#WeeklyGameMusic: Hello World (Touch My Katamari)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music. Next up is Hello World, composed by Hiroshi Okubo. And series fans should immediately recognize the music’s hip style, which comes from none other than Touch My Katamari.

The surreal and bizarre Touch My Katamari starts with The King of All Cosmos suddenly becoming depressed after overhearing a small human boy mention he thinks of the king as no greater than other common people he knows. To, uh, rekindle his fragile ego broken spirit, he sends his own son, The Prince, to Earth prove to how great the king is…by having The Prince roll Katamaris. Yes, the story makes just as much sense in context.

Rolling on: Touch My Katamari continues the series trademark of utter insanity and apocalyptic destruction rolling the titular Katamari (roughly translates to “clump” in Japanese), a gravity ball that sticks to objects smaller than itself. Once an object is stuck to a Katamari, it becomes part of its mass, thus making it capable of gathering more larger objects. Unique to this entry is the touch-based gestures one can input on the backside of the PS Vita, which makes the Katamari either squash horizontally and cover more ground, or stretch vertically to fit through tight spaces. The game infamously starts you gathering small objects, like thumbtacks, gum, and small dice, until it horrifyingly colorfully escalates to cats, dogs, people, cars, buildings, cities, islands, entire continents, planets, stars, galaxies…

Touch My Katamari was published by Bandai Namco on the PS Vita. Sadly, no other port exists.

P.S. Snark aside, and to this entry’s credit, it explicitly spells out what was hinted throughout the game series that being rolled up in a Katamari is actually a euphoric and unifying experience. Which of course is why every living being reacts to being rolled up by screaming like there’s no tomorrow.

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#WeeklyGameMusic: Blue Sky Town – Dol Dona (.hack//G.U.)


#WeeklyGameMusic: New week, new music. Today’s track is Blue Sky Town – Dol Dona, composed by Chikayo Fukuda. It’s a pleasant town music from Bandai Namco’s mega-long multi-media series, .hack, specifically, the .hack//G.U. trilogy.

Before there was Sword Art Online (SAO), there was .hack. That’s right, this game, manga, and anime series all takes place in the fictional MMO Action-RPG, The World. Dull naming aside, much like SAO, players start falling into a comatose state, both in-game and in real-life. Unlike SAO, the devs blame it to a computer virus, presumably spread by malicious players. The G.U. trilogy stars Haseo, who seeks for revenge after his close friend catches this comatose spell.

.hack//G.U. is a single-player action-JRPG series. Unlike, you know, real MMORPGs, .hack//G.U. is a story-driven game with no character customization, and A.I.-controlled party members. The party explores randomly-generated dungeons: battle initiates when a monster gets close to the party, constraining them into a tight circle. Perhaps the more unique side of the game is how narrative plays: there are email logs, marriage simulation, and other MMORPG-like communication methods to suck the player into its universe.

.hack//G.U. is available on PC via Steam, PS4, and PS2.

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