I haven’t yet played more than the demo for Katamari Damacy though all my friends seem to love it but one of them recently pointed out this pretty cool fan song. I’d like to hear more game fan music. If you know any please post a link. I’d prefer music inspired by a game rather than a fan just performing the same song unless of course they did some amazing job of it 
A few other minor things. If you’re a fan of Katamari Damacy the Japanese Official site has lots of cool stuff. Here’s a page of wallpapers, screensavers, greeting cards and other stuff. This page has sounds and music from the game.
I’m curious why the American Namco decided to call it “Katamari Damacy” The actual pronounciation of 塊魂 in Japanese is Katarmari Damashi. IT IS NOT KALIMARI like I hear so many people calling it. That a T not an L! (“ka” “ta”, “ma” “da” all rhyme with “ha” as in “haha”, “ri” is pronouced like the re in “real”. “shi” is pronounced “she”. Ka-ta-ma-ree Da-ma-she.) Why did Namco America think Damacy is better than Damashi? I don’t get it. By the way, katamari means bundle. Damashi means soul/spirit.
It was Namco Japan that started the “Damacy” ball rolling, so to speak. U.S. just didn’t see a need to change it.
My guess: Somebody romanized it to “Damasi” in an internal document and it just got processed through the marketing channel that way.
WOW Gregg! KD is exactly the kind of game I imagine you’d be into. It’s quirky and innovative. I’m surprised. But then again, you’ve been surrounded by Japanese “quirkyness” for years now…
Yea well, like I said I played the demo. That’s more than most games get :-p It looked interesting so I checked it out. After rolling the ball around a level or 2 I just wasn’t getting it. It was wierd and quirky but boring. Some of my friends are into it but so far they have yet to convey what makes them keep playing.
Still, I plan to try it again once I have some free time.
Yo Greggman,
The crazy rock group System of a Down has a song called Legend of Zelda. It’s super sort, but funny. You can tell they have played the game from the lyrics.
This site says it’s a cover actually… originally by a group called The Rabbit Joint. No idea. Anyway….
http://system-of-a-down.lyrics-songs.com/lyrics/39436
Link, he come to town
Come to save the Princess Zelda
Ganon took her away
Now the children don’t play
But they will when link saves the day
Hallelujah!
Now Link, fill up your hearts
So you can shoot your sword with power
And when you’re feeling all down
The fairy will come around
So you’ll be brave in your decisive hour
Now Link has saved the day
Put Ganon in his grave
So now Zelda is free
And now our hero shall be
Link! I think your name shall go down into history.
(I could have sworn that the lyric was, “So you’llbe brage, and not a sissy coward”… not “in your decisive hour”. Whatever)
-Harvey
Virt’s done a lot of great stuff, but the on-topic music that I’m thinking of specifically is the FX2 disk:
http://virt.vgmix.com/music/chip/v-fx2_mp3.zip
All this is done in Konami’s NES style, and it’s all amazing.
Re the Legend of Zelda song, it’s kinda funny, but it’s not System of a Down, just a band where the singer has a similar accent — possibly Rabbit Joint.
Re Katamari Damacy, it seems very much like a you get it or you don’t proposition. If nothing else, though, you should play the final level on someone else’s save, ideally in “eternal” mode. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour or so.
-Jim
Been talking to a friend of mine about the appeal of Katamari Damacy, and we came to the realization that it’s one of the purest possible distillations of the concept of leveling up. You collect things in order to become bigger so you can collect bigger things, in order to become even bigger, so you can collect even bigger things, and then you’re really big.
Setting it in a simulacrum of the real world not only gives you a sense of scale to measure your progress against, but a fantastic sense of getting away with tomfoolery. It wouldn’t be quite the same if you were picking up abstract blocks with size measurements printed on them rather than thumb tacks, tricycles, people, bulldozers, buildings, bridges, mountains, etc.
A lot of hits on the Katamari song have been coming through here. Thanks for the plug, and your comments!
Brent Elliott – Boxes
Electric Funstuff, a NY developer-cum-band, has some pretty funny songs here: http://www.electricfunstuff.com/songdown/
Has Anybody Seen My Corpse (EQ)
Civilization (what do you think?)
Sim-Hilarities (The Sims)
I Long for Combat (Starcraft)
Here’s some music inspired by Gameboys in general, I guess.
http://freezepop.net/listen/songs/ScienceGeniusGirl_lameboy_rmx.mp3
Also, here is a link to the Rabbit Joint Zelda Cover somebody mentioned earlier.
http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR00022
Haill 117 Anthem, the best music I have heard out of any of the video game fan music, Based on Halo’s main melody (the chants) it’s a instrumental.
http://mothergoat.net/hail117anthem.mp3
Matt Cox (Mothergoat) created that one.
the r is often pronouced l depending on the translator.
for instance the spelling has been krirrin for what is called krillin in dbz
The link to the sound index that you gave doesn’t work.
There’s a whole ‘nother world of NES (8-bit Nintendo) tribute bands. Three excellent ones that record and tour: http://www.theadvantageband.com, http://www.neskimos.com, http://www.minibosses.com
Me and my friends got together and tryed to sing the katamari song… It was very tone deaf and we made up the words. But it’s pretty funny… Here’s a video of it… with some other weird stuff…
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1514439450
Yes, it is pronounced as Kah tah ma ri da ma shi
However, the “i” at end of Katamari is a long vowel, therefore katamari damashii
This roughly translate to “Souls Clump”
(katamari = clump, tamashii = souls (t becomes d when kanji are combined))
The Japanese language does not posses the sound made by the letters “cy,” in japanese we just approximate the closest sounds and say “shi”
塊魂 (Katamari Damacy ♥ Mix) オンザウェブ
Various Artist (Mixed by ♥ Solange-San) JP Namco
Hello hello!
My Katamari Damacy ♥ Mix! Show me some ♥, download, stream, share, enjoy!
Sankiu!
Solange-San
http://fairtilizer.com/track/katamaridamacy