Beautiful Katamari for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

The game is really short (2-5 hours) and doesn't really offer that much replay value, but the original gameplay, style and humor definitely make it one of the best rental games there is for 360.

I loved Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari, so I was excited to play this game. I had heard that a different team developed this one, and it shows.

The major complaints:
- No Auto-save
- The game makes you feel stupid for not getting a perfect score on a stage. "Learn to roll better.", "You are no good.", etc.
- The time is tuned very hard making this the most difficult Katamari game yet.
- Slow method to go between levels and menu options (forcing player to "fly" through the menu.)
- Frustrating camera. It isn't quick enough to show what's around you, and items block your view constantly.
- The katamari doesn't go up walls as well as it used to.
- Turning is harder than ever, near impossible at times.
- The katamari feels slower. I would think after three games the user could gain a speed increase or have actual analog speed input, not just direction.
- Unecessary messages from the king explaining things never even mentioned in the frist two games, which clutter the screen: --(Imagine every time Mario got a mushroom a message box popping up saying: 'You know, Mario is bigger now and can destroy blocks.')
- So many items sometimes, the katamari gets stuck in the clutter.

The graphics keep with the traditional look of a Katamari game, and the essence is still there. But for my money the first two Katamari games stand up better, and are a lot more fun.

I'm rather new to the Katamari series myself, but several friends have played it, so it came highly recommended. However, within about an hour I found myself straining to keep playing.

The first thing I would have liked to see was a difficulty setting. Experienced players should be able to accomplish the challenges, but as a newbie, I found myself in a constant pattern of failing each level (even the first non-tutorial level) several times before passing.

The types of items can be confusing at times too. For example, when rolling the planet Venus, you're told to gather expensive things. When my Katamari was complete, I was berated for gathering Rich things (which the King described as Luxury items) instead of Expensive things. How am I supposed to know the difference? Of course, this assumes that I can even see around my Katamari to make those decisions, or that I have the time to seek out specific types of items, rather than frantically gathering anything and everything so I can slide in under the time limit.

Also, I realize that Japanese games don't encourage and hold hands as much as their American counterparts (see also: Dance Dance Revolution), but the King is just irritating. Even an above-average Katamari merits a response of "Okay, I guess this'll do." Anything less (and again, the scoring system appears quite arbitrary) earns derision and ridicule. Yeah, that makes me want to play again.

Finally, there are the Xbox Live downloads. It seems pretty sleazy of the developers to require about $20 of paid downloads in order to complete all the Achievements; those items should either be free or voluntary, especially considering how little content there game contains as shipped.

Overall, this was a pretty disappointing game, especially for something so highly praised by my friends and fellow gamers. I'm willing to give the earlier installations a try, because I love the idea of Katamari, but this version isn't worth anything close to full retail.

Well i only ever played the 2nd Katamari game, and I loved it, i let all my friends borrow it and they loved it.

This beautiful katamari somehow loses the fun. I think its the much more amped difficulty, while its possible to beat a level, its just soooooo hard to get a good score on them. I could only stand this game for a couple of levels, but it seemed to just recycle too much. The play control seemed less responsive, I'm not sure if this is because of the xbox 360 controller, as apposed to the ps2, or if it just sucks more. The off the wall comedy of the last game has been replaced by just off the wall.

The king of the cosmos talks WAAY too much, and when yer retrying a level for the 20th time, trying to get a score better than 40%/points it really gets on yer nerves. Somehow the camera angle on this katamari has gone from workable to devastating. In a game that's all about speed and efficiency having a camera angle that hides you from view at every opportunity is infuriating.

Yes, and of course the graphics haven't really improved at all, but even if this game had the best graphics ever it'd still drive you nutz real quick.

If you haven't played any Katamari yet, start with We Love Katamari, that game was awesome, if you played katamari and want more, give up, this game will disappoint you and make you wonder if you ever really liked katamari to begin with.

Can you name a game where you can roll around the world as awesome things like people and cars stick to you? Well i can!! its called Katamari and it's beautiful. You start off as a tiny guy just picking up what you can, then poof, the ball is huge and your picking up houses an buildings..yesss..I can hear it now, little foreign voices singing melodies while I roll up the world! Survey says: 4 Golden Woots on the WOOTOMETER..

Half of the game is locked and the only way to unlock it is by buying downloadable keys. There's already 8 individual downloads on Live. Each one cost 200 points, and consist of cousins and accessories. You also have to buy keys to unlock levels, and mission objectives but they're not available yet.

Isn't there laws against these kind of things?

Virtual Fighter 5 for the 360 is doing the same thing (unlock accessories). Though this kind of thing has been going on since last year.

Please help and boycott against crooked practices like this

Ok, let's keep this simple. BK is a fun, freaky, and addictive game that not only makes you laugh but also gives you some really addictive gameplay. The main problem is that there isn't much to the game at all. Many can finish the game in two to four hours. There are only a handful of levels and they do offer a touch of replayability if you want to try to find all of the presents and cousins but honestly. There isn't enough content to keep many people interested.

