Katamari Damacy

Gary Butterflied and Kole Ross roll on about Katamari Damacy

Watch Out for Fireballs episode 101 is about the PlayStation 2 title, Katamari Damacy. The episode aired on May 28th, 2015.

Episode

Skit

(0:08 - 3:58) Kole and Gary explore the universe[?] and find a bunch of planets made up of Japanese things.

Summary

(5:30 - 6:05) Gary says the meaning of "Katamari" which means "Clump Souls". They go on to talk about all their favorite Clump Souls-themed pop-culture. Including Clump Souls 3 and an Eddie Murphy movie where Eddie Murphy plays all the parts!

(6:06 - 6:46) Gary and Kole go on to talk about embarrassing Eddie Murphy movies they've seen. Kole calls "Coming to America" a "Legit great movie".

(6:40 - 10:50) They go one to talk about the game mechanics. How the Katamari ball works. How it controls, how you win levels, how you can get in to secret places to unlock cosmetics. They also talk about the Co-Op Versus mode, which is just a race.

(10:51 - 14:21) Kole brings up that the aesthetic is the most noticeable and memorable part of the game. they talk about how Katamari is like the game Cho Aniki(covered on Abject Suffering), with its "light-heartedness" and how the game acts as a"celebration". Gary and Kole lament about people who say things like "what kind of drugs where they on when they made this game?", or "Its like X on acid". Gary talks about how his experience where people claim the influence of the art piece was drugs, he says its usually way off. Kole brings up the director, Keita Takahashi, and says he has a bunch of influences that helped him create Katamary Damacy. Gary says the game is "impossible not to like."

(14:22- 17:14) They start talking about the music in the game. Kole mentions he put the Katamari episode after the Soundtrack Showdown, implying it would have been the obvious winner. They also mention how its better than Jet Set Radios music. Kole describes it as eclectic, hesitantly. They praise how it was composed in a studio for the game. Gary says the music is like a cross between multiple genres. They talk about the theme "Katamari Nah-Nah" and how it was made. They talk about how they got a bunch of Japanese famous artists because they haven't heard anything from them in awhile.

(17:14 - 25:35) Kole says the game was made for less than a million dollars. Gary talks about how the game was a budget title when it was released. He bought it for $20 USD the day he heard about it and played through the entire thing in one night with his ex-wife. Kole says to never buy a NEW game from GameStop that doesn't have the shrink wrap on it, because it was checked out by an employee. (He mentioned not to do this on multiple episodes of the show.) They go on to say how amazing it is that this game was made on the budget it was. They talk about Takahashi left due to feeling too pressured to continue making games he didnt want to. They talk about how he blatantly ignored making the games more complex. They talk about how the Katamari Damacy games really have no where to go. But, Gary does say that Katamari Damacy 2 was a bit better than the first game. Gary mentions that it's funny how the second game revolves around hungry fans getting what they want in a bad way. Kole compliments this by saying how "Touch My Katamari!" is also an obvious commentary on what Takahashi felt about having to keep going on with the Katamari series. They go on to talk about how they're pretty happy if there are no more Katamari games. They talk about how, if it came out today, that the game would be easily played by a bunch of YouTubers, because of how crazy and random the game appears to be. But, Kole says that it is ahead of its time by the game being popular by word of mouth.

(25:36 - 30:46) Kole explains the plot of the game. They talk about how The King of the Cosmos abuses the Prince and how he gets drunk and knocks all the stars out of the sky. Gary jokes about how Kole should write a think piece about it on Polygon. Gary notes that The King of All Cosmos doesn't seem to care. They talk about how his design is wonderful and memorable. Kole says, because the King of All Cosmos is so memorable, that its one of his favorite video game characters. They like how, similar to Spongebob and Ren and Stimpy, where close ups of the King is more realistic looking than the normal art style of the rest of the game. Gary says the hard thing to do in the episode would be to explain how the "lol randomness" isn't a thing, but playing it it feels good and natural and that it just feels "good". They praise how the game trusts the player to think that what it does is funny, or to just move on and it doesn't stick to any one joke for too long. Kole describes the constant moving on as a "constant well of creativity."

