Once Upon A Katamari

To do: Cover leftover assets from Katamari Damacy Rolling LIVE. The cousins from KDRL still have ouji IDs reserved for them, and their names show up if the player's cousin is forced to be one of them Cover the unused KatamariBall tutorial area that can be accessed by setting MultiplayGameManager.forcePlayStage to 1 in an online KatamariBall lobby. The unused dash gauge is still part of the UI objects ingame, and has proper ingame coloring/animation despite otherwise not functioning. Please replace the mockup with images/GIFs of the gauge as seen in-game. Document debug stuff: the Stage Select screen and its KatamariBall submenu the in-game debug features - adjustable timescale, non-functional free camera, timer freeze, object freeze, disabling wall/object collision, appending index numbers to the object list in the pause menu, anything else you can find the KatamariBall lobby debug features - name debug mode, forcePlayStage, anything else you can find Document the scrapped Beginner Mode (mention the hidden 🔰 next to the timer, the code parameters that add starting size/time when MainGameManager._nowBeginner is true, and the hidden toggle for it in the stage select)

Once Upon A Katamari, there lived a kind, yet impatient king. One Gakuen iDOLM@STER crossover song and an Earth-destroying scroll later, the Prince and his cousins have begun rolling through time. The end.

Notably, disregarding mobile games, this is the first fully original title in the Katamari series since Touch My Katamari, which released almost 14 years earlier. Katamari's back, baby!

Unused Movies#

OnceUponaKATAMARI_Data/StreamingAssets/Movie contains six unused videos:

01.usm is an early version of Summary (2/2) with no audio, featuring the Hoshino Family on the Moon as the Cosmos Scroll crashes into Earth. Notably, the Earth uses its Katamari Damacy design here, rather than the more stylized design used in the final game. The Scroll is also slightly different, being a bit shorter than in the final:

Item01.usm through Item05.usm are unused videos showing how the Freebies work. In the final game, the tips showing how each Freebie works use static images. There are several differences from the final game shown in these videos, notably:

1. Item01.usm shows a Drink freebie that would later become the Rocket,
2. Item03.usm shows an unused freebie, internally named Pickel, that allows the player to climb walls faster and indefinitely,
3. All five of the Item videos take place in an early version of the Tutorial, set on top of the Cosmos Scroll.

Unused Freebies#

To do: Upload a video showing the different freebies in action.

While there are a decent number of Freebie powerups usable in both single player and the Katamariball side mode, over two thirds of the total powerups in the game go totally unused. Items can be forced into the inventory by running code functions in a tool such as UnityExplorer - MainGameManager.SetInventoryItem() in singleplayer, or MultiplayGameManager.MultiplaySetItem() in KatamariBall.

Freebie	Freebie Icon	Freebie Duration	Icon Location	Mode	Notes
Pickel		10 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Singleplayer	Allows the player to climb walls indefinitely, and increases climbing speed. Likely cut to avoid players using it to climb out of bounds.
Spider		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Slows down opponents.
Bubble		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Makes opponents' katamaris slippery, as if they were on ice.
Hand		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Steals a freebie from another player.
Hoop		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	Unknown	In single player, a large rainbow loop filled with a glowing white light spawns below your Katamari before quickly disappearing. The loop's size and placement strongly resembles a portal. Currently unknown effect in KatamariBall.
Smoke		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Releases a puff of smoke and turns the katamari transparent. Presumably, it'd make the player temporarily invincible, similar to the invincibility obtained when respawning.
Shoes		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Allows the player to dash infinitely. Doesn't seem to work when hacked in.
Crown		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Forms a golden shield around the player's katamari that prevents it from being rolled up. Oddly, the shield also prevents its user from rolling others up.
Dice		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	Unknown	Has an unknown effect.
Rocket+		20 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Both	Lasts twice as long as the Rocket.
Magnet+		20 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Both	Lasts twice as long as the Magnet, and has a slightly longer range.
Pickel+		20 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Singleplayer	Lasts twice as long as the Pickel.
Radar+		60 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Singleplayer	Lasts twice as long as the Radar. This freebie's removal was for the best.
Timer+		20 seconds	sprite_assets_all_*.bundle	Singleplayer	Lasts twice as long as the Timer.
Washpan+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Stuns opponents for twice as long as the Washpan.
Spider+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Slows opponents for twice as long as the Spider.
Bubble+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Makes opponents slip for twice as long as the Bubble.
Mushroom+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Grows the katamari more than the Mushroom.
Crown+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	KatamariBall	Shields the player for twice as long as the Crown.
Dice+		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	Unknown	Likely lasts twice as long as the Dice.
Sunglass		Unknown	duplicateassetisolation2_assets_all_*.bundle	Unknown	Does nothing, and reuses the icon for Dice+. Likely scrapped early on.

In addition, there exists a "freebie roulette" that gives the player a random freebie. It can be manually activated by using MainGameManager.GetRandomItem() in singleplayer, or by touching the question marks in KatamariBall's unused tutorial map.

Unused Graphics#

Dash Meter#

scenes_scenes_all_*.bundle contains textures for an unused dash gauge. This mechanic likely would've worked similarly to Rolling Power from the lost Korean online game, Katamari Damacy Online, where the player can only dash if the meter is partially filled:

Below is a mockup of what the dash gauge could have looked like:

Unused Tips#

defaultlocalgroup_assets_all_*.bundle contains an unused set of tips. The final game uses a different set of tips, located in images_assets_all_*.bundle. This unused set of tips contains a few early tips for KatamariBall:

Early Era Select Thumbnails#

scenes_scenes_all_*.bundle contains a set of early, bloom-ier thumbnails for each Era in the Era Select menu. Notably, the thumbnail for the Cosmos Scroll "era" is replaced with a thumbnail for the Tutorial - in the final game, the Tutorial cannot be replayed, similar to Katamari Damacy and its remaster.

Placeholders#

scriptableobject_assets_all_*.bundle contains a dummy texture titled AchievementIcon_Dummy.tga in the Assets/GameResource/ExcelData/ScriptableObject/Achievement/AchievementSpritesData.asset container.

At Once Upon A Katamari's launch, an early version of the KATAMARI Neo Remix jacket could be found in sprite_assets_all_*.bundle. However, it was upgraded for the final release.

Demo	Final

Oddities#

Untranslated Text#

If you complete a level without rolling up any objects, the King will describe the Katamari as being made up of "カテゴリー不明" ("Category Unknown") on the Katamari Results screen as a failsafe.

While it normally isn't possible to beat any levels in Once Upon a Katamari without rolling anything up, it is possible to beat the Ice Age era level "Perfect-Sized Mammoth" without rolling any objects up by simply rolling around in the snow, as the level lacks a time limit and the snowy terrain slowly makes your Katamari grow bigger.

References#