This is the Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy FAQ v0.3 By Mark Green Email address for submissions/comments: mark [at] antelope [dot] nildram [dot] co [dot] uk The latest version of this FAQ will always be available from http://www.cheatcc.com. ----------- wwwwwwwwwww If the block of characters on the left has a straight mmmmmmmmmmm right-hand edge, you are using a monospaced font. iiiiiiiiiii This FAQ looks far better viewed in a monospaced font. OoOoOoOoOoO Use NOTEPAD, DOS TYPE, a browser text viewer, or MORE 12345678901 to view this file. ----------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************* LEGAL BITS *********************************** -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Neither the author of this FAQ, nor any person who distributes it in any way, shall be responsible or liable for anything that results from using this FAQ for any purpose, including but not limited to damage to your Playstation 2, controllers, hands, eyes, sanity, or thinking how you'd roll down the hill and pick up objects in a certain order with your Katamari while standing in the queue at the Kebab House in the high street of Frome. Not while I did that after the big KD session at Retrovision 5 or anything. No, of course not. This FAQ may be freely distributed provided that it is kept unmodified and in its entirity. This FAQ may not be sold, or included as part of a publication that is sold, without the author's express permission. Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy is (c) and (tm) of Namco 2005. Playstation, Playstation 2, and Sony are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment. The use of trademarks within this guide is not intended to represent a challenge to their validity. ================================================================================ INTRODUCTION ================================================================================ Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy is the second Katamari Damacy game produced by Namco. Katamari Damacy, the decidedly surreal game of rolling up objects into a big ball, was a surprise cult hit for Namco in both Japan and the States, and this game continues the line. The gameplay is essentially identical, except the maps have been expanded, the range of missions enhanced, and greater lastability added. THE MANY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE TITLE.. First of all, "Katamari Damacy" is how Namco spell the American title, but the actual Japanese transliteration is "Katamari DamaSHII". The title, "Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy" literally translates to "Katamari Damacy, which is greatly liked by everyone" but is usually rendered as "Everyone's Favorite Katamari Damacy" or (my preference) "Everyone Loves Katamari Damacy". The announced American launch title is "We Love Katamari". And what about "Katamari Damacy" itself? Well, it's pretty much impossible to translate, which is why they haven't tried. First of all, "Katamari" literally means "cluster" or "clump", but I've heard it used by native Japanese to refer to ANY sort of big object that's evenly big in both dimensions: a ball of rice, a football, and so on. Now, as above, "Damacy" is actually "Damashii", which in turn is actually "Tamashii" (in Japanese when two words are stuck together, the beginning of the second one can change), which means "Soul". So "Cluster Soul"? Well, it's not really as simple as that, either. The common usage of "Damashii" is in phrases like "Nihon Damashii" ("the soul/spirit of Japan"), or "AMERICA Damashii" ("the soul/spirit of America"). So think about what "the spirit of America" (or Japan, or wherever) means to you for a moment.. and then imagine that, with the exact same type of meaning, the phrase is instead "the spirit of Katamari". Weird, huh? I think I'll just stick to calling it "Katamari Damacy".. ================================================================================ GAME STRUCTURE ================================================================================ On the first load of the game, you'll be told that there's no Game data yet, and asked if you want to proceed. Here, as on all confirmation menus in the game, the top option (with two characters) is Yes , and the bottom option (with three characters) is No. Also (if you're a first-time importer, for which there seem to be a lot of for this game.. hmm, wonder why..) remember that in Japanese games, the circle button is confirm, and the X button is cancel - it's the other way round on most American and European games. On future loads, assuming that you have saved some data, the Namco logo will split into three parts, representing your three save files. Use the standard controls to move the Katamari left and right and pick up the appropriate part of the logo. If you don't want to load a file, roll over the dot on the right. Once you press the start button, you will see the Prince appear on a simple landscape. This landscape consists of 6 screens, arrayed left to right; the landscape scrolls only when the Prince walks off the edge. Use the left analog stick to control the prince. Other controls are: