KING ME: TRY PS3 COLLECTION KATAMARI FOREVER FROM HOME

7.20.2009

Comic-Con isn’t the only place where you can get your hands and head around the PlayStation 3’s forthcoming Katamari Forever collection: yesterday, a demo of the game went live on Japan’s local PlayStation Network Store, which, you’ll be pleased to hear, is actually quite a bit easier to access than you’d imagine.

The two level demo contains one two-minute corner store challenge, which sees you very traditionally rolling up a hyperactive sugar-rushed child’s dreamscape of sweets and toys, but the demo’s other level is a bit more left-field.

Here your task is to carry bath-house water across a barren desertscape and convert it, square meter by square meter, into a lush Eden-esque garden, constantly returning to the source to refill your liquid reserves.

Both levels prove an essential and inescapable truth: what Katamari was, Katamari still will be. What has always worked with the franchise: its cubist world/singularly outstanding soundtrack/continual sense of accomplishment and restored order set against the somehow politely chaotic aggressiveness you’re actually inflicting on the world all remain intact, and, as seen so far, the game appears to want to offer you little more to distract you from that which you already expect. Which is to say, it’s basically unassailably perfect at being more Katamari.

While you’re there (or at Hong Kong’s own local PSN Store), be sure to also pick up the celebratory Katamari meets Noby PS3 theme, which, in true Takahashi style, playfully reduces the usual visual distinctions of other PS3 desktop themes into one, flat, cardboard-drawn set of overlapping, indistinguishable pencil scribbles.

Katamari Tribute is out now in Japan and via the usual import shops, and is due for release in the rest of the world in September.

Previously: