari Damacy makes us ride outlandish Japan, where the ham grows on the beds, manei-nako jump in boots, gopniks with two-meter stacks ride motorcycles, and in the clouds in front of the people, through the forests, through the seas, a giant superhero throws the next kaizu. Here you never know in advance what or whom you meet on the way – but you always know what will inevitably happen to them. But, despite the predictability of the plot, you can have no doubt: the game will have a smile more than once.
Not least-because of the soundtrack. It consists of incredibly positive songs that tell, in fact, about the catamari. The main topic is generally impossible to throw out of the head!
But do not think that Katamari Damacy is a aimless meditative Zalipalovo like some Proteus. No, this is a full -fledged game with specific goals in each of the levels. It is mainly required to achieve the desired diameter for a certain time, but there are more interesting tasks. For example, collecting the constellation of the Virgin, you need to roll up as many women on the ball (statues and dolls will also be suitable), and the first object similar to the cow will become a taurus – that is, you need to gently go around all suitable items, gaining volume to send The King is the largest cow.
But at simple levels it is useful to conduct reconnaissance and think through the tactics. If you stomp in the spot for a long time, trying to collect all the paper clips, the catamari will grow up quite a bit, and the time will leak; It is better to move forward all the time, looking for objects that are suitable in size with eyes. But at the same time, if you come to a location with larger objects too early, it is easy to remain without the ability to grow. You will ride too slowly – do not fit in the allotted time; You will accelerate excessively – you will lose half the finds, crashing into large objects. Gameplay in Katamari Damacy is deeper than it seems at first glance.
The game, in fact, has only one big drawback: due to the meager budget, it came out short and monotonous. One and a half dozen levels unfold in only three large locations, on which objects are laid out in different ways. And the tasks could be more interesting (in fact, they became like that in the sequel We Love Katamari, which we will still touch below).
Alas, the Katamari Damacy Reroll includes only the first part without any https://casper-spins-casino.co.uk/ special improvements-except, of course, HD permits. Surprisingly, even Framreite sometimes sags on PS4! But in general, this is a great way to touch one of the best games with PS2 and understand why everyone wore Katamari Damacy on their hands in 2004.
How we reached this
Now such a game will already be surprised by little: and the publishing house itself Namco Already squeezed out all the juices from the idea of Katamari, and the indie scenes over the past years has repeatedly pleased with similar projects in the concept-for example, Donut County. But in 2004, her appearance was absolutely incredible. Indie did not exist on the consoles then, and catchy, bold and indecent original projects allowed themselves few (mainly Sega , which was eventually forced to kill Dreamcast , so as not to go bankrupt). Especially in the traction to originality, it was impossible to suspect the Namco itself, which was mostly engaged in the milking of its top series: Ridge Racer , Tekken , Soulcalibur , Tales of And Ace Combat.
In Namco, however, the artist Keit Takahashi worked, who was burning with the idea of creating a game about a loving ball rolling everything in a row. He could not even offer such a project to the leadership – this should have been done by gamemakers, not artists. Therefore, he had to go to a number of crazy tricks. So, he, having no experience, signed up with a game designer and leader to students who began to create assets. None of the programmers wanted to work on such an incomprehensible project-but Takahashi was lucky to find three developers who were going to reduce: between the dismissal and work of the Bas-tech over what they chose the last. For six months, the Takahasi team rumbled a prototype for the Japanese festival of media art-and after a successful demonstration of Namco gave the project a green light.
Katamari Damacy was created for existing pennies: its budget did not reach even a million dollars, which was an order of magnitude less than top projects of the publishing house. The company did not think about the Western release – but over time it was convinced by the enthusiasm of the press. Katamari Damacy went out in America at a funny price of $ 20 … and fell in love with, it seems, everyone who decided to purchase it.
Namco would not be namco if I had not immediately turned a successful game into another series. Keita Takahashi really did not want to engage in sequel, but still agreed when he was confronted with the fact: the continuation would come out either with it or without it.
In the end, he did We Love Katamari – Great sequel, developing all the best undertakings of the original. A variety of levels and tasks, an ironic scenario, still a positive and catchy soundtrack-in We love Katamari, Takahashi was able to realize everything that did not fall into the first part of the budget reasons. Unfortunately, the continuation has never been reprinted since PS2. Judging by the fact that for two years that have passed since Reroll's release, Namco did not make any announcements on this subject, to hope for the return of the best part of Katamari.
After the exit of the sequel, Namco was configured to milk IP and further. The publishing house has rolled out many more Katamari issues without the participation of Takahashi, but not one of them repeated the success of the original dilogy. The novelties looked faded, soulless, devoid of enthusiasm and mischievous courage of the first two parts. That is why we are so happy about the release of Reroll: even the budget and simple first part is better than any of those that were released after the PS2 era.
Creator of one work
Alas, the author of the series himself also could not surpass his debut work. His subsequent creations were not so much games as toys. IN Noby Noby Boy It was necessary to lengthen an infinitely stretching boy who could only cling to his sausage body for objects, there is a poop. Having gained the desired length, it was possible to send the boy to the girl – a huge creature growing from the ground to the sun. Actually, observation of how the girl grows the joint efforts of all the players, and was the only likeness of meta in the aimless noby noby boy.
“I do not take drugs and do not drink,” said Takahashi at that time. Or maybe it was worth?
Perhaps everything that Takahashi did after Katamari unite three things: prohibitive, excessive childhood, emphasis on multiplayer and … excrement. Tenya Wanya Teens was a slurred interactive sketch requiring special 16-button controllers. Each button was responsible for a specific action that was appropriate in a particular situation, and two players for speed tried to perform the necessary things, getting confused in the buttons and falling into curly situations (for example, by letting the gases, ha-ha).
Glitch was a browser game – again, with an emphasis on multiplayer, lack of cruelty and tedious collection of things for craft. Alphabet – Early, where each letter of the alphabet corresponded to one of the runners. Keeping the key – running, pressing – jumping through the next poop lying in the way. A lot could find only the preschool children who taught the alphabet.
The latest game Keita Takahashi is a year ago on PS4 and Epic Games Store Wattam. This is a sandbox, where everyone holds hands and laughs, and the player is trying to find what action you need to continue to pass: for example, bring your nose to pollen so that the ardent appears to be from the ground. In addition to finding triggers there is nothing here. Wattam looks like fun for such children who are still too early to go to Minecraft.
All projects of the Keita Takahashi are united by bright aesthetics, extreme simplicity and children's optimism. However, only the first two parts of Katamari are games in the usual sense of the word: with division into levels where there are bonuses and obstacles; with clumsy conditions of victory and defeat; with the ability to build your tactics and with the need to work with both head and hands. Without such basic things, his rest of his work turned into empty art installations, deservedly forgotten by everyone. And the Katamari Damacy and her sequel remained masterpieces, which have fun to play and a dozen and a half years later.
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