After hearing the amount of praise Once Upon a Katamari got, I thought it was a case of "there hadn't been a brand new game in so long and there weren't any clones of it either therefore it's good". Surprisingly, the game manages to breathe new life into the series. I didn't think it was even possible especially after a playing a game like Katamari Forever but I was in shock by how enjoyable this experience was.
There's a new time travel element now which now gives the developers an excuse to go all kinds of new and wacky places. You got Edo Japan, the Wild West, Ancient Greece and Egypt, and the Ice Age to name a couple.
New power ups like magnetizing nearby materials if they are smaller or your size, moving faster and slow motion are also new additions and they can definitely help out during the longer stages especially when used strategically and not spamming them.
What I like that this game had over We Love Katamari and this could be a me thing but I enjoy the gimmick stages a lot more this time. Time time limits are much more strict and the roll up requirements isn't as leinent when compared to that game.
I always felt Katamari was at it's best when there is a "just right" in terms of challenge and it isn't completely mindless. Which is what the first game did well and We Love lacked.
Once Upon is more along the lines of the former due to what I mentioned earlier.
Add that with time travel element and it's the best Katamari since the first game.
In just one world alone you are rolling drinks, tumbleweeds, and gold. In another you are rolling up mummies and coffins. Once Upon a Katamari always finds new ways to be over the top and wacky.
The addition of "simple" controls I also liked. It can be weird playing a Katamari game with this control set but it can feel natural once I got used to it.
Going through all this made me realize what I liked so much about Katamari in the first place. Time limits can be an iffy topic in games but Katamari especially when it's about rolling up to a certain amount to pass a level handles it so well.
The series personifies the idea of "the whole world is your oyster". Every level starts as you feeling like you have to be careful and not roll around the level mindlessly or else you will get smacked around all over the map. The more you roll up and the more efficiently you do it, the more your ball will grow and slowly but surely the easier the level gets. However a first time or someone not overly familar with the maps can capture that fantasy of rolling up anything for a fleeting for seconds maybe a minute or two at most.
It's what made Make the Moon from the first game so memorable. This all captured very well in Once Upon a Katamari even if you can't replicate that specific moment again due to it not being as novel.
The only issues I can knock towards it is that The King of the Cosmos can talk too much and feels intrusive especially when you are in the middle of rolling and want him to hurry up and stop talking and get back to gameplay. So it's mashing the x button like no tomorrow when he pops up.
The additon of having to collect clowns to unlock more levels can feel a bit like padding luckily most of them are easy to find and you don't need high scores to unlock them so it's not an issue that really gets in the way.
If there is one addition from Katamari Forever that was in this game is jumping. Magnetizing up walls generally works fine but adding a jump could add a bit more depth to the verticality especially when getting out of tight spots or wanting to climb up higher on a wall much faster epescially considering you are playing on a time limit in the stages.
Overall, I was surprised as a whole, Once Upon a Katamari is the best game in this series since the first one. Never thought there could've been any life left in what was supposed to be a just a standalone game but I was wrong.
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