The online play is actually kinda fun but very limited in what it has to offer. The dialog in the game can be funny but really gets annoying after a while. You have to manually push the buttons to speed up the very slow moving dialog boxes and sometimes the boxes will pop up right in the middle of your screen as you are playing the game. This is a big annoyance that can be played through but ends up being a pain in the butt.

There are also some achievements that cannot be gotten other than by downloading some future content from XBOX Live. This is really weird since the game itself (while cheaper than most new releases) simply doesn't have much content to offer at retail.

So, BK is fun, annoyances aside. But the fun simply doesn't last long enough. With only a handful of levels, last-gen graphics, etc. the game falls well short of what it could have been.

Katamari is by far one of my favorite and most addictive games. I have every one in the series but I thought I'd wait on purchasing this one. I didn't know what to expect seeing as the original creator of Katamari isn't making the games anymore. The PSP version wasn't very good.

This one feels very played over. It just seems too much like prior levels. The story is not original and I actually liked I Love Katamari a lot more. I wanted this one to be good because it looks so much better in HD than on PS2. The graphics are a huge improvement and having it run at 60fps makes it faster. The gameplay is smooth especially when transitioning to a larger size. At the end of the game you go all the way from a tiny size to rolling up the solar system in one big level. Unfortunately the game overall falls severely short.

There are only maybe three different areas. If that. You play in various locations of one world. Similar to the other Katamari games but the levels are used over and over. You play starting in these two different areas almost half of the game. The last two Katamari games had bunches of levels and I Love Katamari had something near 40 missions I think. This one falls short at only about 10. No joke.

There are extra levels available for download in Japan already and they are priced at 200 points per level. That sounds expensive to me. This game is fun, but once you put on the cost of the game plus the cost of downloads to make up for the levels you don't get... you end up with less than half the normal Katamari game for double the price.

I would put this under rent and maybe buy when it hits the budget price list.

Katamari returns with another fun installment in the series. I don't know what it is, but there is just something amusing about rolling around a ball and picking up everything in you path. Of course the Kings off the wall comments and quirky saying add a bit of comedic value to this title. There are all new accessories, and cousins to find. Unfortunately the visuals of Beautiful Katamari are still lacking even in the next generation. The art form is very generic and simple. It's easy to overlook with the fun to be had in the Katamari games. If you lied the previous entries you will enjoy this one as well.

We were really excited to hear about a next gen Katamari game after being totally addicted to the first installment. However, that feeling soon faded once we got to rolling. The "Haven't I done this before" feeling is just too strong. What was once unique and appealing is now stale and monotonous. Even the new soundtrack is a let down. Like a pre-TrimSpa Anna Nicole...this game is just too much of a bad thing!

This game is just OK.

I have not played any of the Katamari games before, but thought they always looked kind of neat. Looks are deceiving.

The game has a pretty steep learning curve, and poor controls. For some reason you need to use both of the sticks to control the ball. IMO one stick would have lead to better control. Turning is hard, in fact towards the end I just went with the flow and rolled over all in my path. The camera does not make this any easier.

The levels are recycled. In fact I think there may only be three of them. Its gets old running over the same things over and over again. To make the game hard, there are time limits on the stages.

I did not try multiplayer, as I could not find a match for 10 mins.

Achievement points are medium difficulty. Expect to get 350-450 before you are sick of the game. Also, to get the full 1,000 you need the DLC, which also nets another 250 points. I really hope this is not going to be a trend. Selling us an incomplete game (new $49), the you need to spend another $10 to get all the content.

Just rent it. Play for 4-6 hrs and send it back.

I have never had less fun playing a game in my entire life. I tried cutting myself with a dull toothpick after playing the game and found it to be about 4.79 times as fun as Beautiful Katamari.

Beautiful Katamari was my first foray into the Katamari series. Paying attention to the tutorial stage is key. If not, then you'll find yourself wasting valuable time trying to turn your katamari.

My main gripe is the difficulty. I spent majority of my time failing missions, but thankfully that made me only want to play the game more. Either you'll be put off, or you'll continue to try. Passing missions became easier and easier, but that was after many hours of game play. Even then, I did not have satisfactory scores. Getting a perfect score seems near impossible.

People and objects have a tendency to block to camera. It wasn't much of a bother for me, but enough to be mildly annoying.

The pros of the game do come with the amusing characters and addicting music. I'm not much for j-pop, but some of the tunes had me humming even after the game had ended.

It's definitely worth a rent, but I would have to pick it up for very cheap in order to own it.

I have a feeling you'll either love or hate this game. I personally hated it. I spent about 2 hours on it and after getting a splitting headache I sent it back. The King's voice sounds like a scratching record.... and hearing that over and over and over is horrid. I'm definately not the target audience for this game.

