Roll it all up again: Once Upon A Katamari

Sometimes all it takes is a brightly coloured ball to get the universe rolling again. "Once Upon A Katamari" is the fairytale comeback of a series that has always combined chaos and charm better than any other. The king of the cosmos accidentally destroys the sky again, the prince rolls it back together and the world is wonderfully absurd again for a moment.

What follows is Katamari in its purest form: exuberant, colourful and full of marvellous details. You collect cups, temples, T-Rex skulls and entire eras, while J-Pop and irony shine brightly. Every era - from the Ice Age to feudal Japan - is its own fairytale chapter fairy tale chapter that bathes in colour and fantasy. It is a game that the pure joy of nonsense and almost casually shows how precise precise overload can become poetry.

The basic principle remains the same: Roll, collect, grow. But "Once Upon A Katamari" lends the familiar formula a narrative version that makes it seem fresh. Instead of just sweeping through urban landscapes, you now travel through entire eras. Each era brings its own rules, its own music and its own confusion. Between philosopher hunts in ancient Greece and ghost ghost parades in nocturnal Japan, each level is transformed into a stage for the absurd and at the same time a lovingly crafted contemporary document.

The game thrives on its balance between plan and panic. If you roll too too quickly will lose the overview, those who play too hesitantly will miss the big picture. This is exactly where the appeal lies: the controlled chaos, chaos that increases with every round until the picture almost explodes with shapes and colours. Developer Rengame has understood that Katamari never needed needed perfection and that it needed a lot of personality. Even the stumbling over oversized fish or getting tangled up in ancient amphorae seems like a Dadaist punchline here.

The presentation is a declaration of love for the series. The polygonal strangeness of the early 2000s remains, but colours, lighting and animations have been carefully modernised. There is also a soundtrack that continues the tradition and at the same time reinterpreted: Pop, jazz, funk and chiptune mix to create a into a sonic firework display that is as idiosyncratic as it is catchy. The fact that that the series has never sacrificed its style is perhaps its greatest triumph. "Once Upon A Katamari" sounds and looks as if someone has brought catapulted nostalgia directly into the present day.

The fact that Bandai Namco continues to cultivate humour is the key to the whole thing. The king remains a parody of divine vanity, the cousins a caricature cousins a caricature of family ties, and the player the willing tool of tool of cosmic order. But beneath all the silliness lies a melancholy thought: that collecting also means preserving. Every object, every moment, every sound becomes part of a growing memory memory and eventually a new world. In the end, "Once Upon A Katamari" is not just a return. It is a reminder of how beautiful overwhelm can be. Everything turns, sparkles, rages and yet remains a single, happy thought that never stands still.

→ If you fancy rolling through more weird worlds after this galactic clean-up: You can find more highlights in our "Level Up" section - and of course in the current issue.