SQUARE : Speeds up the prince. TRIANGLE : Push and hold to make the Prince whistle music (which goes with the beat of his walking) CIRCLE : Interact with the object the Prince is currently near. The objects on the landscape have the following effects - but note that THEY ONLY WORK AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE TUTORIAL STAGE: 1-2-3 winner's podium : Views rankings in VS battle mode. Players playing GO : Starts VS battle mode. House (any type) : Goes to DATA menu. Woodpecker : Goes to SOUND menu. Door : Exits game. Crown : Goes to MEMORIAL menu (only after completing Cosmos Stage) Cake : Goes to present selection menu Katamari : Goes to item collection display You can also walk off the top of the screen to go to the COSMOS MAP. Note that this also will not work until the tutorial stage is completed - before that, the Prince will just go off the top of the screen and disappear, which may be a bug. If you have found any of the Prince's "cousins" in the stages you have played, they will be walking around on the landscape. Walk up to any of them and press CIRCLE to switch control to them. If you hold the TRIANGLE button to make the Prince whistle, then any cousin you approach will follow the Prince around. Finally, the most important thing on the landscape: the fans (people and animals)! When you approach any of these and press CIRCLE, they will set you a mission. You then get the option of accepting the misson or not (top option to accept, bottom option to refuse). If you accept, you will be taken to the King, who will describe the mission in more detail before sending you to do it. When time runs out on the mission, you will have the option to try again immediately if you think you did badly: choose the top option to proceed with your final score or the bottom one to retry. If you fail a mission, the King will be angry and will shoot eye-lasers at the Prince; you can move the Prince left and right to dodge the lasers with the analog stick, but the lasers do not actually harm the Prince even if they hit him. If you succeed on a mission, the King will be pleased, and will make your final Katamari into a planet. If you have played the mission before, then a planet will already exist for that mission, and the King will ask you what you want to do. A two option menu will appear: if you choose the first option, the King will destroy the old planet and make a new one out of your Katamari; if you choose the second, the King will make your new Katamari into Stardust, leaving the old planet as it was. Each person on the map has at least one mission for the Prince; some have two. The game progresses as follows: 1 - Only the tutorial stage is avaliable. You must complete it before anything else. 2 - Fans will begin to appear on the map. Each person will set the Prince their first mission. Once the mission is complete, a new fan will appear for the Prince to do their first mission. The new fan will call out to the Prince; this enables you to identify which fan has the newly arrived mission. (Note that you can still play the missions for the other fans again to try and improve your score.) Every time you complete a stage, a new planet is created. This planet then appears on the Cosmos Map (accessed by walking into the sky). Also, one of the fans is a Black Dog. This fan's mission is the Cosmos Stage, and is the key to completing the game. Every planet you create by completing a stage will appear on the Cosmos Stage. The objective of the Cosmos Stage is to roll up a Katamari big enough to collect the Sun (see below). In order do to this, there needs to be a sufficient number of planets on the Cosmos Stage and they need to be of a sufficient size. THE BLACK DOG / COSMOS STAGE WILL FIRST APPEAR PARTWAY THROUGH THIS STAGE OF THE GAME. HOWEVER, YOU *CANNOT* COMPLETE IT AT THIS TIME (because there is nowhere enough material on the Cosmos Stage to make your Katamari big enough), BUT YOU *MUST* TRY IT ONCE AND FAIL TO PROGRESS. (Note that the King does *NOT* get angry when you fail this stage for the first time) 3 - Once all the fans have appeared, the existing fans will begin to offer their second missions to the Prince. At this point in the game, fans will call out on the map if: * They have a second mission avaliable, OR * The size of Katamari you have built, on either of their missions (or whichever one has the possibility of you building Katamaris of different sizes), is not yet enough to make the necessary contribution to Cosmos Stage. 4 - Once enough missions have been completed, the King will give you a message when you return to the map, and the Black Dog will begin to call out on the map. THIS INDICATES THAT THERE IS NOW ENOUGH MATERIAL IN COSMOS STAGE TO COMPLETE IT. (DO *NOT* GO BACK TO COSMOS STAGE UNTIL THE BLACK DOG IS CALLING OUT - you'll be certain to fail, and the King *will* get angry this time!) Go to the Black Dog, accept the mission on Cosmos Stage, roll up everything you can, and then you SHOULD be able to collect the Sun. The King will congratulate you on having rolled the entire Universe into one, and you'll see the "ending movie". (After this point, the Memorial option becomes available, a crown appears over your save file, and the title screen will now read "Congratulations on Clearing!") 