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75-519: Keita Takahashi , the series creator, did not go into coding originally. He created "cheerfully bizarre” sculptures when he was a student at Musashino Art University . This inspired Takahashi to entertain audiences with his creations and decided to join Namco as a visual artist. He wanted to create a game where the players can do something they can only do in a game and create something that is not formulaic. In most Katamari games, players typically control

150-408: A surprise hit and winning several awards. Its success led to the creation of the greater Katamari franchise , and inspired numerous subsequent games imitating its quirky, colorful charm. Some critics have hailed it as a cult classic and one of the greatest video games of all time , praising its gameplay, replay value, humor, originality, and Shibuya-kei soundtrack. A high-definition remaster of

225-549: A 180 degree turn that causes The Prince to jump on the other side of the Katamari typically by pressing the two sticks down into the controller. Players may cause the katamari to roll at high speeds typically by rapidly moving the two sticks in opposite directions back and forth. Players may also cause The Prince to jump and get a better look at the world by pressing L1. Introduced in Katamari Forever , players are given

300-587: A Western release. Media attention to the game from the Workshop, often called "Namco's snowball simulator", led to more pressure on Namco for a Western release. Takahashi was again invited to come present the game at E3 2004 . Players wanting the game to release in the West also wrote to Namco for a release. That July, Namco officially announced the game's release in North America for September 2004. The game

375-506: A businessman, waiting for an appointment, rolling up office furniture and staff. The original prototype game's cover artwork featured the large red ball used in tamakorogashi , but for the game's final release, Takahashi developed the game's cover art, showing a large katamari on the verge of rolling over a city, emphasizing the scale of the game. The game was released in Japan on March 18, 2004, priced at about ¥4,000 , roughly two-thirds of

450-447: A different location, but found that the Namco and Now Production teams worked well together. The full team consisted of about twenty members between the two companies, and Namco had allocated a budget of about ¥100 million (about US$ 650,000–800,000 at the time of production) for the game; this was about the tenth of the cost of budget allocated for Namco's blockbuster titles such as Ridge Racer or Soulcalibur . The full game took

525-411: A giant ball into a goal. Both those ideas led to him thinking of a game where spinning a ball would roll ordinary objects into it, making the ball larger and larger over time. The evening he conceived of this idea, he spoke to a friend, one of the game designers in Namco, to see if it made for a good game idea, who agreed it had potential. The next day, he spoke to his former boss, Mitsutoshi Ozaki, about

600-451: A given time, or collecting the largest item possible (such as a cow or bear). The player can attempt a score attack mode for any level, where the goal is to make the largest katamari possible in the time allotted. Certain levels can unlock an "eternal mode" by creating an exceptionally large katamari. In eternal modes, the player can explore the level with no time limit. Each level features two secret items that can be found. The first item

675-408: A kind of visual alliteration . The name is officially transliterated as Katamari Damacy in most releases. Game creator Keita Takahashi said that the title suddenly popped into his head from the start and never changed during development. Katamari Damacy enjoyed moderate success in Japan. The game was sold at about two-thirds of the price of a new game at the time. It was the top-selling game

750-629: A new story and a few new levels. Touch My Katamari was released in 2012 exclusively for the PlayStation Vita. Tap My Katamari , a version for mobile devices with iOS or Android, was released in January 2016. Katamari Damacy Reroll is a remake of Katamari Damacy for the Nintendo Switch and PC, released on December 7, 2018, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on November 20, 2020. We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie

825-406: A philosophy that his art needed to combine practical elements along with a bit of whimsy and humor. After graduation, Takahashi no longer had the desire to pursue sculpting as a full-time career, and saw the potential to become involved in video games as a means to continue his art interest in a larger medium. Joining Namco as an artist around 1999, Takahashi worked on a number of smaller projects for

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900-485: A size chart on its HUD . In early levels of the game, players are given a katamari similar to the Prince's size, which allows him to only roll up small objects such as tacks and ants. Later levels allow the katamari to grow much larger to the point where it can roll up buildings and clouds. As the katamari becomes larger, the katamari is then able to pick up larger objects. Living and non-living creatures will sometimes attack

975-522: A small arena to collect the most objects within three minutes. The playing field is replenished with new objects periodically. Players can ram into each other, knocking items from their opponents' katamaris, and if one player leads by a fair amount, then it is possible to roll up the opponent's katamari. Keita Takahashi had studied art and entered the Musashino Art University to study sculpting in 1995. During his studies, he came to

