Roll 'em up, Roll 'em out!
So let's talk about Katamari Damacy.
K.D. (as we'll refer to it from now on) is a video game from Namco. It's what's known as a "Japanese niche market game"; which means that it's a game that's done well in Nippon but isn't expected to sell well overseas except to freaky Otaku-types. In K.D.'s case, "niche market" is about the only way anyone could hope to explain the game.
It is not a "fighter" or an "RPG" or a "side scroller" or a "shooter". It's something entirely weird and new; SO weird and new that it demands it's own genre.
In K.D. you are a little prince. Your father is the "King of All the Cosmos", effectively "big 'G'" God. Pappy done went on a bender and destroyed all the stars in the sky and it's your responsibility as the true heir to go out and recreate them. How does a little prince do this? With a Katamari, of course! A Katamari is a sticky ball with suckercup prongs that your little prince rolls around on the ground. Everything below a certain size that your little ball comes into contact with sticks to the Katamari. Although you and your Katamari start out at only a few centimeters tall, as you acquire paperclips and thumbtacks and pencils and butterflies your Katamari swells in size to the point where you can roll over and pick up bowls and cans then mice and shoes then shirts and cats then tvs and chairs and tables and sofas and refrigerators and ovens and people and fences and cars and trucks and streetlamps and... well, exponential growth means that by the end of the game you're sweeping up whole islands with a deft roll of the Katamari. If you've rolled up a big enough ball of stuff within your time limit for the given stage, The King of All the Cosmos transmogrifies the Katamari into a star and then you go back to Earth to make a bigger star and a bigger one and so on.
It's bizarre but simple and intuitive; a beautifully realized game that's funny and addictive. It also achieves the unlikely goal of being a "girl game"; the women I've introduced to it were long time non-gamers (one of them had never picked up a Playstation joystick) but they were quickly hooked. On top of all that, the music in the game is GREAT. It's catchy, funky j-pop. It's also creative Aphex-like electronic that recalls Clockwork Orange's synth-classical. It's ALSO tongue in cheek balladry of the intensely silly variety.
Here's a few tracks to whet your whistle:
1: "Nananan Katamari" (Game Theme)
Upon booting up the game, this is the first sounds you'll hear are the mumbled echoes of K.D.'s recurrent theme. Eminently memorable and very Dokaka-esque.
2: "Getsu to Oji" featuring Kenji Niinuma (Stage Two Theme) The glitchy hook, drum and scratch breakdown and the hip-pop chanting of Kenji make "Getsu to Oji" a sweet and mellow rider's theme.
3: "Lonely Rolling Star" featuring Saki Kabata (Stage Four Theme) Syrupy sweet J-Pop done right. Saki Kabata's Hello Kitty voice is warm and friendly enough to melt even the most icy and obdurate heart; the 'Nananan' theme at the end really tied the whole room together.
4: "Tenshifuumi no Okurimono (Stage Seven Theme) Tinny twisted guitar over vocoder hook/angellic choir + yo-yo bassline and synth chirps + drum machine cadence marching-as-to-war alongside rolling snowball build up to Orbital echo chamber finish = teh B3st vid30 gam3 trakk EVAR.
Explore the official (and bizarre) Katamari Damacy English website. - Buy the game from Electronics Boutique. Just 20 bucks! PS2 only, tho'. - Listen to a few more tracks from K.D. at Namco's official K.D. Japanese website. - Buy the soundtrack from CD Japan. Would you believe the game itself is cheaper?