Namco Bandai Editor's Day: Katamari Forever
We showed you a sneak peek at the new Katamari game, Katamari Forever earlier today and now we can finally give you some details!
Katamari Forever is going to be debuting exclusively on the PS3 and will be presented in full 1080p. Right off the bat I noticed how crisp and nice everything looked with its new cel-shaded art style and slightly more muted color scheme.
The story goes as such: The King of the Cosmos has been knocked out and now has a sort of amnesia. Most of the game takes place inside his subconscious as the Prince and his cousins work to help the King regain his memory. Player's favorite levels from past games have been recreated and given a twist in this portion of the game. Two levels we saw were Make a Star 1 from the original Katamari Damacy and the Gingerbread House level from We Love Katamari.
In the second part of the game, with the King unconscious, the Prince and his cousins relieve their need of a father figure by constructing a Robot King. Upon awakening, RoboKing short circuits and smashes all the planets and the Prince must help roll them all back up again. In this area, we saw an all new level that had the Prince not rolling things up, but turning things green and flowery. Think Flower a la Katamari. As you roll around the brown dirt level, your katamari sprinkles water on it leaving green grass, flowers and butterflies in its path. But you can't just roll around willy nilly, oh no. That would be too easy. Your katamari can only hold a certain amount of water and you must find a water source to refill it after you run out. Katamari Forever will include over thirty levels, some old and some new although we couldn't get an exact ratio.
Two new features of the PS3 version are the "Prince Hop" and a sort of "Vaccuum" power up. The "Prince Hop" takes advantage of the Sixxaxis controls allowing you to flick your controller upwards which causes your katamari to jump up to higher levels without waiting to get to a certain size. The "vacuum" power up comes on the form of a special lighted heart on the level. Once you roll through it, your katamari will suck items up from further away for a limited amount of time, allowing you to grow bigger at a faster rate if you play your cards right.
As with previous Katamari games, you will be rewarded with points for completing the King's lofty goals. These points can be traded in to unlock visual filters including a wood grain mode, comic effect and classic mode. Additionally, The crazy cousins will make a return to the game which will feature over 50 of the lovable little weirdos. At this time there is no talk of any DLC, but of course we've heard this before...
Katamari Forever is set to roll into your hearts this fall.
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 29 April 2009
· Comments (4)
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I love Katamari & have them all except the PSP version. I just hope they don't mess up this one like they did Beautiful. Short game then the rest comes from DLC.
I know it sounds ungrateful, but I really think this look lacks the charm of the original. And I usually love graphical upgrades.
@edeo: I understand what you're saying. Perhaps the Classic Mode visual filter will help with that, but I guess we won't know until some screenshots of the various filters are released.
Not another cheap katamari cash in. This is just a port of the terrible xbox 360 version with more features (it actually is).
Ever since the creator left after the second game they have never been able to capture the magic of the first 2 titles, nor have the same excellent level design.