This is a good, if short, example of a Katamari game. It’s rehashy and the microtransactions are bad but it’s essentially fun.

Well, what else to say? My review of the PSP instalment says a lot that still applies here. Katamari is a delightfully quirky series with fun, silly soundtracks and a strong central concept: you absorb smaller things and get bigger. This release is typical of the series as it’s become: basically more of the same, with some tweaks and gimmicks.

The gimmick this time is using the Vita’s touch controls to change the shape of your katamari. Pinching it will make it tall and thin, which has less pickup potential but it goes faster. Spreading makes it wide and short, giving you a big scoop effect but at the cost of speed. There are a couple of elements in the levels that play into these changes but otherwise it’s up to you as the player, or in other words you can more or less ignore it.

I said of Me & My Katamari that it lacked variety. This is even more true here; the counterpoint is that DLC levels add some much needed novelty and expansion. Countering that is that premium currency is needed to unlock them. Finding this currency in-game is rare; you can grind it easily but tediously. Or of course, you can pay the real-life dollars. Given that it’s annoying to get, I recommend prioritising #9 and #8, which are the largest and most novel levels. I also got the Pac-Man level which is quite simple, but #9 The Great Journey is a wonderfully epic traversal of all scale phases, ending with the otherwise missing piece of island-scale.

The plot is another thing somewhat worth mentioning. This time the King is dissatisfied that he (and in a meta sense, the series) has become stale and unpopular, then at the end he goes “Psych! I’m great and everyone loves Katamari!”. Whatever you say, King. The between-level hub is simply on the King’s head.

Overall the game’s unfortunately not worth getting excited about, which is a shame. I liked it, but it’s even more “more of the same”. At least it looks good for a handheld game and controls well. The other latest instalments in the series have been Amore (brief, and now delisted from the iOS store) or cynical endless runners and clickers. It’s hard to buy the King’s reversal when the initial setup rang so true. Ho hum. By the way, I recommend sloobro’s video playthroughs which cover the whole series, including rare games and clones; they also helped me pick which DLC to unlock.