Starblind Nation 1: Prague Spring

Behold! Part one of my new webcomic, Starblind Nation. This first episode is titled "Prague Spring". Enjoy!

We Love Katamari (Katamari Damacy 2) final stage walkthrough guide

We Love Katamari final stage guide

by Andrew Lenahan

This is a strategy or walkthrough of the final and largest level of We Love Katamari (Katamari Damacy 2), sometimes called the Bird or Elephant level. Before we start, here's a few general tips:

a). I'd recommend using this guide only after playing through the level once at least yourself. I've written it assuming a basic knowledge of where the major parts of the level are.

b). Even with this guide, you may not be able to get to 300M+ at first. Keep practicing.

c). In general, I've avoided using specific time/size goals. It's best not to focus too much on counting each meter or second while playing. Keep rolling.

d). Keep moving. This may be the best overall advice in the Katamari games. A few times in this guide I might say "clean out this area" or "roll up this city". This doesn't mean you should waste time getting every object. Just get he ones which contribute most to your size. On a related note, if you find yourself not being able to pick up things in your immediate area, give up and proceed to more productive places. One good example of this is the first city near the huge ferris wheel... you can get into the city long before you can really get much there. Ignore it and come back to it later.

Okay, now on to the guide...

Part 1: Starting out.

If you start out...

...near the little garden...pick up the daruma and about 2 rows of the cabbages in the garden. Go to part 2.

...near the boxes...pick up the small boxes. You can't get the medium/big ones yet. Go to part 2.

...on top of the bell thing in the center of town...head toward the orange buckets near the train station, picking up electronics along the way. Go to part 2. Or restart, as this starting scenario is a little harder to get going with than the other two.

Part 2: Get outta town!

Your goal here, besides obviously moving on the the next section, is to get big enough to pick up people so you can quickly empty the schoolyard. Try this rough outline:

a). Get the orange baskets near the train station.
b). Get the electronics around the center bell area. There's also a cousin here, pick him up as well.
c). Get the daruma on the downward slope leading toward the school. Beware, there's some kids here who will knock you around if they can.

Other good sources for some size include the snowmen and fire near the right side of the train station, the stone lanterns across the street from the school entrance, the toy vending machines in a nearby corner and the samurai suits on the left of the school entrance.

By the time you get to the schoolyard, you're hopefully big enough to pick up full-size people. If so, go for the athletes toward the center, then plow down the bunches of gang members near the corners. If you need a little bit more size, there's schoolgirls at the other end of the schoolyard, and some big drums. Your schoolyard rolling spree should get you past the 3M you need to advance past the cones. Loading...

Here's the rub, though. Before you go through the cones, check your time. If it's less than 16 minutes left, start over (press START, then CIRCLE) and try again. You might think an extra minute or two won't make much difference since there's so many minutes left, but every moment will count big when you're rolling up islands and clouds later. Keep practicing. Great technique later on won't help if your start is slow.

Part 2: People through large vehicles.

Hit the cones and get them all. If you're slightly over the 3M requirement, you can get the fence pieces on either side of the cones. If you can't, don't sweat it. Don't bother with the stuff in the pool, just head down the ramp. Try to aim your downward roll toward some items, like the drums near the bottom. You'll end up across a river and in a different town. Start off by going after the fence pices, the sumo guy, and the large boxes, which form a trail of sorts pointing you further into this second town. If you're into collecting the rare items, there's an Aladdin type flying carpet guy here, but if you're going for size, don't bother. Work your way around this town until you can pick up the lion statues leading out of town on the road parallel the beach (this same road is lined with palm trees). If you need a little more size, grab the giant watermelons on the beach.

Head off on the road to the left. You'll know which road because there's a bunch of squarish buildings (karaoke building, etc) stacked atop each other looking like it's going to fall down. You should be almost able to pick up cars by this point. Pick up some of the smaller vehicles you pass. Go past the trampolining elephants and pick up the cars beyond the. The road will come to an end at the planetarium. Pick up all the taxis and planetarium projectors here, then raid the parking lot to the left, which has a T. Rex fossil skull in one of the parking spaces. Follow the trail of skulls back toward town. You'll pass a hill with a major wrestling match going on. If you've already collected the previous cousin on a prior play-through of this stage, another cousin, Lucha, will be here. Pick up what you can of the wrestling stuff (you probably can't get the rings yet), then head back toward the stacked buildings at the intersection. If you can get the stack yet, do so. If not, pick up a few more vehicles until you can.

