Katamari Damacy
Developer(s): Now Production
Publisher(s): Namco (JP, US), Namco Bandai Games (JP), SCEA (US)
Genre: Action, Adventure
Wikipedia: Wikipedia
Game review links: IGN Review: 9.0/10, Metacritic: 86/100
Game description: When the King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys all the stars in the sky, he orders you, his pint-sized princely son, to put the twinkle back in the heavens above. The only way you can do that is by rolling everything on Earth into clumps so that he can replace what's missing in space. "Everything" includes cookies, lawn mowers, lampposts, sumo wrestlers, bulldozers, brontosauruses, cruise ships, and more. Katamari Damacy also includes a two-player battle mode where you and a friend can see who can grow the biggest ball of stuff.
Katamari Damacy (Japanese: 塊魂 Katamari Damashī, "clump soul") is a third-person puzzle-action video game that is developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The game resulted from a school project from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory, and was developed for less than $1 million. In designing Katamari Damacy, the development team aimed to maintain four key points: novelty, ease of understanding, enjoyment, and humor. A sequel has been released with the name We Love Katamari on the Playstation 2.
The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations, and Moon, which were accidentally destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a katamari around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to people to mountains, until the ball has grown great enough to become a star.
The player controls the Prince as he rolls the katamari around houses, gardens, and towns in order to meet certain parameters set by the King of All Cosmos. The player uses the two analog sticks on the DualShock controller in a manner similar to the classic arcade game Battlezone to control the direction the katamari rolls. Other controls can be triggered by the player to gain a quick burst of speed, flip the Prince to the other side of the katamari, and more.
Test configurations on Windows:
Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
NTSC-U | ? |
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r1736 | GSdx 10 r1650 | SPU2-X 1.2.0 | Requires MicroVU for VU0 and VU1 to remove onscreen garbage. Status flag hack must be DISABLED. EE 1.5x, INTC Sync, idle loop fast-forward and one level of VU cycle stealing all work with no problems. | 78.16.146.83 |
NTSC-U | ? |
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r3113 | GSdx r3623 |
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? | CKL |
NTSC-U | ? |
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r5423 | GSdx r5412 |
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Not very resource demanding game. Runs smooth, probably on a smaller hardware too. The issue described below is far from serious. | Yuri |
NTSC-J | Windows |
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1.1.0 r5628 | GSdx 5632 SSE41 |
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Still playable... doesn't need patch anymore., Hardware mode doesn't display some words in the speech bubbles and objects attached on the ball aren't rendered... | |
NTSC-U | Windows |
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1.1.0 r5754 | GSdx 5752 SSE41 |
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Runs at 200% speed. | |
NTSC-U | Windows |
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1.2.1 [2-02-14] | GSdx 5875 |
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EE/VU Rounding: Chop/Zero, Game runs correctly, some graphical errors I caught but an improvement from 1.1., I.E, Graphical errors during "Make a Star 7", if moving fast into water, water textures glitch. This is possibly just with water in general. |
Environment | Configurations | Comments | Tester | ||||
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Region | OS | CPU/GPU | Revision | Graphics | Sound/Pad | ||
NTSC-U | ? |
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1.3.0.r0 | GSdx 0.1.16 |
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? | Breed808 |
Trivia
- Original names: 塊魂 (SLPS-25360), 塊魂 PlayStation®2 the Best (SLPS-73210)
- Widescreen support with .pnatch file from the PCSX2 forums or from PS2Wide.net. Search for game CRC.
Known Issues
GFX garbage in "View constellations"
- Status: Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: Onscreen garbage appearing in some viewing angles during the "View constellations" menu and sometimes during normal gameplay.
- Workaround: VU0 / VU1 Advanced Recompiler Round Mode to Positive.
Lines at the border of 2D objects
- Status: Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: The outline of the 2D objects are visible if you use the resolution upscaling in GSdx. As if they are poorly joined with a small gap.
- Workaround: Use native resolution to remove most of the lines. Software mode to remove all.
Music skips or is slow
- Status: Active
- Type: Minor
- Description: In-game music is extremely slow, or skips during playback.
- Workaround: Change audio synchronization mode to 'Async Mix'
The gallery
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Katamari Damacy (SLUS 21008)
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