5 - Three new fans are now added to the landscape. In order to unlock the next feature, you need to collect EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PRINCE'S COUSINS from all stages in the game. Once you have done this, the boy in yellow (one of the three new fans) will offer you his mission. Each stage also has a "high score" and a "super score" to beat. You cannot see what these scores are, but you can see how close you are to them by the appearance of the planet that the King creates, both in the ending summary screen and the Cosmos display. If the planet is glowing, you've beaten the high score; if the planet is radiating lines in a star shape, you've beaten the super score. Fans will call out on this stage if either a) they have a third mission available; b) there are cousins or presents remaining to be collected on their stages; or c) you have not yet beaten the super score on their stages. 6 - Once all cousins are completed, the boy in yellow will offer you his mission, which involves collecting all the cousins while they are scattered around on a single map. 7 - Once that is completed, the dreaded "Rose Stage" will become available. Dreaded because it requires you to collect 1 million (!) roses. This is a sufficiently major task that it can be done in instalments; if you exit from the stage, your current progress is saved, and you can come back and collect more next time. ================================================================================ MENUS ================================================================================ DATA MENU ~~~~~~~~~ Save Load Import Save and Load are obvious. Import will load your original Katamari Damacy save! Once loaded, the stars and constellations you created in that game will be visible in the Cosmos Map, and in Cosmos Stage, together with the Planets created in Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy. Note that this ONLY works if you had the original JAPANESE version of Katamari Damacy - it will NOT load data from the US version. PRESENT SELECTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All the presents you have found will be displayed in a ring. Press CIRCLE to have the Prince wear an item, TRIANGLE to have him take it off, and X to exit. The right analog stick rotates the Prince. SOUND MENU ~~~~~~~~~~ Vibration 1P ON/OFF 2P ON/OFF Sound MONO/STEREO Music Volume Sfx Volume Default MUSIC/SFX RESET ALL TO DEFAULTS COLLECTION MENU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This menu displays every type of item you've ever collected in your Katamari. Choose a major category with the left and right triggers, then choose a subcategory with the analog stick and circle button. You can then page through the list of objects, using the triggers to switch page. Press X to exit. MEMORIAL MENU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Click on a movie to view it. Click on a piece of music to play it. (With the circle button) Use the left and right triggers to change page and X to exit. ================================================================================ MISCELLANEOUS USER INTERFACE INFORMATION ================================================================================ When you are talking to a fan before starting a mission (while the menu is still visible) the top-left corner of the screen will show what secret items are still available on that fan's missions. The present icon will be faded if you have not found the present yet or bright if you have; below will be icons representing each of the cousins to be found on the mission, which will show a picture of the cousin if you have found them, or a picture of the prince's antenna if a cousin exists you have not found yet. Pressing the START button during a mission will pause the game. Press START again to resume. You can also press SQUARE to return to the selection screen, or TRIANGLE to restart the mission from the beginning. Both of these yield an "are you sure" prompt. At the end of a mission, when the king asks you if you want to proceed, you will see an object in the bottom left corner with a number next to it. This is telling you how many of that object would be needed to assemble a mass equivalent to that of your Katamari. You can press the square button to change the object to another randomly selected one. ================================================================================ BASIC GAMEPLAY ================================================================================ If you've never played Katamari Damacy before (gasp!) it's very easy to learn. All you need to do is roll your Katamari around with the analog sticks (see the TUTORIAL MISSION for the full controls) and collect objects by rolling over them. That's it. The only kicker is that your Katamari has to be big enough to fit the object onto. If you crash into objects bigger than you, then there will be several results, as follows: Object far too big for Katamari - Katamari crashes into object. A few existing objects from the Katamari will fly off in the impact. (You can collect them back again) Object too big to collect, but not too big for Katamari to go over, and flat on ground - Katamari rolls over object. Object is a living creature (person/animal) and Katamari is ONLY JUST big enough to hold it - Creature is knocked over by Katamari. If you then find where the creature landed, it'll be stunned and you can pick it up. Katamari is VERY NEARLY big enough to hold object - Katamari crashes, but object sways back and forth for a moment, indicating it is NEARLY collectable. If creatures run away from the Katamari, that indicates you are big enough to collect those creatures. Some creatures will attack the Katamari, usually by ramming into it (which is treated as a crash). Some humans in town stages will attempt to SHOOT the Katamari, but this doesn't actually do any damage to it. ================================================================================ FANS ================================================================================ This section gives the name of all of the fans that appear on the selection screen, together with their location and appearance, for future reference. ^^^^ Walk off the top of any screen to enter Cosmos View menu ^^^ ^^ +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ | H n |4 p| 8 C | P b | d ##e ## | T G | | j K| T | H | a | #### | | <- |i |l | 1 q| r c | 7 | o h B| Wraps | D | s |K | B T | H | | -> | C 5 | k m | 9 2 | 3 | C f |P 6 g | Wraps +----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ H - House (opens save menu) K - Katamari (opens collection) T - Tree (decoration) C - Cake (Presents menu) B - Bird (sound test) G - Go players (two player mode) D - Door (exit game) # - Lake (decoration) 1 - ESPANIOLA (Dark male, Striped shirt, playing football ) 2 - RAINBOW GIRL (Young girl, light blue dresss and hat) 3 - MR. LAZYBONES (Man lying on a stripy blanket) 4 - NOVICE TEACHER (Woman in smart blue suit) 5 - MR. GENTLE (Older man in suit carrying cane) 6 - GRANDMA (Old lady in green dress) 7 - ELEPHANT AND BIRD (Um, it's an elephant and a bird) 8 - MINI SUMO (Small guy wearing sumo-style thong) 9 - EXCITED BABY (Baby in pink bib) a - RAIN KAPPA (Wearing big yellow raincoat*) b - HANSEL AND GRETEL (Twins with weird big hairstyles) c - CRANE HAT (Wearing a bird-shape hat) d - CAMPING MAN (Orange shirt and tied-off hankie) e - MR. FLOAT (Wearing rubber ring and standing in lake) f - F1 RACER (Sitting in a go-kart/racing car) g - EXACT GIRL (Girl spinning hula-hoop) h - BLACK DOG (um, it's a black dog) i - MISS FLOWER (Woman, purple kimono, holding flower) j - MR. STUDY (Sitting next to bok, reading book) k - DR. KATAMARI (White dog - no, I don't understand either) l - COW BEAR MAN (orange shoulders and blue outfit, holding fork) m - STRESSED MUM (blue outfit, grey apron) n - SNOW CHILD (red pixie outfit) o - MR. FUNDRAISER (grey outfit, carrying brown cash register) The following fans become visible only when Cosmos Stage is cleared: p - HOSHINO TOMUO (man in yellow space suit, from KD1) q - HOSHINO MICHIRU (girl in yellow school uniform, from KD1) The following fans become selectable only when all cousins are collected (although they will be visible before that): r - HOSHINO ?? (boy in yellow school uniform, from KD1) The following fans become selectable only when HOSHINO ???'s stage is completed (although they will be visible before that): s - ROSE (a rose, as in the plant, standing up alone) [* RAIN KAPPA is a Japanese pun: a KAPPA is a kind of mythological creature that lives in Water, but KAPPA is also the word for "raincoat". ] ================================================================================ MAPS ================================================================================ Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy has a rather unusual set of maps. There is a single large "Main" map which is used for many missions, and then a set of smaller maps which are used for individual side missions. This section lists ONLY the maps which are used on multiple missions: unique mission-specific maps are described in the sections below. MAIN The "main" map is actually a series of different maps of the same area. The maps differ in the detail they represent and the area they cover, and which map is used depends on the size of the Katamari; when your Katamari gets big enough to move to the next map, the King will interrupt you while the new map loads, and your Katamari will be dropped at the equivalent place in the new map. MAP 1 - The inside of a house, with tables, sofa, and chairs. [ Leave by rolling off the balcony. Caution: once you leave this area, you can never come back. ] MAP 2 - The garden of the house. MAP 3 - The garden of the house, plus the town the house is in, and the playground of a nearby school. MAP 4 - The garden, town, and playground, plus two extra urban areas. MAP 5 - The garden, town, playground, extra urban areas, plus two themed areas meant to represent France and London, and also a construction site. MAP 6 - The garden, town, playground, extra urban areas, France, London, the site, plus areas meant to represent America, China and India. MAP 7 - Everything in the previous map plus areas to represent Egypt, Russia, a giant robot launch site, a rocket launch pad, etc. MAP 8 - Everything. In the world. And Atlantis. And the King walking around. Enjoy. SCHOOL A school corridor with three classrooms on one side and a toilet block on the other. The three classrooms are arranged in order - infants, juniors, and seniors - which helpfully also happens to be the order of size for the purpose of rolling them up into your Katamari. Most of the walls between the classrooms and the corridors, and even between the classrooms, are collectable! ZOO A zoo divided into different animal exhibits. The car park can be seen off the edge of the map but can't be reached. There are seperate areas for each type of animal: so there's a lake with fish, a desert area with camels and similar, a jungly area with tigers and lions, and so on. In the centre is a large column with apes walking around on it: at the very top of this column, not usually visible unless you look around explicitly, is "King Kong", a huge ape. GARDEN A "garden of eden" type setting with large numbers of bushes with flowers. The Katamari can roll right through the bushes, collecting the flowers as it goes (and usually snagging a number of flower fairies in the process). In one corner of the map is a lake; underwater in the lake are a number of other objects including the largest flower on the map. RACECOURSE A motor racing course consisting of a roughtly round track with a central hill with a house on top. Near the hill are various seating areas with audience members on them; on the opposite side of the track, the course drops off into the ocean, with a few boats floating there. ================================================================================ MISSIONS ================================================================================ TUTORIAL MISSION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is always the first mission you play. You must do the following to complete the mission: 1 - Try all of the Katamari maneuvers listed on the screen: Roll forward - Both sticks forward Roll backward - Both sticks back Rotate Prince - One stick forward, other stick neutral Rotate Katamari - One stick forward, other stick back Sideslip Katamari - Both sticks left or right Climb Wall - Hold both sticks forward while pressing against a wall Once you have done all of these maneuvers, return the Katamari to the podium in the centre of the map. 2 - The King will now place some objects for you to roll up. Roll up as many of them as you can (note: the tutorial *DOES* count towards Cosmos Stage so make sure you get them all!) When you are done, roll your Katamari up onto the higher surface by climbing the wall (you need to make your Katamari bigger by getting some objects before you can do this) 3 - You will now have a few more maneuvers to do: Katamari Flip - Press both joysticks inwards towards the controller body (as if they were buttons because, well, they are) Katamari Dash - Repeatedly wiggle both sticks up and down Prince View - Press L1 Prince Jump - Press R1 4 - Collect the items lying around on the higher surface. Finally, collect the cousin who is rolling a smaller Katamari around on the higher surface. KATAMARI SIZE MISSIONS ("tonikaku") ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The objective of these missions is to make the Katamari as big as possible within a certain amount of time. You will fail the mission if the Katamari has not passed a particular size boundary within the time limit. However, once the Katamari is big enough, you can still carry on and make it even bigger. These are: Fan Min. Size Time Limit Map Rainbow Girl, 1 15 cm 3 min Main 1 Mr. Lazybones, 1 40 cm 6 min Main 1 Mr. Gentle, 1 3 metres 5 min Main Grandma, 1 12 metres 12 min Main Bird and elephant, 1 500 metres 17 min Main 3-8 Novice teacher, 1 1.5 metres 5 min School [1] Physics behave differently on this map. Beware of fishing rods: if the Katamari gets caught on one, it will be pulled up out of the water. This does not damage it but does waste valuable time. OBJECT COUNT MISSIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The objective of these missions is to collect as many objects of a particular type as you can within the time limit. Usually you cannot fail these missions (but there will still be a minimum total requirement for Cosmos Stage!) Fan Objects Time Map Miss Flower, 1 Flowers Garden Dr. Katamari, 1 Animals[1] 8 min Zoo Crane-Hat, 1 Origami 5 min School Rain-Kappa, 1 Clouds 4 min Main (w/storm) [1] Humans are not considered animals. TIME ATTACK MISSIONS ("isoide") ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The objective of these missions is to get to a particular size, or collect a particular number of objects, as fast as you can. There is no time limit, but the goal is to complete the stage as fast as possible. Note: Remember that, on these stages, the size/objects meter counts DOWN. Fan Map Target Rainbow Girl, 2 Main 15cm Mr. Lazybones, 2 Main 50cm Grandma, 2 Main 20 metres Stressed Mum, 1 House 100 objects (any object) Miss Flower, 2 Garden 567 flowers Bird and elephant, 2 Main 1000 metres (!) Novice Teacher, 2 School 93 people Hoshino ??, 1 Garden 39 cousins Rose, 1 Main 1000000 roses (!!!!!!!!) SPECIAL MISSIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ These are missions which, for whatever reason, are significantly different from your ordinary Katamari Damacy. Most of them take place on unique maps. MR. FLOAT, 1 This is an ordinary Katamari Size mission, to get to 80cm in 4 minutes. However, it is unique because it takes place on the Underwater map. This map is entirely submerged in water, so the Katamari moves rather slower and also falls more slowly (enabling you to "jump" using the Katamari dash). Most of the objects are small animals such as fish and crabs. Several fishhooks appear on the stage; if you touch one of these, your Katamari will be pulled up out of the water, which does no damage, but wastes time. You can roll up out of the water from one side of the lake. Also, under the water there is a large stack of rocks supporting one of the islands. If you collect these rocks, the island will sink. SNOW-CHILD , 1-2 The objective here is to roll up the largest snowball you can and then push it on top of the snowman body to create the head. Because the katamari is rolling on snow, it continuously accumulates snow all the time it is rolling, but you still need to collect objects to increase your size further. The largest object on the stage is the mammoth locked in ice just behind the snowman body. The two variants of this mission differ in difficulty: the snowman body is larger in harder versions, meaning a larger katamari is needed to roll on top of it. CAMPING MAN, 1-3 The Camping Man (he's actually called "Camp Man" in the Japanese but I thought that might not quite be appropriate) would like you to help him build a campfire. Your Katamari starts the game on fire! The aim is to get the katamari big enough to light the woodpile in the centre of the campsite (which is up a spiral hill from the rest of the map). However, the fire on the Katamari gradually goes out over time. If you allow it to go out completely, you will fail the stage (as you will if the Katamari falls in water). Every time you collect an object, the fire will get a bit stronger. So the idea is to keep your maximum time between objects down. You will also fail the stage if you do not make it to the woodpile before time runs out. There are three variants of this mission; the only difference is the size of the final woodpile. In harder variants, the woodpile is larger, meaning a larger katamari is needed to light it. MINI SUMO, 1-3 The Mini Sumo Wrestler has a sumo bout scheduled but he is not strong enough to win, so he would like you to help him eat lots of things and get heavy enough to beat his opponent. These missions take place on Main map 3; you roll the Sumo Wrestler around like he was a Katamari! This means the physics are slightly odd, since he isn't round like a Katamari. The objective is to get him big and heavy enough and then go to fight the enemy Sumo Wrestler who is in a ring in the school area. If you can collect, or knock down, the enemy wrestler, then you win. However, if you touch the enemy wrestler early, he'll defeat you and you'll fail the stage. Other than this and the fact that the display tracks weight rather than size, this is an ordinary Size stage. (And no, you aren't restricted to collecting only food; the sumo wrestler will happily chow down on kettles, people, partition walls, etc..) MR. STUDY, 1 Mr. Study wants to read his book in the dark, so he wants you to make your Katamari into a light by collecting fireflies. The more fireflies you collect, the brighter your Katamari glows. You can see your current light level displayed below the size indicator as an icon and some Japanese text. Collect as many as you can and then return to Mr. Study at the starting area. However, you cannot complete the stage until you have at least *some* light glow coming from your Katamari (you can see this on the screen; if there's an internal "orb" of light beyond your Katamari's diameter, you're ready to finish, although you will probably want to improve your score above this) HANSEL AND GRETEL, 1-2 Hansel and Gretel want you to collect as much candy as you can from the Wicked Witch's house. This is a simple fast object collection mission, except that once you are done, you must return the katamari to the table where it started for Hansel and Gretel to eat the candy. The map contains a house made of a large number of small bits of candy. This means it's easy for even a relatively small Katamari to crash straight through the whole thing collecting candies as it goes. The second mission is the same except, instead of a candy house, the map consists of a picture covered up by flat candies. (And yes, you can collect the Wicked Witch) BLACK DOG, 1 ** SEE "GAME PROGRESSION" AT THE TOP OF THE FAQ. UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF OTHER MISSIONS, AND ACCUMULATED SUFFICIENTLY LARGE KATAMARIS IN THEM, THIS STAGE WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLETE. ** This mission takes place in the Cosmos Stage, which contains the planets made out of every other Katamari you have created in the game. Collect all the planets you can. When you're ready, hit the Square key and a Royal Rainbow leading to the