Part 3: Houses and small buildings.

Once you have the building stack, continue past it and pick up a small house. At this point you can pick up smallish buildings, but not the city buildings yet. Around this point you'll get a Loading message from the King that the next cones are open to you (by the freeway past the small city). I'd advise NOT to go there just yet. First, get some of the houses in your current area. There's a cluster of them near the beach, and lots more up the hill where you first started this stage. When you've cleaned that up pretty well, go past the freeway cones. Don't bother with the city yet, you probably can't get more than a building or two. Follow the freeway, picking up large vehincles as you go, until you reach... Paris?! You should be able to pick up the colourful buildings here by now, if not hit some of the smaller objects nearby until you can (there's a dark brick town than you passed on the freeway to Paris if you need some quick size). Get the colourful buildings but leave the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph, as you won't be able to get them yet.

Part 4: Big buildings and touring the continents

Go inward toward the middle of the continent you're on and collect the factories and such in the "London" portion. Veer left through the desert picking up oil refineries and such, past the Taj Majal (too big for now) into China. In China, pick up the smaller buildings and see if you can pick up the Buddha... he's surprisingly easier to pick up than he looks. You probably can't get the Great wall yet, so head left over a big forested hill, where you'll find yourself in the same town you started this stage yet again! Pick up the big apartment buildings now, and head toward the first city on the stage, the one near the enormous ferris wheel. You should be able to pretty much clean out the city by now. Also try for the large boats docked nearby. Head back through Paris and London, collecting the huge buildings you missed (you can get the Arch de Triumph and Big Ben, but probably not the Eiffel Tower or the Houses of Parliament yet. Then retrace your steps and get the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China and the Buddha (if you didn't get it earlier that is).

By now you'll have gotten a further Loading message and be made aware that part of America is opened. Head over there (it's across a body of water from the India desert) and clean out New York City. Pass the cones and get Hollywood as well. You may or may not be able to get the gargantuan shopping mall here, probably meant to represent the Mall of America. Either way, don't sweat it. head inland and clean out Mount Rushmore. Then go back toward the hollywood sign and cross the Golden Gate Bridge. Get a few buildings, monsters, etc from this area, and go left into the Egypt desert if you need more. Pick up some clouds from the mountains at the right if you can. They're worth several dozen meters each. At this point, you should be very very close to 300M. Pick up a few more things as needed to reach that point. Loading...

Part 5: Rolling islands and beyond

As soon as you reach 300M and the King decides not to become a panda, head IMMEDIATELY to the Egypt area. If you've picked up the other cousins during previous plays, there will be a new cousin here. Either way, you'll be able top pick up parts of the desert sand itself, and your katamari will explode in size from 300M to near 500M or so, which is the goal for the stage. With a little practice you should be able to get to this point in between 11 and 13 minues, and get a shooting star for your trouble.

Once you've rolled up the sand (you can't yet roll most of the dark rock around the sand) head back toward China and India. At this point, just roll over the continent, picking it up, piece by piece. The best way to do this is a tight circular roll around the continent. You should be able to get almost everything in about 3 circluar passes, and your katamari size will boom once again to around 1000M. Head onward to the volcano island. You can't get the main volcano, but you can get the surrounding smaller volcanoes. You should see a white icy land in the distance. It's Russia. Head toward it and pick up the land and hopefully some of the surrounding icebergs.

It's hard to write a "pick up this, don't pick up that" walkthrough for the remainder of the stage. By this point, you can pretty much pick up anything, and have plenty left to pick up in any direction you choose to head. Hopefully you still have a few minutes left to have fun with. Just head toward a land mass, pick it up, head toward another land mass, pick that up, etc. Clouds are great to pick up too. Continue until time runs out or until you have a katamari size of about 3200M, at which point you should be able to knock the King of All Cosmos for a loop and pick him up. If you've already picked up the King on a previous playthrough, you can now pick up the Queen as well. After that, just roll up landforms and clouds until time runs out. Your total katamari size should be around 3300M to 3600M. Congratulations!

Final Words:
My best so far is 3599M, and at that point there was almost nothing left to pick up. I wouldn't be surprised if 3600M was the maximum of all the stuff available in the world. I hope this guide helps you, and welcome any comments or criticism you might have. Above all, have fun!