As one of the quirkiest, most beloved cult franchises in gaming, Katamari Damacy has had a surprisingly rough go of things on mobile. The traditional mobile entries in the series were killed off last year, and the only other game to grace mobile storefronts was an idle clicker that — let’s face it — just wasn’t what fans of the series were hoping for.
The next outing should prove a little more satisfactory.
While it’s not quite a traditional entry in the Katamari series, Amazing Katamari Damacy delivers gameplay with a similarly satisfactory punch. Currently available in soft launch in Canada, Amazing Katamari Damacy is an endless runner that sees players rolling up objects as they run, growing their katamari bigger and bigger as they go.
The whole family has rolled along for the ride, too. The King of the Cosmos is ever-present, the Queen hands out your daily missions, and the Katamari cousins appear on the playing field to give you power-ups.
As it’s in soft launch, there’s plenty of time to work out any kinks in the user experience. Having said that, our initial impressions of Amazing Katamari Damacy have been pretty positive. The controls could use a little tweaking (they feel stuck somewhere between lane-switching and free movement), but otherwise, it’s a clever little merging of a mobile staple and a franchise that fits. The sense of scale that people love about Katamari is here in full force, and turning that into an endless runner is the sort of idea that’s so obvious and clever you’ll wonder why nobody had thought of it before.
We have no idea when this one will be going live worldwide (and if Tap My Katamari’s incubation time is any indication, it could be a really long time). In the meantime, be sure to ask your Canadian pals what they think of it. Amazing Katamari Damacy is available now on the Canadian App Store and Canadian Google Play.
