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Beautiful Katamari


The Top 7... Little heroes in big worlds

Honey, we shrunk the protagonist

Words: Brett Elston, GamesRadar US

 

Did we say Psychonauts was terminally ignored? Okami had to suffer not one, but two worldwide shrugs at retail, first on PS2 in 2006, then again this year on Wii. We, like everyone else who bothered, loved it, but despite such strong affection, thousands of players may not have made it all the way to the end. If you didn’t (and stopped after beating Orochi like some of us at GR), you missed Amaterasu being zapped to microbe-size to enter a sick emperor and beat the illness out of him.

You don’t see much in the way of new environments, or even a new take on old places you’ve already seen, but the trip itself is quite memorable:

Witness! Amaterasu change from proud wolf to pinkie toe runt!
 

See! Booger-sized Issun in his true form!
 

Watch! The god-dog shrink small enough to enter someone’s body!


View! Ammy and Issun take control of the emperor from within!

It’s one thing to simply reduce your size – it’s quite another to shrink down so small you can comfortably fit inside a human being. Note that this is different from fighting something that is naturally larger than you, as in Shadow of the Colossus or the whale in Kingdom Hearts.

 

If you like warding off ill-meaning monsters from inside other people’s guts, attempt to suffer through Final Fantasy Legend II, where you’re magically shrank and injected into Ki, a girl who’s been invaded by... things. See that map up there? That’s her!

If you dare, observe how lucky you kids today are with your full-color portable systems:


 

Katamari kinda-sorta breaks the rule a bit, as you’re not always small, nor are you always large. You start out quite tiny, but as you collect more and more junk for your soon-to-be celestial body, the katamari grows to planet-size and beyond.

Before you begin absorbing the cosmos, you have to start small:

Cluttered stairwells!
 

Cluttered restaurants!
 

Cluttered closets!
 

Cluttered store shelves!
 

So, what’s the most annoying tiny thing that could kill you? Well, you can’t really “die” in Katamari games, but anything that’s one goddam nanometer larger than your katamari will stop you dead in your tracks, bouncing off and shaking loose a bunch of the random crap you’d collected. Not death, no, but far more obnoxious.

 

Need more crudely rendered Japanese people to harass? Mister Mosquito lets you suck a whole family dry with your ace-insect skills.

Now what could possibly be better than all the rest of these entries? Hm...


 
41 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
The_Lurcher  - 1 year 1 month ago 
FIR- no im not gonna stoop to that.

very good gamesradar id totaly forgot about the okami one!
T0M95  - 1 year 1 month ago 
nice article, as always. good things come in small packages. game discs, for example.
(i'm really sorry to do this, but FIRST! now i hate myself.)
T0M95  - 1 year 1 month ago 
aaaaaaaaaaaw crappy slow computer. i thought i'd be first, but i was 4 minutes late. damn you! (now i REALLY hate myself.)
TobiUchiha  - 1 year 1 month ago 
As I read the first one I was thinking about Kingdom Hearts but I though you wouldn't include it because it was only one leve and was preparing to complain in the comments section then BAM my favourite RPG pops up.
Thequestion 121  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Great article. Okami is one of my favorite games and I loved that part of the game!
lava_lamp  - 1 year 1 month ago 
hope u guys arent fans of kingdom hearts, ha ha
lava_lamp  - 1 year 1 month ago 
oh by the way i love pyshoconauts, that napoleon level is my second favorite one, its funny
M-for-Mustache  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Cool top 7. This can't be a crowded competition so I'm sure you had dig up some of those. Very original thinking Brett!
lucklesswonder  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Ha! That FF II Legends video.

See kids, that's why you should practice safe sex. 'Cause otherwise you could get crabs which will then attack any shrunken hero trying to save your life from the inside.
FromTheDeskOfAndrewRyan  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Nice haha these games destroy my perception... do not mix with alchohol
JoeMasturbaby  - 1 year 1 month ago 
why are my pants wet?...


gaddamn!

(i have an Okami fetish)
derringer83  - 1 year 1 month ago 
fuck man, dry your pants...

Oh yeah, the article, pretty awesome. Mario 64 had a pretty notable "shrinkage level" except it's obviously based on an earlier Mario game. So I applaud you for leaving it out.
Weasel  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Ah Mr. Mosquito, what a bizarre game that was. Oddly fun though.
peteypablo2624  - 1 year 1 month ago 
all about buck bumble man...all about buck bumble. if u don't believe me, at least listen to the theme song for the game. simply contagious.
Shadowfan  - 1 year 1 month ago 
What the-? No Pikmin? T_T
garnsr  - 1 year 1 month ago 
The Mario shots don't give me the feeling I had decades ago when I played the huge goombas. And why the hell are Okami and Psychonauts so ignored? What a world! What a world!
Patius  - 1 year 1 month ago 
World 4 has always been my favorite.

World 7 on the other hand. . .that one's just plain evil.
GamesRadarBrettElston  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Pikmin! Dammit I knew I'd miss something crucial. Oh well, that's why we have comments.

Also felt bad for not calling out Micro Machines more. Great party games.
Tasty_Pasta  - 1 year 1 month ago 
WTFHAX, no Army Men 2?!?!?

That was classic, c'mon.
smallberry  - 1 year 1 month ago 
Great article. Also, Army Men!

Right on Tasty!
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