1050-413: A small ball and become more complex and full as it got larger. Technically, the team found they could not implement this shrinking mechanic due to memory limitations, and further found that with the interactive music concept, it was not fun to shrink back down and hear the music regress to a simpler form. The shrinking concept as well as the interactive music approach were subsequently dropped. The prototype

1125-545: A snowball to a certain size and putting it on a snowman. Some levels also require players to pick up a specific item, such as in the cow or bear levels where players are tasked with rolling up the largest of that specific animal. Each level is presented on a stage select screen, and can be replayed multiple times after being completed. Each level also typically has two specific objects in them: one of The Prince's many cousins whom, after obtaining, can be used either in multi-player only or in multi-player and single-player, depending on

1200-424: A star or into stardust. Additionally, if they reach the size fast enough, a shooting star will be unlocked for the star. As an additional reward found in some of the games, players may be allowed to play a specific level without a time limit which allows them to play indefinitely. Not all levels follow this format; for example, some do not have a timer, and instead require players to do a certain task, such as rolling

1275-569: A timer. (NS) The first video game released in the series was Katamari Damacy , which was released for the PlayStation 2 on March 18, 2004, in Japan. Due to the critical and commercial reception that it received, Namco Bandai followed it up with a 2005 sequel also for the PlayStation 2, titled We Love Katamari . It followed closely in the style of its predecessor, but with new environments and slightly improved physics. A sequel

1350-557: A year and a half to develop, with eight months of prototyping from the Digital Hollywood version. Takahashi said that the team was aiming for four key points in developing the game: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. Iwatani compared the game to Namco's Pac-Man , which focused on simplicity and innovation and served as a template for future games from the company. At one point during development, Takahashi "proactively ignored" advice from Namco to increase

1425-399: Is a royal present that contains an object that the Prince can wear. Most gifts are non-functional, but one includes a camera that can be used to take in-game screenshots. In the two-player mode, a player can choose to play as either the Prince or one of his numerous Cousins. The screen is split vertically; player one on the left and player two on the right. Players compete simultaneously in

1500-538: Is a remake of We Love Katamari for the Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series and PC, released on June 2, 2023. [REDACTED] Media related to Katamari at Wikimedia Commons Keita Takahashi Keita Takahashi ( 高橋 慶太 , Takahashi Keita , born 1975) is a Japanese game designer and artist, his most notable titles being Katamari Damacy and its sequel, We Love Katamari . The original Katamari game

1575-545: Is unable to go to the Moon after it is wiped out by the King, and the daughter, whose name is Michiru, "senses" the Prince's work—she can feel when each constellation returns to the sky. Ultimately, the family, along with their house and town, are rolled up in the katamari that is used to remake the Moon. The player controls the Prince as he rolls the katamari around houses, gardens, and towns in order to meet certain parameters set by

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1650-602: The Gamecity festival that Takahashi was spending a month in the city working on designs for the play area at Woodthorpe Grange . In 2012, Takahashi revealed to an audience that the Nottingham project had been indefinitely postponed, due to budget concerns. He and his wife, Asuka Sakai, formed the company uvula in October 2010 to support his freelance game design career, as well as his playground designs. In July 2011, it

1725-551: The King of All Cosmos . This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. Katamari Damacy 's story, settings and characters are highly stylized and surreal , often both celebrating and satirizing facets of Japanese culture . Katamari Damacy received positive reception, becoming

1800-471: The 2003 Tokyo Game Show (TGS). The demo was critically praised by the press, with GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann describing it as a "good dose of weird fun". Sony expressed strong interest in pushing the game's release forward based on the TGS response, offering to handle the game's promotion in exchange. Sony advertised the game on numerous billboards and posters across Japan, and created an infamous television ad of

1875-523: The 2003 Experimental Gameplay Workshop after seeing it demonstrated at the 2002 TGS, and had been at the 2003 TGS to look for a similar title to exhibit in 2004. Discovering Katamari Damacy as an ideal title to exhibit, the group arranged with Namco to have Takahashi come to the United States to present the game. The press reaction to the session was described as "electric", but they were disappointed to learn from Takahashi that there were no plans for

