I Love Katamari (塊魂モバイル), Katamari Damashii Mobairu, lit. "Clump Spirit Mobile") is a third-person puzzle-action video game published by Namco for the iOS. It is a continuation of the "Katamari Damacy" series of games. It was released worldwide in the App Store and released exclusively on Samsung devices on December 14, 2008 (2008-12-14). In this game, the King of the Cosmos instructs the game's protagonist — the Prince — to gather as many objects as possible to grow a highly-adhesive ball called a Katamari large enough so that he can pick up special objects to bring to the King so that he can regain his memory. In March 30, 2015 it was removed from the Apple Store.
The gameplay is identical to that of "Katamari Damacy", where the player rolls a highly-adhesive ball called a Katamari, collecting various objects of increasing size until it becomes large enough to transform into a star. The game utilizes the specialized technology from the iPhone and iPod Touch in which players tilt the device to move the Katamari across the playing field. I Love Katamari received mixed reviews. While it has been praised for its game presentation, it has also been criticized for performance and control issues. The performance and control issues were improved in an update, but not entirely fixed.
Opening screen of 'I Love Katamari'
In March 30, 2015 it was removed from the Apple Store and the Google Play Store.
Story[]
The King is seen drifting about in space, he passes and looks at the Moon The Prince had created and avoided colliding with it using his special twist, The King then collided with a meteoroid and it struck his head. The King's head hurts and he sees a UFO fly by and he believes it to be a cat that barks, The King's memory is all jumbled, so he orders The Prince to go roll up a cat for him to refresh his mind.
Gameplay[]
Gameplay of "I Love Katamari", the player controls a highly–adhesive ball called the "katamari". The object is to make the katamari as large as possible by running over and collecting objects of increasing size. The more objects players collect, the larger the katamari becomes. One reviewer described the game as follows: "Basically, the object is to roll a ball around a level and pick up as much junk as you can to make the ball bigger. It sounds lame, but it’s fun to play and kind of addicting." Instead of using analog controllers to control the katamari as in the home console "Katamari" games, players roll the katamari by tilting the iPhone/iPod Touch in the direction they want the katamari to go. The goal is to collect specific objects requested by the King of the Cosmos within a specified time limit.
Reception[]
Opening screen "I Love Katamari has received some praise and some criticism from various reviewers. While some reviewers, such as Nicole Lee from CNET praised the game for its intuitive usage of the iPhone/iPod Touch technology, other reviewers such as Luke Plunkett from Kotaku and Levi Buchanan from IGN have heavily criticized the game for its lack of responsiveness in controls and handling of the katamari as well as software lag that could cause the game to freeze. Namco Bandai released an update for the game, improving some performance and control problems previously experienced by users.
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