Second Look - Beautiful Katamari (+ DLC)

As the Katamari series continued to show success, a new console game was made following the handheld Me & My Katamari. In a departure from previous titles which were on the PlayStation family of systems, this new game, Beautiful Katamari, was released exclusively for the Xbox 360; the intent was to go multiplatform, however only the Xbox 360 version ever got made. After mainly sticking with the PlayStation line for the longest time, since it has most of the games I want to play, Beautiful Katamari was on my radar when I finally branched out to the Xbox systems, and so I played it once I got the chance. At the time, I did not buy the DLC, which I would later check off my shopping list when the Xbox 360 store was shutting down, but I would not revisit the game again until the announcement of the upcoming Once Upon A Katamari.

As of this writing, I have yet to resolve some issues I have been having with my Xbox 360, so it was fortunate that I was able to play this game again, DLC included, on the Xbox Series X as part of the backwards compatibility program, though I will admit to playing with a DualSense through a converter to make it more comfortable for me to play. On my most recent playthrough, I liked it more than I remembered, though my feelings remain mixed.

While the Royal Family is on vacation, the King of All Cosmos accidentally hits a tennis serve hard enough to create a black hole. Fortunately, the King manages to plug it up before it could suck everything up in the cosmos. With the Earth having survived, the Prince is tasked with rolling up new celestial bodies to replace what was lost.

While the core gameplay loop remains the same, there are some differences. Generally, the game takes more after the original Katamari Damacy, with the King giving you tasks based on locations you visit in the Princedom, the Prince’s personal playground created by the King. However, rather than having multiple planets or islands to go between, every section of the Princedom is interconnected and collected Cousins freely roam about rather than having their own area, which can make it either easier to swap or harder to avoid swapping depending on their positioning. Much like the original game, however, celestial bodies made on a replay replace your previous result, with no option to make it into something else as in the previous two entries. The levels themselves don’t really reinvent the wheel, but the even grander scale in the late game compared with even the first makes it stand out more.

 

Finding English screencaps was surprisingly difficult.

 

In a first for the series, this game features DLC, which as of this writing remains available for purchase. There are 38 pieces of DLC in all, most of which simply unlock things early, however there are 7 in particular that are full levels with their own unique challenges. Important to note is the distinction that these are not required to complete the game, but they are required to 100% the game, including Achievements, since several Cousins and cosmetics can only be found in these levels. While I am not a fan of this business model, they do still provide some variety and extra playtime. As such, I will provide a list of the DLC to get, along with their official descriptions from the Xbox Store:

- High-calorie Katamari - "Collect lots of food to make Cetus the Whale."

- Milky Way Constellations - "Roll up all 88 constellations to make the Milky Way."

- Shopping Spree - "Be a thrifty shopper and go on a shopping spree to make a Space Station."

- The Weaver Girl - "Collect lots of string and yarn to make the Weaver Girl, Vega."

- Perfectly Sized Katamari - "Make a katamari of just the right size as requested by the King."

- Dangerous Katamari - "Collect lots of dangerous objects to make Scorpius."

- Mechanical Katamari - "Collect lots of mechanical objects to make Antlia."

The game retains the series’ signature visual style, updated from the PS2 era to take advantage of Xbox 360 hardware. As such, even today, it’s impressive just how smooth the game runs. Coming off of Me & My Katamari, the game also has better draw distance, in which objects will fade in as you approach them rather than suddenly popping into existence. The sound design is also a good mixture of novelty and familiarity, while the soundtrack features an all-new assortment of songs that still feel in line with previous games.

If you’ve played the PlayStation entries prior to this game, Beautiful Katamari presents more of the same (whether this is good or bad depends on who you ask). If not, this is a solid entry point for Xbox fans next to the Xbox version of Katamari Damacy Reroll.