1950-508: The 20th century, specifically praising the game for its "quirky manipulations of scale" that makes it accessible for all ages. Vice president of marketing for Namco Bandai Games America, Inc. Carlson Choi described the inclusion of Katamari Damacy to the exhibit as "a testament to the creative designs embodied in Namco Bandai's games, in addition to being a validation of video games as a modern form of interactive art". On November 29 of

2025-407: The 3D objects needed to populate his game world. Takahashi took Ozaki's advice, joining the project to help produce the prototype for his game. Alongside about ten students from the Digital Hollywood program, he had been able to gain some visual design artists from Namco to help with the prototype but had difficulty in getting any game development engineers, due to the low priority of the school. He

2100-512: The Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory would follow a similar path. At the time, Masaya Nakamura was principal of this school, and oversaw one senior thesis class where the students were being trained on 3D modeling towards producing a game prototype with the help of other Namco employees, which could potentially be made into a full game. Ozaki suggested to Takahashi that he could have the students of this class create

2175-405: The Katamari together with one player controlling one half of controlling the Katamari while another player controls the other in stages that resemble the single-player mode. The competitive mode puts two players against each other as they compete in an arena-like setting to get the largest sized Katamari; if one grows large enough, it can roll up the other player's katamari. Both modes are played with

2250-406: The Katamari's relative size to them. Players typically control the katamari ball using two analog sticks ; players move forward and backward by pushing the analog sticks in that direction simultaneously. They can turn the katamari by pushing only one stick in the desired direction or pushing the sticks in opposite directions to do so faster (often described as ' tank controls '). Players may also do

2325-475: The King charges his five-centimeter-tall son, the Prince, to go to Earth with a "katamari"—a magical ball that allows anything smaller than it to stick to it and make it grow—and collect enough material for him to recreate the stars and the Moon. The Prince is successful, and the universe is returned to normal. A side-story follows the Hoshino family as the Prince works at his tasks. The father, an astronaut ,

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2400-464: The King of All Cosmos. The player uses the two analog sticks on the DualShock controller in a manner similar to the classic arcade game Battlezone to control the direction the katamari rolls. Other controls can be triggered by the player to gain a quick burst of speed, flip the Prince to the other side of the katamari and more. Objects that are smaller than the katamari will stick to it when

2475-447: The King will appear in the middle of the screen and speak to players. In some levels, this will precede a cutscene alerting players that a new area has opened up. If players fail to reach this size in the time allotted, they are scolded and punished by the King. If players are able to reach the required size before the time limit runs out, they may continue making it bigger. At the end of the stage, players are judged on their size as well as

2550-431: The King, but the project leader rejected the idea. Action Drive was eventually cancelled. While working on other projects, Takahashi continued to try to think of game ideas, seeking to grow beyond being just an artist for Namco. Takahashi cited two concepts that led to the inspiration of Katamari Damacy . The first was a prototype shown by Sony Computer Entertainment called Densen (Japanese for "power line") that had

2625-406: The Prince to rescue her. To do this, the player would use the diminutive Prince's head, shaped like a hammer, to stun humans, after which the Prince would then "drive" the humans around by putting a steering wheel on the back of the human's head. Takahashi felt this would lead to interesting and creative gameplay, allowing the player to create havoc as the Prince followed the misguided suggestions from

2700-773: The U.S. award for "Excellence in Game Design" at the 2005 Game Developers Choice Awards , and G4 awarded Katamari Damacy its "Best Innovation" prize in its G-Phoria of that year. Katamari Damacy was one of the recipients of the 2004 Good Design Award in Japan, the first time a video game has won this award. During the 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards , the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Katamari Damacy with "Outstanding Innovation in Console Gaming" and " Outstanding Achievement in Game Design ", as well as receiving nominations for " Game of

2775-476: The World and Donut County . Katamari Damacy has spawned numerous sequels on the PlayStation 2 and newer game consoles. The game's direct sequel on the PlayStation 2, We Love Katamari , was released internationally in 2005 and 2006. Its story is self-referential , following on the success of the first game, most of the levels are based on requests from newfound fans of the King and the Prince. Though sharing

2850-546: The Year ", "Console Game of the Year", and " Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition ". GameSpot named it the best PlayStation 2 game of September 2004. It later won the publication's year-end "Best Puzzle/Rhythm Game", "Best Original Music" and "Most Innovative Game" awards across all platforms. In 2015, the game placed 13th on USgamer's The 15 Best Games Since 2000 list. In 2019, it

