Tag Archives: Veronica’s Pick

It’s time to REROLL

The original Katamary Damacy first released on the PS2 back in 2004, and it quickly became a cult classic with a bunch of sequels. It was bright, fun, and absolutely bananas with a killer soundtrack.

I am therefore pleased to report that the 2018 remastered edition, Katamari Damacy Reroll, for both the Switch and Steam is much of the same. It’s a game that I grabbed on launch to check out, and I have zero regrets on that front. It’s a simple game with a simple premise, but an absolutely bonkers storyline, and hilarious dialogue.

For a bit of backstory, you play as the Prince (the charming green fellow in the image above) who is the son of the King of All Cosmos. You are tiny, while your Father is large, and he will never let you forget it.

The game begins when your Father, the King of all Cosmos, goes on an intergalactic bender… and accidentally destroys the moon, and all of the stars in the sky. As such, people are a bit upset about this turn of events, and this then in turn somehow becomes your problem. Your Father, who continues to be stellar at decision-making, then tasks you with repairing the night sky through the creation of new stars in order to get these people off his back. In order to make these stars you will need to roll a magical sticky ball around various landscapes, and accumulate miscellaneous objects into it’s ever growing mass. This ball is your katamari. To progress through the game you will roll your katamari while the game’s excellent soundtrack blares in the background (I personally recommend pumping the volume),  and you will continue with this task until your katamari is deemed big enough (or you run out of time and disappoint your Dad) to be launched into the sky for the purpose of replacing one of these missing astral bodies.

As the levels progress you will get to control an increasingly large katamari with which you will then be able to engulf people, buildings, and entire cities. As your domination of this earthly realm progresses, so to does the general storyline for the game – which is just as charmingly psychotic as everything else that is happening on screen. My only gripe with this game would be that the controls don’t seem to have received the same update that the graphics have. It can be easy for your katamari to get stuck behind objects, and the inevitable struggle to freedom will commonly destroy parts of your murder ball in the process. The controls in general can be a bit of an adjustment to get used to so paying attention to the tutorial and practicing these skills can be a necessity. All in all, Katamari Damacy Reroll is definitely a game I would recommend checking out – it’s cheerful, charming and ludicrous. A+ would roll again.

 

Secretary Smash

isabelle

Screenshot: Nintendo

Much to the delight of myself I am continuing to publish my very deep thoughts on the various fighters included within SSBU.

Isabelle, from beloved Animal Crossing fame, makes her debut as a playable character in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. In SSB4 Isabelle appeared as an assist trophy but now, to the delight of all, she can Smash with the best of them. Also, in my humble opinion, she should be classified as a S-ranked character, as hitting Isabelle might be a legitimate criminal offense in some countries. Look at her and you will see that I am right.

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PK Fire

nessAs requested by my lovely co-worker I am continuing my foray into Smash characters… Alyssia, if you didn’t think I would follow through you have gravely underestimated me.

As I contemplated which character I would write about on this fine winter day I decided it was Ness’ time to shine. (My heart called for Luigi but, frankly, if I write about Luigi it will turn into a heartfelt discussion about his character development, as well as my excitement for Luigi’s Mansion 3 in 2019 – the world just isn’t ready).

Anyways, back to Ness – Ness is a character that I find to be commonly underutilized in Smash. I remember encountering him in the original Smash on the N64, and facing off against him again in Melee. Sometimes the call of “PK FIRE” still haunts my dreams. Continue reading