Katamari PSP *SUCKS*

[robbalvey]

So I picked up Katamari on the PSP this week.....

 

OMG!!!! I can almost understand why the team has disbanded after this version of the game.

 

My two biggest issues are:

 

1. Control - They have decided to use the two 4-way button controls on the PSP to mimic what the two analog sticks on the dual shock controller did. This just doesn't work at all. I find myself fighting the controls most of the time which results in unplayable levels and sore fingers. And there aren't any alternative control options. I would have liked to see an option where the rolling control was on the analog stick with the turning on the buttons, or something OTHER than having to use both button layouts as analog sticks.

 

2. Level Design - Where you used to find fairly open, well design levels allowing you to roll up stuff to your heart's content, now you find many tight spaces with several poorly placed entrances, world environment objects, etc and what happens? You get stuck. ALL THE DAMN TIME!!! It's just so frustrating I either have to stop playing or fear I'm going to throw the PSP across the room.

 

On top of that you have some serious frame rate issues and at one point playing yesterday the game seemed so slow it nearly came to a stop. I actually thought the system was going to crash on me!

 

The front end menus also leave a lot to be desired. If you press the wrong button accidentally you're whisked away to the "cousins" island, or in the collectible mode where you have to sit and wait during long load times while it's hitting the UMD. And it's easy to accidentally go to the wrong place. It's not really that intuitive and some things aren't well labeled. All you get is a "<-L or R->" prompt and sometimes your eye sees that on screen and your hand reacts. And if you press one of those buttons when you don't want to, you're stuck waiting 30 to 40 seconds until you can get out of it. Annoying!!!

 

I do like that fact that there is an "eternal" mode where you can just roll up as much stuff as possible in a level with no timer or no objective, but there is also no ending at all. When you want to quit, you just "quit game" like you would any other level to exit back to the main menu and there is no "end eternal mode" or any feeling of accomplishment "you rolled up X% in this level" to even let you know if you have found everything. Nice feature, but seemed rushed in at the last minute.

 

And this was the evolution of what I consider to be one of the best games ever to be created in the days of the PS2.

 

I'm sad, really.......

 

Oh, well, at least Taiko No Tatsujin PSP didn't dissapoint!

 

--Robb

[Meteornotes]

Damn, that's a shame. Katamari on the PS2 is among the greatest games ever created. Sounds like they just phoned this one in or something. Too bad...

 

dt

[DerekRx]

That's too bad. And to think, I was going to buy a PSP just for this game. Thanks for saving me the cash!

[Imhotep]

Yeah I felt the same way about the controls. I felt they should have used the Analog stick, and the shoulder buttons to help steer. I can never do the super dash, its almost impossible. That function could have also been done on the shoulder buttons. It is incredibly frustrating, especially the repetative levels!! It sucks to play the same level and roll up the same objects in the same order within the same timeframe over and over again.

 

To continue venting, This so far is the second game I have been disappointed with based on control alone. The other was Midway Arcade Treasues. MKII is probably my most favorite game of all time, and to see that all 3 MKs came on the same UMD was heaven for me.. However, the controls suck.. And they placed all these load times in the game which totally kills it. The sad thing is, after playing it for a while, I dont think the controls are a programming problem, I think the PSP's Dpad is way underdeveloped... And the game is hard to play with the small analog.

 

Im having alot more fun with my DS. Warioware Touched! is where its at!! even though the title makes Wario seem like a kid toucher..

 

Im "Show us on the DS where Wario touched you.." Hotep

[SharkTums]

^OMG!!!

 

I love Touched!!!!

 

Actually, all of the Wario Ware games are pretty awesome! Have you tried Twisted yet?

[Erik Johnson]

^OMG!!!

 

I love Touched!!!!

 

Actually, all of the Wario Ware games are pretty awesome! Have you tried Twisted yet?

 

I have the other two games, though I still need to get Twisted. Is it as good as the other two?

[SharkTums]

I think it is.

 

It can get frustrating at times, and you look like an idiot playing it, but it's really quite interesting the way it works!

[Slacking]

Twisted is great! I love Touched, but prefer Twisted! Offers more of a challenge!

 

I love the Gamecube port though with all the party games. You can NEVER go wrong with the balancing on turtles game.

