Once Upon A Katamari Switch and Switch 2 Review

Katamari Damacy REROLL was my first taste of the series. I absolutely adored it when I played it on PC, and it is the rare game I ended up rebuying on all three consoles and completing. The music, aesthetic, and simple premise of rolling things up to get bigger were enough to get me hooked. I remember the songs getting stuck in my head for months, and I still kick myself for missing out on the vinyl soundtrack. Katamari Damacy REROLL was a remake of the first game, and I have since played and enjoyed We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie, a remake of the second game with new content, the same way. 

We Love Katamari REROLL was also the game that kind of told me I should play this series outside the Nintendo Switch for the best experience, with it feeling smooth and loading very quickly on PlayStation 5 and Steam Deck compared to Nintendo’s hybrid system. These two Katamari games were the perfect feel-good experiences that did enough to my brain to get me wanting to play through them all and have them ready to play on every system. 

While both of those were remakes, they were new to me, and I craved more Katamari. This is where the Xbox backward-compatible Beautiful Katamari came into the picture, with it delivering incredible music, but I didn’t end up clicking with the rest as much as the first two games. The recent Apple Arcade-exclusive Katamari Damacy Rolling LIVE, on the other hand, was brilliant, and it gave me confidence in Bandai Namco working on new entries in the series, despite the original creator (Keita Takahashi) not being involved. Keita recently released To a T, a fantastic and charming adventure game, but I digress. 

This brings us to Once Upon A Katamari. This is the first new console game in the series in a very long time, and I’ve somehow managed to play it on multiple systems. I needed a bit more time for today’s review, which is a few days after the game launched worldwide, but I’m glad I waited so I could test out more versions and recommend what you can buy alongside covering the game itself. 

While every game in the series has you rolling things up with specific requirements across levels, Once Upon A Katamari tries to freshen things up with different themed levels and objects spread through history and across different periods. On paper, this is a great idea, but Once Upon A Katamari unfortunately adds a bit too much focus on collectibles and gimmick levels rather than letting you just enjoy each level and move on to the next one. 

Each level features a few collectibles like crowns, cousins (more playable character avatars), and presents. The crowns, in particular, are smartly placed and sized so you can’t just rush to collect all of them in one go. These collectibles serve not only for replay value, but also as a means to progress through and unlock more stages with crowns. I’m conflicted about this because I appreciate the developer adding this so you have a reason to replay stages, but I also got annoyed in the middle when I just wanted to move to the next stage and couldn’t because I didn’t have enough crowns. 

Once Upon A Katamari also adds power-ups to levels that range from a magnet that sucks items you can collect to you for a set period of time, to a sensor that gives you a clue for where a crown or cousin is, and even a stopwatch to pause time in a level. 

I think the level design and creativity that Once Upon A Katamari oozes in its aesthetic, and how each period or era you visit feels, make it absolutely worth your time, but some levels unfortunately end up a bit too cramped, thanks to the camera and smaller spaces. I often found myself having to jump back and front to make sure I don’t get stuck in a specific part of a stage.

Outside the core levels, Once Upon A Katamari has a lot of customization through emotes, the cousins you find, custom creations, and also the music through unlocks and DLC. My review codes and the other platform versions I purchased were the King of All Sounds Editions, featuring additional music from older games and customization options. I adore the Katamari series music, and they make for fun ways to replay older levels. 

Before getting into the platform differences and technical aspects of Once Upon A Katamari, I want to give you some context for the prior two releases. Katamari Damacy REROLL was a 30 frames per second game on every platform. While it had some UI elements and menus at 60 frames per second, the core gameplay ran at 30 frames per second. We Love Katamari REROLL, on the other hand, was only capped to 30 frames per second on Switch and supported 60 frames per second on other consoles, with it even doing 90 frames per second on Steam Deck and higher on PC on supported displays. 

Unfortunately, Once Upon A Katamari is an original Switch game. When I play on my 1440p monitor, the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions are flawless 60 frames per second and crisp during gameplay, with the latter even supporting Quick Resume. The Switch version is capped at 30 frames per second, even on Switch 2, with a 1080p docked and 720p handheld upper limit. If it were just the resolution and frame rate difference, I wouldn’t really mind it, and I’ve already played both prior games on Switch, but there are more cuts with Once Upon A Katamari on Switch.

The draw distance is much lower on Switch compared to other platforms, and the load times are a lot longer as well. I also noticed Xenoblade Chronicles 2-like fast travel environment pop-in during many levels when using the Prince Turn (when you jump to the other side to turn quickly), where objects were culled behind your frame of view, and they cannot load in time when you do the turn. This also happens when levels are interrupted by a cut-scene, and you get control after said cut-scene. 

So I would say the PS5 delivers the best console version of the game, but what about the PC port? The PC version of Once Upon A Katamari actually scales well above all consoles. In fact, I was able to get better performance (at a lower resolution) on Steam Deck than both Xbox and PS5. The PC version not only supports uncapped frame rates above 60 frames per second, but it also has full 16:10 support for Steam Deck and 21:9 ultrawide support. I was shocked to see the latter in a game like this. Once Upon A Katamari is definitely best on PC if you have the option to get it there.

There is one issue that affects all versions of the game, though. When you are in the hub or your ship, character movement has a scrolling issue thanks to the engine, where it does not feel smooth. I tested this by forcing the game to 50 frames per second on Steam Deck where it felt fine. At 60 frames per second or 144 frames per second it does not, and feels like there is constant jitter. On Switch, the 30 frames per second target makes this specific issue feel much worse. I had a similar problem in Dave the Diver on Switch compared to other systems. I want to stress that this is not present during the actual levels and only in the hub, but it is annoying. Hopefully, it can be fixed in a patch.

Switch technical issues aside, Once Upon A Katamari is still a game I recommend, despite some of the issues I have with progression. It definitely feels like the team understood what makes Katamari levels worth revisiting, and the new music is pretty damn great. I will say that if you have the option to play on Apple Arcade, Katamari Damacy Rolling LIVE is a more polished game than Once Upon A Katamari. Hopefully, that sees a port down the line because every platform deserves to have every Katamari game.

I’m very glad Once Upon A Katamari exists, and while I have enjoyed playing it on basically every platform over the last week as a break from other games, I really wish a little more care had been put into the progression. It would also dramatically benefit from a Nintendo Switch 2 version because out of the three games in the series on Nintendo Switch, Once Upon A Katamari sees the most visual cutbacks compared to other platforms.

Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review copy provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment