Once Upon a Katamari keeps the series' ball rolling – literally. Arcadey, the concept of Katamari revolves around the Prince of Cosmos rolling up all manner of objects, snowball-like into progressively bigger balls by sticking them to his titular katamari ball. Yet, with the early games already seeing you go from tiny housebound spheres to earth-shattering balls of chaos – the question for later sequels has always been, fittingly, how do you go bigger? Once Upon a Katamari's answer is to, instead, go a little deeper.
Katamari has gotten us used to rolling through charming lo-fi dioramas, learning how to use both analog sticks to push the ball through all the usual houses, gardens, towns, and cities. Once Upon a Katamari instead uses a time travel conceit to send us rolling through history – a perfect excuse to majorly shake up the types of objects we roll from era to era (each has its own set of levels), the locations we do it in, and even why we roll. Some of Once Upon a Katamari's best moments use each period setting to deliver set piece style missions. It's an incredibly smart way to give us more katamari on a scale that feels fittingly big, while giving each rolling adventure a different feeling and focus.