[PhishyBrewer]

My only complaints are the controls. Other than that I think it's a pretty solid game. But that's just me. I own a PS2, and the only reason I got it was for We Heart Katamari. Then I got Katamari Damacy and I was hooked. Other then that, I don't own any other games. I'm not a big gamer.

 

Now with the PSP on the other hand, I'm freak'n loving this thing. But again... I've only purchased a few games. Started with Me and My Katamari first. Then I bought SOCOM. And then yesterday, I bought the Japanese version of Bleach 2. So I'm slowly getting there.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I really don't know shit when it comes to gaming. But I do love my little price regardless.

 

Me and My Katamari Prince

[Imhotep]

^OMG!!!

 

I love Touched!!!!

 

Actually, all of the Wario Ware games are pretty awesome! Have you tried Twisted yet?

 

Nope not yet, but sounds like a must own, especially if its as good as Touched.

 

You know what game would kick ass on the DS?? Freakin Mario Party. Especially if it was through the wi-fi connection.

 

I love my PSP and I do enjoy games like GTA and SOCOM on it, but since Ive finished those games most of the time now I use it is for movies.. I probably watched Supertroopers and Tron like 1000 times during our trip to Texas. Dont ask me why I like Tron, I just do.. Maybe because "The Dude" is in it, I dont know..

 

Speaking of, one thing that has PO'ed me is that alot of the games on the PSP arent wi-fi. I mean, I would love to play someone other than the computer in a game like MKII, but since I dont know anyone that has the game (and game sharing isnt supported) Im out of luck. I think I could have made due and got used to the crappy controls if I could play against anyone in the world rather than the dude Im staring at (that also has to have the game because game sharing isnt effing supported).

[robbalvey]

The cool thing about Twisted is it's actually a pretty good example of what the Revolution controller is going to be like.

 

The game uses a similar accelerometer, but it's only on one axis. So when you're playing Twisted, try to think about how precise the control is and then what that would be like on the X, Y, and Z axis, and you basically have your Revolution controller!

 

--Robb

[Pelydr]

Sadly your complaints seem to echo what those who have spent time with PSP Katamari seem to echo. Perhaps they just tried to rush this and didnt spend the time to fully convert it to PSP as it should have been. Ah well, at least we have the PS2 versions.

[crispy]

Well thats a major bummer about Katamari, sorry to here they botched the controls

 

 

I still do not own a PSP, and with as much fun as I'm still having with my DS, I just can't justify the $250 for one, not yet anyway

 

I'm still hopelessly addicted to Animal Crossing

[robbalvey]

^ Agreed. I play far more games on my DS than I do for my PSP. It's funny though, the games I play for the PSP I play because I need to for "work", and I play the DS games because I enjoy them for "fun."

 

The only games I play on the PSP for fun are Taiko and Lumines!

 

For the DS I play Animal Crossing, Mario Kart DS, Touched, Super Monkey Ball, and not to mention my NES emulator I have on a GBA flash card that works great on the DS!

 

--Robb

[Slacking]

I'm actually quite disappointed with Super Monkey Ball for the DS. I have troubles with the stylus, so I just use the D-pad. And then, there are just too many repeat levels from past SMB games, and most of the party games aren't that great. I'm also disappointed that the next game in the SMB series is Super Monkey Ball adventure. The DS game which I haven't taken out of the system recently is Tetris. I'm addicted to it!

 

Anyway Robb, I think you convinced me to play Twisted, which I haven't done in the past few months (too many DS games to play!)

[robbalvey]

Ok, so I played Katamari PSP for about 2 hours again today and it's just so bad it's almost ruining the entire series for me (kind of like how Episode 1 ruined Star Wars for me!)

 

I'm not even so sure I'm as upset about the horrible controls as I am the obvious rush they level designers were in.

 

There was one map I played today where it took me about 7 tries to get through it because I kept getting stuck all over the place, so with bad level design and constantly fighting the controls the game is nearly unplayable......and then, believe it or not, I found a MAP HOLE!!!!!! Which crashed my PSP!!! Didn't this game go through QA????

