KATAMARI ROLLS ONTO IPHONE
Namco Bandai, it seems, is keen on wholly unannounced surprises. Like the sudden re-emergence of the entirely obscure Mr. Driller spinoff Star Trigon for the iPod, the publisher has quietly released a tilt-sensitive port of Katamari Damacy for the iPhone.
I Love Katamari is necessarily downsized from its console and handheld big brothers, but fully 3D (as opposed to the isometric mobile version) and every bit as warmly familiar. Each of the game’s five stages is split into four separate modes: a story mode in which the King requests a single item to be rolled (which unlocks subsequent levels), a time attack to roll as much as you can within the limit, an exact size mode to roll to a perfect fit, and an eternal mode which lets you freely roll however you’d like.
It’s safe to say, though, that the iPhone struggles mightily under the weight of your pile of collections, though a reboot and a quick switch to Airplane mode seemed to bring it a bit more under control. And, even moreso than Sega’s Super Monkey Ball, there’s a very pronounced acclimation period before your dual-analog brain lets go of that need for precision and lets your hands do the work (even still, there were moments when my whole body contorted hoping to squeeze just an ounce more torque out of the device).
But what it does do right is recapture the harrowing anxiety of the originals. I’ve yet to finish a level with more than 25 or 30 seconds on the clock, which leads me to believe that all my backward bends are exactly to design. Creator Keita Takahashi may have put the series behind him years ago, but there’s still a part of me very happy to have it in my hands again.
I Love Katamari [iTunes link]
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