sun will appear. Press X to cancel or press both sticks upwards to attempt to pick up the Sun. If your Katamari is not big enough, it will be destroyed. If it IS big enough, the Katamari will pick up the sun, thus merging the Universe into one; if you manage this you have "completed" Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy (although in fact there's plenty more to do) . There's no time limit or hazards on this stage: the only real challenge is in playing the OTHER stages to make sure that there are enough and sufficiently big planets available on this stage to collect the sun. HOSHINO TUMUO, 1-2 The earth is in danger! A meteor is threatening to crash into it! You need to bring all the countries of the world together to fight it... literally. This stage resembles the credits screen of the original Katamari Damacy; the goal is to roll up as many countries as you can to make your Katamari big enough to collect the meteor before it collides with the Earth. The stages differ in the size of the meteor. F1 RACER, 1-2 His two missions are the "usual" combination of a Katamari Size mission and a time attack, taking place on the Racing map. His Katamari Size mission is 5 metres in 6 minutes; his Time Attack is 5 metres as fast as possible. However, unlike any other mission, the Katamari is considered part of the race, and therefore automatically accelerates along the race course! You can still control it, it's just that the automatic acceleration pretty much determines your route. You do not have to follow the race track (you can still roll around the rest of the map as long as you follow the general run of the course) and you do not have to win the race or anything like that. I have, once, managed to get the Katamari to turn around completely and start rolling backwards up the racecourse.. MR. FUND-RAISER, 1 Mr. Fund-Raiser wants you to collect valuable items to raise money for his charity. On the Main 3 map, collect the highest total *YEN VALUE* of items as you can in 4 minutes. The value of each item is shown at the bottom left of the screen when it is collected. People have no yen value. EXCITED BABY, 1 On the Zoo stage: get the Katamari as big as you can, by collecting a total of 50 objects. ESPANIOLA, 1 Tutorial stage (see above) EXACT GIRL, 1-3 The objective of all of the Exact Girl's missions is to roll the Katamari up to a certain size. However, unlike all other size missions, you have no indication of how big the Katamari actually is! So you must get as near as you can to the correct size, as estimated by you, and then hit the square button. Your score is based on how close you are to the size the girl requested; if you are smaller OR BIGGER then you'll lose points. The three variants of this mission vary only in the version of the Main map used and the target size. HOSHINO MICHIRU, 1 This is actually the credits roll, and plays automatically when you finish Cosmos Stage. The King will be chasing after the prince. Because the king is so big, he uses the sun as his Katamari! Run the prince around and try to get the King to pick up as many cousins as possible. The King will not target the cousins himself - he'll only go for YOU - but you can lead him into picking up the cousins. After a certain distance, the King will start attempting Katamari dashes to catch the prince - you can still dodge him, but you need to be very quick. The aim is to survive until the end of the credits, whereupon the Prince will enter his house, only to have the King roll the house up in his Katamari as well. The main reason to do this is to add the other fans (ie, the people calling out to you on the menu screen) to your object collection. MR. COW-BEAR, 1 Racecourse map. Collect the biggest cow or bear that you can in 10 minutes. Just as in KD, the King insists on taking the first cow or bear you collect, so most of the game is actually spent DODGING small cows and bears. Also just as in KD, the king has some bizarre ideas about what constitutes a cow or bear, and is liable to consider a carton of milk or a traffic cone with a cow design on it to be a cow, or a guy in a bear suit to be a bear. ================================================================================ TIPS ================================================================================ Minna Daisuki Katamari Damacy, like the first one, is not a particularly difficult game. Once you are used to the game it will be very rare for you to ever fail a stage; most of the challenge comes from trying to beat your own previous scores and times. Still, there are several tips that can improve your scores: - USE THE KATAMARI JUMP! Every time you turn the Katamari around 180 degrees manually, pause the game, slap yourself on the side of the face, then start the game again. It is *MUCH* faster to use the Katamari Jump and there is almost never any reason not to. - USE THE KATAMARI DASH! Many beginners have trouble with the Katamari Dash - if you crash during it then not only do you lose objects but the Katamari will roll backwards, often further than you got during the dash! However, that doesn't mean it should be avoided entirely. ALWAYS Katamari Dash in target-rich environments. Also, when