2925-400: The ability called the "Prince Hop" to make the katamari ball hop. Before each level, the King will often go on a nonsensical rant to The Prince, and refers to himself using royal we . In Make a Star levels, players are presented with a specific size that the katamari must be before the time limit runs out. As the player rolls up objects using the katamari, it becomes larger, as demonstrated by

3000-484: The complexity of the game. The core gameplay of Katamari Damacy is the subject of U.S. Patent 7,402,104, "Game performing method, game apparatus, storage medium, data signal and program". The patent, issued in 2009, primarily describes how the game maintains the roughly spherical nature of the katamari when objects are picked up, though extends to concepts such as tracking objects collected based on temperature or weight values, which were modes included with later games of

3075-503: The concept, further adding a way to reuse the King and Prince characters he had previously proposed, who also agreed it would make for a great game. However, as Takahashi was in Namco's art department and not in game design, there was no easy route for him to propose this idea to Namco's superiors. Ozaki suggested a novel approach for Takahashi through the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory. At

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3150-429: The cost of most major titles at the time. Namco had estimated that the game would sell over 500,000 units in Japan during its first year, and while the game did not make that metric, it had stayed as one of the top ten games sold in Japan through its first nine weeks on the market, with more than 100,000 units sold during that period, which was considered impressive for a new intellectual property . The public reaction to

3225-427: The first major Katamari title to be released for a non- PlayStation console, as well as the first to support high-definition television resolutions of 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. While initially planned for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 , the former version was canceled. PlayStation 3 gamers had to wait until 2009 for a Katamari game. Katamari Forever was mostly a compilation of levels from previous games, with

3300-565: The game A͈L͈P͈H͈A͈B͈E͈T͈ with a custom controller. In July 2022, Takahashi announced a new game project, entitled "to a T". Katamari Damacy Katamari Damacy ( lit.   ' Clump Spirit ' ) is a third-person puzzle-action video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2 . It was released in Japan in March 2004 and later in North America in September. Designer Keita Takahashi struggled to pitch

3375-460: The game 8.5 out of ten with his EGM staff), argue that the game's limitations, such as having "basically ... the same" objective in each level, are made up by its strengths, like "elegant" controls, its soundtrack, and "wicked" humor. As a well-executed, non-traditional game, Katamari Damacy has been influential in the game development community. Since its release, a number of other games have been inspired by Katamari , such as The Wonderful End of

3450-421: The game to Namco's superiors, eventually seeking student aid from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory to develop the project for less than US$ 1 million. As director, Takahashi emphasized concepts of novelty, ease of understanding, and enjoyment. The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars , constellations , and Moon , which were inadvertently destroyed by his father,

3525-577: The game was acclaimed by critics, and was mentioned and praised on TechTV , and was a featured sidebar in the May 2004 edition of Time magazine. Time continued to praise the game in its November 2004 "Best games of the year" special, calling it "the most unusual and original game" for PlayStation 2. Most retailers underestimated the demand for such a quirky game, and only purchased a few copies of this sleeper hit ; it rapidly sold out nationwide, with sales surpassing 120,000 units in North America. It also won

3600-670: The game was positive enough that Namco ordered a sequel by December 2004. At this point, Namco had not considered any Western release for the game. Katamari Damacy was first shown in the United States at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop during the March 2004 Game Developers Conference . A group of Western developers from the International Game Developers Association had previously brought Mojib-Ribbon to

3675-537: The game, Katamari Damacy Reroll , was released on Windows and Nintendo Switch in December 2018, on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2020, and on Google Stadia in September 2021. In a drunken stupor, an eccentric, god-like entity called the King of All Cosmos destroys all the stars, Earth's Moon and other such celestial bodies in the universe, save for Earth itself. Despite acknowledging his mistake,

3750-446: The game. The other is a "Royal Present", which, after obtaining, may be used as an accessory for The Prince or cousins. The games keep record of every item rolled up, and players may view them in a book, which shows specific categories of items and the percentage showing how complete the catalog for each category. Two players may play cooperatively or competitively together; in the cooperative mode, players are tasked with sharing control of

3825-415: The katamari if it is smaller than them; once the katamari reaches a certain size, the creature may run away from the large katamari that could pick them up. If the katamari is only barely able to pick a creature up, the player along with the katamari will be knocked away; if the creature is not rolled up in time, the creature will run off and escape. If players are attacked or crash into walls or large objects,

