- Publisher: Bandai Namco Games
- Release Date: Oct 24, 2025
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox Series X
- Summary:
- Developer: Bandai Namco Games, RENGAME
- Genre(s): Action, Action Adventure, General, Platformer, 3D
- # of players: Up to 4
- Cheats: On GameFAQs
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 11
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Mixed: 1 out of 11
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Negative: 0 out of 11
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Nov 13, 2025Once Upon a Katamari is the new high point of this bizarre ball rolling series, will expertly crafted stages and loads of silly objects to roll up.
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Oct 22, 2025I couldn’t stop smiling as each melon, shoe, playing card, traffic cone, and house satisfyingly snapped into place on my whirling clump of stuff as I rolled across time and space. The only time Once Upon A Katamari broke my delirious grin was when it tickled my ears with riffs so funky the bassist practically reached through my TV’s speakers and slapped a stank face out of me (and that’s meant as a compliment). This appropriately ostentatious, energetic return is the best the Katamari series has been since the PlayStation 2 era. With cleverly implemented tweaks to the ever-satisfying gauntlet of rolling delights, a stellar soundtrack, and offbeat charm in spades, there will always be room on my hard drive for Once Upon A Katamari.
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Nov 5, 2025Once Upon a Katamari is another excellent title in the series. The game design is still timeless, and the act of picking up everything in your path never gets old. The additions of power-ups don't change the game dramatically, but the solid level design and varied objectives do a good job at keeping the game fresh. The time travel concept also helps in that regard. Still bathed in that joyful but lo-fi presentation, Once Upon a Katamari is a game that's benefitted from long stretches between releases and remains a great title for both veterans and newcomers alike.
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Oct 22, 2025Once Upon a Katamari feels like it is as strong of an entry as a game like We Love Katamari. The time traveling element really suits the series. The character customization is a lot of fun. I’m not a KatamariBall fan and think the Simple control scheme option is far from it. But overall Once Upon a Katamari is a great installment that captures the essence of the series.
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Oct 23, 2025Once Upon a Katamari successfully preserves the essential fun of rolling a ball and sticking everything to it, while also adding a delightful new layer by having players travel through various time periods. As the first new Katamari series title in 14 years, it serves as a welcome gift for long-time fans.
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Oct 23, 2025Once Upon a Katamari is a delightfully bizarre and captivating experience that thrives on absurdity. Rolling up everything from dancing cockroaches and mermaids to entire ships or orcas creates a strangely hypnotic rhythm that grows more satisfying over time. For completionists, it serves as a treasure trove of challenges and oddities; for others, it offers a blend of laughter, bewilderment, and gentle confusion. It may not resonate with everyone, but its unapologetically eccentric charm is precisely what makes it special – every piece of joyful madness eventually finds its devoted audience.
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Oct 22, 2025It’s basically the kind of greatest hits-style structure you’d expect from a quirky, arcade-style franchise game over a decade removed from its last major entry (unless you’re in the Apple Arcade mines). It’s got everything you’d expect to see but more of it, lots of unlockables, music DLC, self-referential content out the wahzoo, so on and so forth. It’s a lot of fun even if Katamari’s trademark weirdness isn’t so weird anymore, and it doesn’t really seem to have ambitions to redefine anything (not that it needs to). Aside from the whole crown thing putting me off, it’s been a blast picking away at the experience piece by piece. And listening to Lonely Rolling Star in the menu. On repeat. A lot.