you get to the final stages and the Katamari is really big, it'll start moving REALLY slowly - ALWAYS Katamari Dash between areas or you'll really lose out on size! - DON'T GO BACKWARDS! Going backwards is simply slower than going forwards and there are relatively few advantages to it. Use the Katamari Jump if you're going backwards for more than a few seconds! - KEEP MOVING! There is always the temptation, when you see a big or fun object in an area, to hang around in that area until you're big enough to pick it up - DON'T! The longer the Katamari spends in any given area, the less there will be to pick up there. In that time you were hanging around, you could have gone to a previous or new area, collected loads of objects in seconds, then returned to pick up that special object you wanted. - FOLLOW THE KING'S INSTRUCTIONS! Whenever loading occurs in the middle of a stage, the king may point you toward an area that you could not have previously entered. Always go there as soon as possible - it's sure to be full of objects that are sized just right for your new Katamari size! - REMEMBER THAT THE SIZE SCALE ISN'T LINEAR! As you get bigger, you can pick up bigger objects, so the amount of time taken to increase in size decreases. In other words, DO NOT assume that just because it's taken you 5 minutes to reach 100m, it'll take you another 5 minutes to reach 200m. It'll be much faster. On the later stages, you can easily spend 14 minutes getting to 500m then get to 1500m in 3 minutes. - BE AWARE OF OBJECTS! On things like the 50-object level, it's important to AVOID collecting certain objects. Get used to what's an object and what isn't! ================================================================================ STAGE SPECIFIC TIPS ================================================================================ THE CREDITS ROLL Well, yea, it's a pain for a couple of times. So here's how to get to the end: - For the first section, the king won't have arrived yet, so just move anywhere you like. - When the king shows up, head over to the right hand side and lead him up and down. - After a while he'll back off. Watch out - he's going to come back on with a Katamari Dash. However, he always comes back on at the same height that he left, even if you've moved in the meantime. So.. uh.. move in the meantime, and get onto the left hand side of the screen. - The king will now roll the katamari back towards you. If you try and get round him, he'll move it up or down to get you - so you have to fake him out. Move up to the top and to the right, and the king will move the Katamari upwards; then QUICKLY go back left and go underneath it to the right hand edge of the screen. - The king will now proceed as before except with his Katamari in the middle of the screen rather than the left-hand edge. - Eventually he'll set up a Katamari Dash. When he does, go under or over him to the left of the screen. While his Katamari is spinning for the Dash, his vertical movement is much slower than normal. - This leaves you on the left and him on the right again, so you'll need to fake him out as before in order to get back to the right hand side. - These last two steps repeat over and over until you hit the end, which you'll know when the prince flies off the left of the screen and the Namco logo appears. ================================================================================ COUSINS AND THEIR LOCATIONS ================================================================================ RA MAAN - bouncing around in the Paradise Garden ICHIGOCHAN - riding around on an animal in the corner of the Paradise Garden opposite the lake MISOSHIRU - on dining table in first class room, school map MAAN - swimming in the lake on firefly stage DIP - at the top of a spiral hill on the firefly collection stage ODEON - on the town stage, in the "collect Yen value" stage, standing next to the red table at the front of the sale in the School area MIKKI - near the Fortune Teller on the old lady in green's town stage. She flees from the Katamari. SHIKAKU - standing on the corner near the Station in the Town map on the first bird/elephant stage. JOHNSON - on the stage for the man in the blue suit and hat, in the room where you start, on top of a stack with a daruma and several coloured rings at the bottom. KUROIMON - flying around in the school area on the stage of the man in the blue suit and hat. HABANA - Visible right at the start of the green man's time attack stage. ================================================================================ CONCLUSION ================================================================================ Many thanks to people who've contributed to this FAQ: Andrew Nazarian ( magicyellowsnowcone --at-- yahoo.com ) Daniel Lam ( dandan --at-- telus.net ) Glenn Fleming ( chocobo.sage --at-- gmail.com ) John Harris ( johnwh --at-- gmail.com ) Mr Delayer ( mrdelayer --at-- gmail.com ) Dan Malone ( dan --at-- vhf.org ) Diana W ( merylsilverberg --at-- hotmail.com) I know I don't have all the missions yet, since I didn't have notes for all of them.. I'll be very grateful for any submissions to the e-mail address at the top of the FAQ.