Katamari Damacy ReRoll Out Now on Switch & Steam

Katamari Damacy has had a troubled history of ephemerality, but the first game in the series has finally been re-released as Katamari Damacy ReRoll. It is a bare-bones update, the game was never a graphical showpiece, but the focus here is on making Katamari available again for the first time in over a decade

The unique gameplay of Katamari Damacy is still just as fun. Rolling things up to make a bigger katamari (ball) is so relaxing. The bigger your Katamari, the tinier the prince pushing the ball is by comparison, but the bigger ball also lets you and him roll up larger and larger objects until you’ve gone from rolling up erasers and pencils to rolling up continents and planets.

The Steam for Windows version of Katamari Damacy ReRoll suffers from some limitations due to how old Katamari’s design is. There is no autosaving, and it’ll warn you about that, so you need to return to a house on the main planetary menu to manually save between levels.

Another limitation shows up when you launch ReRoll on Windows for the first time. ReRoll appears in a tiny window on your screen, and you can’t access the options to change the resolution until you complete the first level. That might be difficult if you’re trying to play on your couch. It’s not a huge issue, but it was a surprise that Katamari didn’t immediately choose a resolution to match the desktop.

Katamari Damacy ReRoll is a can’t miss classic. At $30 it’s ten dollars more expensive than it was when it was originally released at the bargain price of $20, but Katamari is worth every penny. I can’t think of any game as hopeful and vibrantly silly. ReRoll is out now on the Nintendo Switch and Steam for Windows.