As always, just the premise behind katamari is innovative in itself. That said, this one does little to build upon the previous installments. Although, I'm not really sure how anyone would build upon the idea behind the game. But hey, that's why we pay them right? (it should be noted the game only costs $30.00).

The bottom line is, if you're looking for a game to fill up your queue and you're also looking to entertain yourself for about a week with a fun game that requires little thinking, this game is really recommended. If you are looking for something earth shattering though, you may want to check elsewhere.

If rolling around and picking up random small objects sounds like fun to you then this game won't disappoint. Unfortunately, like all Katamari games the gameplay gets boring eventually. After all, you can only pick up everything on Earth so many times before you begin to ask yourself 'why am I doing this yet again?'

Online play brings an interesting new feature but doesn't really change the repetitiveness that these games end up suffering from.

I was really looking forward to exploring the wild and wacky worlds in this game. But, due to time limits and camera angles its been nothing short of frustrating.

I'm not into achievements, just want to explore and have fun. If thats you, then this isn't for you. If you just want to rack up achievements then for the price its quite a deal. But I won't be buying it or keeping it.

Let me start by saying that the first game was fun and unique. I went into this thinking it would be the same. This game is MUCH harder than the first. That wouldn't be a problem normally...I do like challenges. The camera is horrible and is a continuous boss battle throughout the game. The only real positive thing I can say on my experience playing this game is the music is great. Fix the horrible camera...speed the game up like the first, and you would've had a winner.

This is one of the worst games I've ever played. I can't think of a single redeeming quality about it. The 10 minutes of garbage “story” before you're allowed to play 3 minutes of poorly-designed stage. The incredibly irritating sound effects (especially when people are “talking”). The time limit on stages. The terrible control scheme. A camera that is clearly paid to make your life miserable. Being able to get stuck while you watch your last few seconds of life waste away. The downright punishment the player must endure when failing a stage (yes, the game actually berates you for failing, and when you retry the stage the game makes snide comments about your inability to play). Overall, you've wasted your time even thinking about this game. It's terrible.

Well I just dont see how this can be any fun , First thing is the Controls are really bad Who ever heardof Pushing forward or back on a Joystick to turn? I know Who The Moronic Idiotis that Programed this Thing I wont even Call it a Game. Bad controls and then you add a Bad camera Angle where most of the time you cant see because theres Always something in the way of the Camera, Im just Glad I didnt waste any Moeny on this so called Game because it isnt worth a Penny just a Bad so called game all around this is a Definate LEAVE ALONE title Not even worth a rental In My Opinion Maybe this is what They call A Game In Japan but here it is just another Poor excuse for a game and a Big waste of Money to make but what do you expect from a Second rate Toy Company trying to Play as a Video game Company

Beautiful Katamari is an undoubtedly fun gaming experience. Its easy, intuitive and anyone can pick it up and play. However, if you've played any of the series' previously installments you're in for more of the same old stuff.

One thing that is particularly annoying in Beautiful Katamari is the location of dialogue bubbles during game play. They pop up right in the middle of your screen in the middle of game play and fill most of your viewing area. On top of that the player has to take focus off of the game to hit the "A" button several times to get through the dialogue otherwise the bubble will sit on the screen forever. This would not be a big problem in a RPG or a slower paced game, but everything is timed in Beautiful Katamari and each second spent clearing dialogue bubbles is a second that could have been spent rolling stuff up.

All in all, Beautiful Katamari is not a bad game; its pretty darn fun to play aside from a few drawbacks. The main reason it falls short is due to its complete lack of innovation.

First off I would like to say beautiful katamari is a great game in my opinion. I can understand some people not liking it simply because it's strange and not like anything they've played before. While this is the games weakness, it's also it's strength.

The game play consists of a little guy (the prince) to roll around a ball collecting items making it bigger. He's ordered by his father (the king) to roll up balls and meet certain requirements to replace planets he (the king) has destroyed during a tennis match. The requirements for each level vary. For mercury since it's a hot planet the king wants you to roll up hot items. For neptune he wants moisture so you'll be rolling up drinks. etc

I knew this was a game I would enjoy because it's not like your regular shooter 360 game. The game play is simple for children and still enjoyable for adults. The achievements are balanced well. You won't be getting any easy points here which adds to the replay value in the end. All and all beautiful katamari is a game you'll love or hate and the chances are you already know.

This is perfect for my idiot girlfriend!

I found this game incredibly frustrating to get started with. I personally haven't really played any Katamari game before except maybe briefly. As a newcomer it's more likely to tick you off. I struggled with the dual-stick control scheme, like driving a tank, I just couldn't get used to it after a few games. And about 3 levels in I gave up trying to meat the request. I just struggled too much with the controls trying to move around and not to mention the camera is horrible, ends up flying into things and giving you only a tiny hole to see through at times. This is probably better for katamari fans who already have a grasp of how to play.