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3900-447: The katamari rolls until more objects are picked up. Animals such as cats will chase the katamari, knocking things from it, but once the katamari is great enough, it will scare the animals away, and they can be rolled up once they are chased down. As objects stick to the katamari, the katamari will grow, eventually allowing objects that were once hurdles to be picked up, and creating access to areas that were formerly blocked. In this manner,

3975-411: The katamari will lose items. If players roll up a long, slender object such as a pencil, the object will sometimes poke outwards out of the katamari and cause the katamari to roll awkwardly until more objects are rolled up. In more recent games, players can hit a glowing pillar that causes all items close to the katamari that are small enough to be sucked into it. As players reach certain size milestones,

4050-516: The player as a young girl traverse floating islands of various homes connected by power lines. The game, though never released, gave Takahashi the idea that the ordinary world could be made interesting with only small changes to perception, and that a game could be fun without the need to cause violence. The second idea was from the game of tamakorogashi played in Japanese school's undōkai or sports days . In tamakorogashi , students attempt to push

4125-449: The player character, The Prince, as he is ordered to do various tasks by his father, the King of All Cosmos . In Katamari Damacy , The Prince is tasked with the job of rebuilding the stars and constellations that the King destroyed. To do this, the player combines as many objects into a singular ball, known as a katamari ball, that could become a star, constellations, or stardust. A katamari ball can roll up certain objects, depending on

4200-416: The player comes into contact with them, while greater objects can be hurdles; colliding at high speed with any may cause objects to fall off the katamari, slowing the player's progress. The game uses size, weight, and surface area to determine if an object will stick to the katamari. This allows slender objects, such as pencils, that are longer than the katamari is wide, to be picked up, and these will alter how

4275-463: The player might start the game by picking up thumbtacks and ants, and slowly work up to the point where the katamari is picking up buildings, mountains, and clouds. The typical mission given by the King of All Cosmos is the "Make a Star" mode, where the player needs to grow the katamari to a specific size within a given time frame. Other missions have more specific collecting rules, such as collecting as many items (swans, crabs, pairs) as possible within

4350-556: The previous Nintendo 64 console. Thus, Takahashi's team decided to develop for the GameCube for their prototype even though the final game was expected to be a PlayStation 2 release. In creating the prototype, Takahashi had envisioned that while the ball the player rolled around would grow as they rolled over objects, it would also shrink if they collided with obstacles and lost objects from it. This would have been tied to an interactive music track, which would have started off simple with

4425-455: The publisher. One of these was called Action Drive , inspired by Crazy Taxi but with more spy-based elements atop the driving gameplay. During this, Takahashi came up with the ideas of the characters that would be central to Katamari Damacy : the King, the Queen, and the Prince of all Cosmos. His idea would have been that the queen had been kidnapped by agents on Earth, and the lazy King sends

4500-557: The same mechanics, We Love Katamari introduces new gameplay features, such as co-operative play, and new goals, such as collecting the most valuable objects, that would continue through its sequels. On July 29, 2012, the game was included in an exhibit at the New York Museum of Modern Art , entitled "Century of the Child: Growing by Design". Here, the game was used to demonstrate the change in toys and "playthings" over

4575-508: The same year, the game was included in the permanent collection of video games of the Museum of Modern Art. Curator Paola Antonelli selected Katamari Damacy among the first fourteen games to be displayed in the museum, which was chosen according to a variety of criteria, including "visual quality, elegance of the code and design of playing behavior". A high-definition remaster of the game made with Unity , titled Katamari Damacy Reroll ,

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4650-514: The series. The music in Katamari Damacy was widely hailed as imaginative and original (winning both IGN 's and GameSpot 's "Soundtrack of the Year 2004" awards) and was considered one of the game's best features. The soundtrack was released in Japan as Katamari Fortissimo Damacy . Its eclectic composition featured elements of traditional electronic video game music, as well as heavy jazz and samba influences ( Shibuya-kei ). Most of

4725-412: The time it took to reach the required size; if they only barely exceeded the required size, the king criticizes the player and tells them to do better; if they manage to exceed it by a significant enough margin, the king praises the player. If it is the players' first completion of the level, the King will automatically transform it into a star; if it is not, they are asked if they would like to turn it into