 

Seriously though I'm all for games that are difficult when they don't rely on frustrating game play. But the more I play the game where I see that I'm re-playing the same levels over and over again it's painfully obvious they have increased the difficulty level on some maps (read: frustration level) because they knew they had a short game, and when you force the player to have to re-play levels over and over again, it increases game time. (Hey, and I know this...I've been guilty of having to do this on games I've worked on too! Not proud of it, but it happens)

 

Overall, I actually feel bad for the team and the people who created the original game. It doesn't have the same heart and soul as the first two, and it's painfully obvious that it wasn't created by the original designers:

 

(quote from www.gamasutra.com)

Namco Japan's official website for popular franchise Katamari Damacy has announced that the team behind both the original game and its sequel, We Love Katamari, has dissolved, and that no sequels have been planned.

 

This may not be a surprise for most, as series director and creator Keita Takahashi has publicly stated that the idea of building a franchise off of the original game was never his intention, and that his involvement in the game's sequel was forced on him by publisher Namco's willingness to green-light a sequel with or without his involvement.

 

Me and My Katamari, the portable iteration being released in North America for the PSP next week, is the last officially announced game in the series. However, the game was done without the direct supervision of Takahashi, which shows publisher Namco's willingness to create games in the series without his input.

 

So basically Namco felt they could do it without him, and the failed. Miserably.

 

I can't even begin to tell you how bummed I am that I even put this version of the game in my PSP and made a true attempt to play it.

 

--Robb

[Blazen_AZN]

Wow, the game sounds pretty bad. Maybe it was a good thing the DS version was canned...

 

Too bad too, i really wanted to see Katamari Revolution.

[crispy]

^ Agreed. I play far more games on my DS than I do for my PSP. It's funny though, the games I play for the PSP I play because I need to for "work", and I play the DS games because I enjoy them for "fun."

 

The only games I play on the PSP for fun are Taiko and Lumines!

 

For the DS I play Animal Crossing, Mario Kart DS, Touched, Super Monkey Ball, and not to mention my NES emulator I have on a GBA flash card that works great on the DS!

 

--Robb

 

 

WHAT???!!!!

 

A NES emulator, what did I miss here, how the hell do I do that?????!!!!!!

 

Wow, the game sounds pretty bad. Maybe it was a good thing the DS version was canned...

 

I don't know, the DS definatly has major control advantages over the PSP with the touch screen, but it still may not have worked

[robbalvey]

WHAT???!!!!

 

A NES emulator, what did I miss here, how the hell do I do that?????!!!!!!

It's kind of a "development" thing. But you need to get a GBA flashcard, and then install the NES emulator on it.

 

Here's a link that might be able to help you out:

http://www.gameboy-advance.net/emulated/nes_roms_on_gba.htm

 

--Robb

[Louise]

^ Perhaps this would be better in the Robb's Job thread, but do you find that you have higher standards than your average Joe when you play a game because you know more of what goes into producing them, and you can tell when the producers/designers/etc have cut corners? Or do you manage to switch off the professional part of your brain and just play games as if you know nothing about it?

[PhishyBrewer]

^Oh Snap!

[Louise]

^ What?! I was asking a serious question!

 

I guess it's like when we go to parks and come off a new coaster going "meh", and hear members of the GP saying "wow, that was the BEST coaster EVER, let's go do it again!". If you have knowledge of something, you kinda become more critical, or at least you think about things more... Figured Robb's gaming experience might cause the same effect. Just interested is all.

 

[SharkTums]

He actually 'made' me play the game the other night!

 

"Will you play this for a second?"

"What, you're willingly parting with your new Katamari for the PSP...okay!"

"No, seriously, just play, tell me what you think"

"Ok"

<>

"Um, this sucks! I thought I had it finally working right but I can't turn right, and I can't do the 'switch' move!!!"

 

So basically, what my little story is saying is that Robb let me the 'general public' try the game unbiased to see what I thought.

 

I agree, it's pretty bad. Now is it bad, or is it just bad compared to what we've come to expect from Katamari!?!?

[Louise]

Ok, well in this instance at least, that pretty much answers my question.

 

I still have yet to play Katamari in any form... I'm starting to think of it as an achievement, along with having never seen an episode of Family Guy... *awaits lynching*

[SLUSHIE]

^Kinda off topic... but I just saw a few eposodes of the TV series "Spaced" written by the shawn of the dead guy. The show is awsome.

 

So yeah... my friend baught the game. He has played the origional game, but probably in very small doses. I have yet to hear a complaint about the game from him, but I also haven't really asked what he has thought of it.