Personality and fun
Welcome to the world of Me and My Katamari. Katamari is an absurd game, but one with a lot of personality and fun packed in. You'll be tasked with rolling the aforementioned sticky ball around, bringing destruction to everything in your path. Your goal is to create as large a Katamari as possible, but your Katamari is only capable of rolling up objects smaller than it, so you must think when deciding what to roll up. As you roll up smaller objects, your Katamari gets bigger, capable of progressing from the size of a penny to the size of an island over the course of a level. While the controls are a bit clunky on the PSP, after an hour or so with the game, you'll comfortable using the face buttons in combination with the analog stick to steer your Katamari. While it works, this control scheme is far from ideal, and is a large problem that holds the game back.
The game tasks you with creating Katamari's for animals, generally of one type of object. A polar bear, for example, might ask for a cold Katamari, leading you to roll up milkshakes and snowmen. Once your Katamari is complete, the King of All Cosmos, your guide throughout the game, will turn it into an island for the animal to dwell on. Each of these tasks is about 5- 15 minutes long, perfect for on-the-go gaming. However, gamers looking for a deeper experience shouldn't worry, there are more than enough of these challenges to keep you amused for a while.
The series trademark visual style fits on the PSP with ease, and looks great doing it. Solid surfaces of one color, blocky people and bright colors are all at home within the world of Katamari. However, the small screen on the PSP can sometimes be a pain, as the whimsical King of All Cosmos says on the loading screen: "Screen too small... not enough room..." Luckily, this problem rarely rears it's head, and most of the time you'll be amazed at what you see on screen. In complement to the wacky visual style, Katamari has made a very rare move: It opted to keep the original Japanese soundtrack instead of localizing it with English music. This is a virtue though, not a vice, because the Japanese music goes perfectly with the games irreverent tone. Those of you who have played previous Katamari titles will feel right at home here.
With manageable controls, a great visual style, memorable music and characters, Me and My Katamari is a great videogame. Even when you've exhausted all the main quests in the game, you can still go questing for unlockable "cousins" to play as, or accessories to make your character look even sillier than he already does. Me and My Katamari is the perfect example of what a console to handheld franchise should be: maintaining all the great aspects of the original, while adding to and optimizing the experience.
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