One of the happiest gaming days of my life was the first time I played Katamari Damacy for the PlayStation 2.
Released by Namco in Japan on March 18, 2004, Katamari Damacy was the sort of strange, Japanese-flavored game that normally wouldn't make its was to the West. With its brilliantly simple design, bizarre humor, eccentric art style and the most wonderfully quirky soundtrack in the history of music being made for things, this odd little game about rolling everything (everything) into a massive sticky ball Would never had made it to the states a few years prior.
But designer Keita Takahashi's creation was too glorious to be contained to a single part of the world. Katamari Damacy was released in North America on September 22 of 2004. I didn't get my copy until November, because the damn game kept selling out. It was so worth the wait. I smiled and hummed for months.
Several sequels have been released across a variety of platforms since 2004, layering on new features and sharper visuals, but none were quite as satisfying as the original. That's because Katamari Damacy was pretty much perfect.
Happy birthday, King of All Cosmos!
Cake via Sugar N Spires