Katamari Damacy

RETRO NEWS

Happy Friday, retro friends. Crix here. Less than two weeks away from Mashed Potatoes Day! You excited yet? I haven’t had carbs in almost two months, so I can’t wait.

Today's retro news brings us a little game preservation, some arcade racing, and a rare Sega classic getting another chance.

Nintendo of America is hiring a digital archivist to help document and preserve its gaming history, a job that sounds like a dream for anyone who grew up surrounded by Nintendo consoles and games.

Meanwhile, Seibu Kaihatsu's 1985 motorcycle racer Shot Rider is joining Arcade Archives, giving another obscure arcade title a second life on modern hardware.

And finally, Retro-Bit is bringing Twinkle Tale, the rare 1992 Sega Mega Drive action shooter, back to physical cartridges. Original copies have become expensive collector's items over the years, so this new release should be welcome news for Sega fans who would rather play the game than take out a second mortgage to own it.

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PRESS START

An Introduction To Today’s Game

Imagine waking up after a night of drinking to discover you accidentally destroyed every star in the sky. Oh, and the Moon. Oops.

Enter the King of All Cosmos. His solution is to send his five-centimeter-tall son to Earth with a sticky ball and tell him to clean up the mess.

Umm, okay. How exactly is that supposed to bring back the stars and the moon?

Welcome to Katamari Damacy, a 2004 PlayStation 2 game that might have one of the strangest premises ever conceived. You play as the tiny Prince, whose job is to roll up anything and everything he can find until his collection of earthly junk is big enough to become a star.

It sounds completely ridiculous, and it is. But that's the charm. If weirdness was a game, it’s this. Let’s go!

BEHIND THE PIXELS

Let’s Dive Into The Game

The beauty of Katamari Damacy is how quickly all this nonsense starts making sense. You begin with a tiny sticky ball called a katamari, rolling around kitchen floors and collecting things like paper clips, candy, and thumbtacks.

Every object that sticks to your ball makes it a little bigger, which means you can start collecting bigger things. Suddenly, you're picking up pencils, books, and chairs. Before long, you're terrorizing the local wildlife, rolling up screaming pedestrians, and eventually swallowing entire buildings.

There's something wonderfully satisfying about returning to an area where everything was once too big and realizing you can now collect the whole neighborhood.

The controls take some getting used to. Both analog sticks work together, almost like steering a tank.

Push them forward to roll, move them in opposite directions to turn, and prepare to spend your first few minutes crashing into furniture. Your katamari also becomes increasingly awkward as objects stick out at strange angles. Pick up something long, like a pencil, and suddenly your beautiful ball handles like a shopping cart with a broken wheel.

Crash into something too big, and pieces of your collection go flying. It's frustrating at times, but watching your enormous ball of junk tumble through town never really gets old.

Meanwhile, the King has plenty to say about your performance. Remember, this is the guy who caused the whole disaster, yet he's constantly criticizing his son for not making a big enough ball.

Most missions have you reaching a certain size before time runs out, while others ask you to collect specific things, like crabs or swans, to rebuild constellations.

You can also discover hidden royal presents to dress up the Prince, find his equally bizarre cousins, and unlock Eternal stages that remove the time limit.

There's even a two-player mode where you compete to build the biggest katamari in three minutes.

And we haven't even talked about the presentation. Everything looks like it was pulled from a colorful toy box, with blocky characters, goofy animations, and some wonderfully strange object designs.

Then there's the soundtrack, featuring an infectious mix of Japanese pop, jazz, and other oddball tunes, with Yuu Miyake leading the musical madness. It's catchy, cheerful, and completely unlike what you'd expect from a game about cleaning up a cosmic disaster. It’s pretty epic and there’s a few earworms that will be stuck in your head for days after.

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GAME INFORMATION

WHERE TO PLAY

• Katamari Damacy Reroll was released on modern systems in 2018.

• Original Copies of the Game (All prices in USD)

  • Loose: $12

  • Complete: $17

  • New/Sealed: $27

COVER ART

GAME OVER

Why You Should Play This

If all this sounds like you're kind of weird, there's good news. Katamari Damacy Reroll brought the original game to Switch and PC in 2018, followed by PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2020. It cleaned up the visuals, recreated the cutscenes, and even introduced optional motion controls for Switch players.

It's also a fairly short adventure. You can finish the main game in under ten hours, although there's plenty of fun to be had replaying stages and seeing just how much stuff you can cram onto one ball. If you fall in love with the madness, there's also We Love Katamari Reroll, a remaster of the sequel, and Once Upon a Katamari, which arrived in October 2025. I recently ordered all 3 and can’t wait to fully play the entire series. 

What I love about Katamari Damacy is that it never seems particularly interested in explaining itself. There's a gigantic irresponsible king, a tiny green prince, and a universe that apparently runs on stolen office supplies. That's all the explanation you're getting.

And really, does it need any more?

Now get rolling. Your dad destroyed the Moon, and somebody has to fix it.

Pro tip: In Google, search for Katamari Damacy. Click the bouncing ball on the right. Enjoy!

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RETRO HARDWARE

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