Follow Genre: Arcade, Puzzle
Developer: RENGAME
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platform: PC, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5

Once Upon A KATAMARI – Review

October 31, 2026 - Ibuki - No Comments

Site Score

8.4

Good: More gameplay variation, Story

Bad: Awkward controls

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Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)

We have always been huge fans of the quirky KATAMARI games and have already covered a few rereleases in the past. Last year, a completely new entry in the franchise was released, namely Once Upon A KATAMARI, which we sadly couldn’t review due to our busy schedules. Now, however, the Switch 2 version is available, and we thought this was a great opportunity to finally cover the game. So, without further ado, here’s our review of Once Upon A KATAMARI.

Story

The careless King of All Cosmos has done it again. During his last cleaning session, the King of All Cosmos found the Cosmos Scroll, which he threw into space, destroying the stars, the moon, and even Earth in the process. This is, obviously, not a good thing, so you, the small Prince, have to fix the situation again. This time, however, it’s not as simple as visiting different places to restore them to their former states. This time you’ll have to travel through time and space to collect memories of how the Earth used to be. This way, you might be able to make things right again.

We actually found the story a bit less long-winded during dialogues and slightly more appealing than older entries. Don’t get us wrong, the old games had loads of charm too, but the narrative was a bit hit-or-miss at times. This time, we quite enjoyed the overall pacing and flow, and the silly cutscenes never failed to entertain.

Graphics

Even though this is a brand new KATAMARI release, the developers opted to keep the ‘old-school’ graphics of the series intact, albeit with some polish to make it look a bit more modern. Your KATAMARI looks a bit smoother and a bit more detailed, but everything else in the different time periods has a PS2 or PS3 vibe with blocky character models and low-detail assets. This, in combination with the many bright colors, does have a lot of charm. The levels are really diverse, and we loved exploring the different time periods. We did even fail a few levels the first time, as we were quite busy exploring and checking out all the fun little animations. As we played the PS5 version for our review, we didn’t notice any frame drops or stutters, which was to be expected.

Sound

The sound design of Once Upon A KATAMARI is great. The soundtrack is extremely varied with a fairly ‘cinematic’ feel to it. You’ll have a lot of upbeat and catchy tunes playing in many of the levels, while others are calmer and have a rather adventurous undertone. The first pirate level really stuck with us thanks to the perfect background music. The sound effects utilize many familiar sounds from previous entries, so you pretty much know what to expect here. Many cutscenes or dialogues come with gibberish sounds to mimic voices, but there are a few voiced cutscenes as well, which sound rather nice.

Gameplay

Once Upon A KATAMARI is like its predecessors, classified as a puzzle game, but once again, we feel ‘arcade’ could also be added as a genre here. You’ll be playing as the tiny prince, or one of his many cousins, to roll a KATAMARI and roll up all the clutter around you. The bigger your KATAMARI becomes, the more you can absorb, and eventually you’ll also be rolling up humans, animals, and structures. The offset is simple here, and you always have a clear notation of what is expected of you. Sometimes you need to clear an area as fast as possible, other times you’ll have to make the biggest KATAMARI possible, and sometimes you’ll have to battle your cousins to score the most points. For the most part, this new entry still has that ‘zen-like’ feel, but there are a few levels that can be quite tricky.

In the levels, you’ll also be able to find cosmetics, new cousins, and crowns. For the most part, the game doesn’t offer anything we haven’t seen before, but there are some variations to the gameplay. The aforementioned battles feel like a breath of fresh air, and there are a few original twists which we won’t spoil here. Even with the few new additions, there isn’t much more to the game than rolling your KATAMARI, which is actually perfectly fine. The controls are still a bit awkward, even when using the simplified controls, but in a way that’s part of the charm.

Conclusion

Once Upon A KATAMARI is a great continuation of the series that does embed a few new elements into the formula but never truly strays off the beaten path. If you love what the franchise had to offer in the past, picking this one up should be a no-brainer (if you haven’t already). The game managed to entertain us from start to finish, and we can see ourselves returning to it to break our earlier set records. The quirky atmosphere always manages to entertain, and even the old-school visuals packed a lot of charm. This is one amusing title worth checking out.

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