4800-747: The time, Namco had been following in the model that Konami had used in 1997: Konami established the Konami Computer Entertainment School to help educate new game developers which were eventually hired in Konami, and several of the experimental ideas founded by the School during this time became products within the Konami Games & Music Division (later, Bemani ) that were highly successful, including Beatmania , GuitarFreaks , and Dance Dance Revolution . Namco hoped

4875-522: The tracks were composed by Yuu Miyake , and many feature vocals from popular J-pop singers, such as Yui Asaka from the Sukeban Deka 3 TV series, and anime voice actors , including Nobue Matsubara and Ado Mizumori. One track is sung and written by Charlie Kosei , composer of the Lupin III soundtrack. A single-level demonstration of the final version of Katamari Damacy was exhibited at

4950-571: The week of its release with 32,000 units sold, and sold over 155,000 copies in Japan by the end of 2004. However, Namco originally estimated that over 500,000 units would be sold in Japan. The game was not released in PAL territories such as Europe and Australia since publishers thought it was too "quirky" for these markets; Electronic Arts picked up both sequels, We Love Katamari and Me & My Katamari , for release in Europe. In North America

5025-483: Was a surprise hit and was praised for its quirkiness, originality, and charm. Takahashi is married to pianist and composer Asuka Sakai, who has worked with Takahashi on various projects. In an interview, Takahashi announced that he hopes to eventually move on from video games, with an ambition of designing a playground for children. On October 28, 2009, the Nottingham City Council announced during

5100-535: Was announced that he was joining Tiny Speck 's Vancouver team, working on Glitch . After the game shuttered in December 2012, he moved to San Francisco . In early 2019, the Telfair Museum ran an exhibition at the Jepson Center entitled "Keita Takahashi: Zooming Out", featuring various elements of Takahashi's work. Takahashi worked on designing the exhibits, which included a playable version of

5175-541: Was built from the ground-up to support 3D graphics via the Emotion Engine . However, Sony had not provided any updated software development kits , believing that developers would be able to figure out the hardware. As a result, the console was difficult to develop for at its launch. In contrast, Nintendo had recently announced the GameCube and that it would provide more developer-friendly features in contrast to

5250-504: Was completed within about six months, in time for the year's Japan Media Arts Festival for exhibition. Takahashi also presented the game for an internal review, leading Namco to green light the game's full development. Full work on Katamari Damacy began in late 2001. Namco assigned Now Production , based in Osaka , to help bring the game to the PlayStation 2. Takahashi was initially concerned about having to work with an external studio in

5325-413: Was fortunate to find that some of the engineers from Namco's arcade game division were going to be laid off, and he was able to convince three of them to join his team to retain their jobs within Namco. One initial difficulty faced in developing the prototype was their choice of platform, the PlayStation 2 . At the time the project started, Sony had just announced the specifications for the console, which

5400-575: Was made in 2006 for the PlayStation Portable titled Me & My Katamari , which used a different scenario and different gameplay which required players to utilize the d-pad or analog nub and the face buttons in absence of the dual analog sticks used in most Katamari games. In 2007, the first mobile version of Katamari was released, Katamari Damacy Mobile . The phone game utilizes both tilt controls as well as more traditional controls. Another sequel, Beautiful Katamari , marked

5475-476: Was never officially released in Europe, though its subsequent sequels would receive European releases. In the Japanese language , Katamari ( 塊 ) means "clump" or "clod" and Damashii is the rendaku form of tamashii ( 魂 ) which means "soul" or "spirit". Therefore, the phrase approximates to "clump spirit". The two kanji that form the name look similar (sharing the same right-side element 鬼 ), in

5550-494: Was ranked 49th on The Guardian newspaper's The 50 Best Video Games of the 21st Century list. Although the game has rapidly achieved a cult following and has been praised by many reviewers, it also has its share of criticism. A common complaint is that the game is relatively short and repetitive—it can be completed in under ten hours, and the gameplay stays virtually the same all the way through. However, others, such as Electronic Gaming Monthly reviewer Mark McDonald (who gave

5625-759: Was released on the Nintendo Switch and Windows on December 7, 2018. Known as Katamari Damacy Encore in Japan, it is the first title in Bandai Namco Entertainment 's Encore series of remasters. The game includes support for the Switch's gyro controls in addition to its traditional control scheme. Reroll was nominated for the Freedom Tower Award for Best Remake at the 2020 New York Game Awards. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were released in Japan on November 19, and worldwide on November 20, 2020. A version for Amazon Luna

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