Ok, before we even get started, I should warn you all: the video after the jump is gameplay for the upcoming PS3-exclusive Katamari Forever.
It’s still a Katamari game, and that’s really all there is to it.
If you’re an observant fan of the series, however, you’ll notice a few things: the new visual filters look gorgeous, and you can jump (!!) in the newest installation. Of course, we already knew those things, but watching the little Prince launch himself through levels that I’ve played often enough to have memorized was definitely cool.
I’ll admit that I missed out on Me and My Katamari and We <3 Katamari, so I’m not sure if the water-the-flowers sequence is new or not. However, it’s an example of the original and creative things that can be done with the ostensibly repetitive ball-of-crap-rolling mechanic. One of the few good things about 2007’s Beautiful Katamari was the way it changed up the formula without switching up the core gameplay.
There might not be anything Earth-shattering in the gameplay video embedded below the vid (Katamari is Katamari, after all), but a.) cel-shading is pretty and I like pretty things and b.) a little reminder about an innovative and interesting franchise never hurt anybody.
[Via GiantBomb]
Edit: Seems that the video below the fold is a Franken-video of three clips that Namco Bandai released about a month ago (here, here, and here). Oh well. I like it better in one digestible chunk, anyway.