(30:47 - 1:35:33) Gary gets in to talking about the gameplay, beginning with the tutorial and the controls of the game. The rest of the show is mostly going in to detail about the levels and the story. They talk about how you technically can choose what level you want to do, but it doesn't really matter as you have to do them all anyway. It is more of an anti-frustration mechanic if you have trouble on another level. Kole lightly complains about rolling up living and moving things. They mention a couple of inconsistency to the rules involving the moving objects and living things and barriers, like cones to act as a barrier. Gary praises the variety of objects. Kole has a small complaint about having a good sense of the environments. Its harder to finder the secrets when you're in the medium scale, as the camera is a little too close to the Katamari. They talk about how the character designs in the cut-scenes are strange and cube-headed. While also explaining about how the voice acting seems like they actually got children who had no experience voice acting before. Gary calls it "very off and weird", but nothing is really bad about it. Kole likes the Jazz tune from "Gin and Tonic and Red Red Roses", a lot. Gary describes how he thinks the symbol monkeys are scary. Gary teases Kole a few times about not putting Kole's favorite tracks in the background. The biggest complaint they have is probably having to do everything over in the level if you fail. A semi-minor complaint Kole has is in levels where you have to pick up one of a specific object to win the game. Though, this is a pretty minor annoyance. Level 7 is the stage that Gary had the most trouble on, calling it a big "difficulty spike."

(1:35:34-1:39:54) Gary and Kole talk about the ending. They also talk about their impressions of the game. They clearly liked the game a lot. Kole says its a good casual game, where he would put it on in the background during a party and have people just pick it up. Gary says its an easy recommendation.

(1:39:55-1:46:49) This is all the admin stuff.

(1:49:50-1:46:55) Blooper of Gary accidentally saying Kotaku.

Show Notes

Our Place in the Stars
Meet Dave
The Clumps
Noby Noby Boy
Slither
Monkey Shines
Booji Boy
Dolls
He was a bad man
Snail Dick
Pegg V. Geeks
Judy is your Viet Nam

Music

Katamari on the Rocks ~ Main Theme
Katamari Nah-Nah
Walking on a Star!
The Moon & The Prince
Gin & Tonic & Red Red Roses
Lonely Rolling Star
Que Sera Sera
Roll Me In
Katamari☆Stars
Cherry Tree Times
Katamari of Love ~ Ending Theme
Katamari March Theme
Wanda Wanda

Extrasode

The Katamari Damacy Extrasode aired on June 4th, 2015.

Summary

This extrasode has six responses. one of which is from Facebook, the others are all from the Contact page on the Duckfeed.tv website. Jackson is the only one where Kole does not mention where the response was from, so I am assuming it was from the Contact page. Every response praises Katamari Damacy for its uniqueness, its budget and its quality. Its a well praised game throughout!

(1:36-25:00) Most of this is listener responses, documented below, but Gary and Kole take a good chunk of time talking about how the gaming industry is never in a true "bad year for games", as the choices of games to play is infinite. They talk a bit about The Level and Gary wonders why hosts Ben Merkel and David Moneysmith like Destiny and why Ben is drawn to open world games.

Responses

(1:56-2:19) Jonathan Stark via Facebook. he liked how the game felt indie in a time when the industry focused more on "epic more serious games". He says it reminded him of returning to his childhood days of playing a NES game and that it was a good feeling.

(3:27-4:10) Alex via Contact. Alex talks about how it was a bold move to release a budget title and how Katamari Damacy is one of the first budget titles to actually get universally good reviews. Syas it proves a budget game doesn't have to go in tot he Wal-Mart "Shit bin".

(4:36-7:16) Brent via Contact. He talks about his hard time to find the game on release. About how his local Game Crazy lied about the game being pushed back a month and how a GameStop sold it to him. He talks about how he doesn't know how he even heard about the game.

(9:04-9:51) Shaun via Contact. Talks about how great it was it was a budget title.

(10:22-10:50) Brian via Contact. He talks about how he read that the game was made to be about something other than violence, then goes on to talk about how the game is actually very violent when you think about it.

(11:10-13:21) Jackson via Contact(?). He talks about Super Metroid a bit. And how after it he returned to playing a lot of not-so-great games. Says his girlfriend showed him Katamary Damacy. He mentions how he imported the Katamari CDs and ahs had the songs on rotation for years, now. He does wish that they covered We <3 Katamari over the original, as he sees it as an improved game, in general.

Outtakes

(25:01-26:00) Kole and Gary joke about being overly adult podcast.

(26:01-27:26) Gary talks about trying to learn Unity for a game making class. And talks about how he replaced learning Unity for Adventure game Studios and how he ahd to start his project for school over 2 weeks before it was due.

(27:27-31:31) This is a Just Funnin' section about Gary's teeth. Gary laments dental work and wishes his entire mouth was full of metal teeth. Kole brings in that a lot of times these kinds of issues are because of health reasons and he equates it to mortality. They talk about disliking people who think that health issues are the person's fault. And they talk about how addiction shouldn't be about victimizing them.

(31:27-32:21) Is an alternate version of the WOFF! theme!

Show Notes

AGS
Whiskey Library
Crystal Clear Dew
Dew Mouth
Earth Defense Force

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