The original Katamari Damacy is a PlayStation game that feels like a first-party Nintendo game. Released in 2004 for the PS2, the premise is simple: Roll the sticky ball to make it bigger. With cheerful papercraft graphics that nod to both the low-poly era and traditional origami, exploring the adorable environments is a big part of the fun. The first new console game in the series in 14 years, Once Upon a Katamari wisely doesn’t seek to reinvent the formula that made the original games so memorable. The core experience is still “roll ball, make ball big.” Only this time around, there’s so much more to see.
The framing narrative here is cute enough to add quirk and texture to the world without overstaying its welcome. The leggy himbo King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys the Earth and stars during a frenzy of cleaning up his house. Now it’s up to you, the little green prince with a head like a sideways salami, to travel through time armed with your sticky Katamari ball and regather the universe’s history to restore the night sky. Roll ball, make ball big.
Once Upon a Katamari’s biggest selling point is the huge number of kooky stages on offer. You’ll eventually get access to 10 distinct maps, each of which is themed around a different historical period and setting: Edo Japan, the American Frontier, and the Jurassic Era are among the early ones. Each map has several stages that riff on that time period’s theme. For instance, the Frontier map features gold mines, a saloon, and an entire stage dedicated to gathering a variety of colorful tumbleweeds.
After you clear a given stage, you’ll open up new challenges for each one: time trials, collecting a specific type of object, or making your Katamari huge by using as few items as possible. Timed runs are the most common, and it’s here that the core gameplay loop really shines. You start out as just a wee little guy, able to roll up tiny objects like dice and mahjong tiles. You’ll bump off anything larger, so you have to weave a path among smaller things. Eventually, you’ll notice something is no longer too big for you. Over the course of a five- to 10-minute stage, you gradually progress, steadily picking up larger and larger objects. The world around you begins to shrink as you grow, and there’s a tipping point where momentum takes hold. The last minute or so is pure mayhem: a siren wails the final countdown as you absorb a T-Rex and a tree into your ever-growing clump, adding as much to your mass as you can manage in the fleeting final moments.
The gameplay loop may be largely unchanged, but the variety and creativity of the environments really stands out compared to the remasters of the PS2 games, 2018’s Katamari Damacy Reroll and 2024’s We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie. Every moment of Once Upon a Katamari is a visual delight, full of clever detail and weird little guys to bump into (and eventually absorb). Low-poly eels with underbites, cowboys who flail their unjointed stick-limbs as you engulf them, halved watermelons arranged in the shape of a daisy — this is why you play a Katamari game.
While much here is familiar, this latest installment adds new elements to the mix, with varying results. On the plus side, Once Upon a Katamari features two control schemes. The “original” controls use both the left and right joysticks simultaneously for more of a tank-style steering experience. It has a slightly steeper learning curve but offers a bit more precision once you get the hang of it. (Honestly, I imagine it’s included because a small but vocal group of longtime fans would complain if it was removed.)
For most players, the “simple” controls using only the left stick will feel most intuitive, though you’ll be tempted to waggle the right stick to change your perspective. There is no way to independently move the camera, which takes a bit of getting used to. Instead, the right stick will move your avatar around the circumference of the Katamari to change its trajectory. The friction of fixed perspective is a fun little reminder of the series’ early ‘00s roots — we’ve all gotten very comfortable having mostly unfettered control of a game’s camera!
Freebies are another new addition to Once Upon a Katamari. These are Mario Kart-style power-ups that can give you a temporary boost: a magnet draws nearby objects toward you, a stopwatch pauses the countdown, and so on. There’s a lot of potential in this addition to the formula, but each perk expires so quickly that you barely get a chance to take advantage of it. It’s as if the devs wanted to mix things up, but were overly cautious of making the game too easy. It’s a missed opportunity, with every freebie becoming a reminder of that stingy timer. It doesn’t diminish the experience, but it doesn’t add a whole lot either.
All the Katamari games have a collect-a-thon element to them, usually in the form of additional player avatars (or “cousins”), unlockable music tracks, and cosmetic items that don’t affect gameplay. Once Upon a Katamari takes this a bit too far by adding a Mario-esque collectible element in the form of hidden crowns. Each stage has three of them, and you’ll need to collect them in order to unlock new maps and stages, which grinds the giddy thrill of exploration to a halt and replaces it with obligatory box-ticking exercises. It adds “replay value” in a brute-force way that feels more dated than nostalgic. (I realize this is a perfectly normal thing for games to do, but here, it grates.) I’d recommend Once Upon a Katamari anyway, but I’d do so far more enthusiastically if more of the maps and stages were available to you right from the start. Just let me look at all the cute stuff, man!
With the holidays coming up, Once Upon a Katamari is a great way to wile away those long days of couch confinement with the whole family. The gated progression stuff is annoying, there’s no way around it. But if you’re the type of person who enjoys games for the vibes, the vibes are immaculate here. It lures you in by seeming to be a casual, pick-up-and-play experience. Then all of a sudden, it’s six hours later and you’re standing directly in front of your TV rolling up squids and jellyfish in the dark. Roll ball, make ball big.
Once Upon a Katamari will be released Oct. 24 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 using a prerelease download code provided by Bandai Namco. You can find additional information about viraltrendingcontent’s ethics policy here.
