Perhaps it's justifiable as an alleviation of a burden on the Earth itself. The fact that the people who helped create all of these things are commonly caught in the mayhem serves only to amplify the stance, whether you see those acts of kidnapping to be punishment for mankind or an act no different than picking up anything else. The King lambasts and praises you based on your collection efforts per stage, but will always end his monologue with the same line: "My, Earth really is full of things." It is up to interpretation if this is meant to represent some divine condescension of mankind's hoarding, or a critique of the actual utility of these things in their current state outside of kindling for a boulder of stuff, or a more abstract desire of the creator to do away with the manufacturing of useless trinkets that comprise a majority of our landfills, to literally shoot all of this garbage into space, where it may actually be of use for something. The sheer number of different objects that can be rolled up is completely staggering, and even through hours of gameplay there will certainly be some that you haven't seen yet. Series creator Keita Takahashi has spoken about this game being a critique of consumerist culture, and I think that lens is the best way to understand the game's vision. It's impossible to roll up everything in the tight time limits, so you're gunning for sheer quantity at all times. Katamari Damacy discards stuffy completionism favor of a million shiny objects for you to roll up, with each weird item and creature vying for your destructive attention. In no time, you'll pluck cars from the street like you're waxing hair off of your body. Overcoming your obstacles through sheer heft gives a weird, primal sense of accomplishment, as you stage a literal conquest of the environment before you. You might spend a level in a small market, picking up fruit and boxes while humans charge into you and erase your progress, only to end that level large enough to start picking up the people that caused you so much trouble before. In the later levels, the sense of destruction you're causing becomes intoxicating. This gives way to some creative level structures, where areas can be "zoned off" simply by containing too many of an item you can't pick up yet, giving a semi-intended route though these otherwise unbounded playgrounds. Out of the hundreds of thousands of objects in this game, they either are yours to take now or later. This size hierarchy is emphasized in gameplay by immediately attaching any object small enough to your katamari, and bouncing you off of everything else. As the levels go by, you'll eventually tackle the rest of the house, the yard, the neighborhood, the nearby cities and finally entire islands in the sea. The tutorial level takes place on a kotatsu that feels gigantic, rolling up candies and matchsticks and dominoes as the size of one yourself. The sense of scale and perspective was the first thing that really grabbed me. You control your ball of stuff with the two analog sticks and barrel through the environment, grabbing everything you can. However, the King is a busy guy, and he only gives you a handful of minutes for each mission, making where to go and what to pick up nonstop mental decisions for the entirety of the stage. Deciding he misses them, actually, he sends you to Earth to roll up objects, people and creatures to collect material to rebuild the stars. Your job as the Prince of the Cosmos is to rebuild the starry sky after your father, the vain, sarcastic and somewhat abusive King, destroys every star in the universe on a whim. The game, taken as a whole, is a tornado of jazzy bubblegum electronica, pastel colors, and unfettered, wanton destruction - a complete sensory overload that understands the unique aspects of the gaming medium. Katamari Damacy is notorious for a few things: a brilliant soundtrack popular even with those who haven't played the game, an easily recognizable, surrealist art direction, and (most importantly) a bizarre core concept that is executed at ridiculously high levels.
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