Back in the day Super Mario Kart for the SNES drove me to wit's end. The 50cc and 100cc classes were easy enough to handle, but the 150cc class Special Cup races were just insane. The Donut Plains 3 track was particularly infuriating - it makes me angry now just thinking about it. I don't think I ever did get the gold trophy in the 150cc Special Cup. I don't remember if I just gave up, or I started playing another game and forgot about it, or what. The only other Mario Kart game I played was the N64 one, and it wasn't nearly as frustrating, leaving Mario Kart for the SNES the undisputed frustration inducing champ.
Until I got a PS2 and Katamari Damacy.
While most of the levels are a blast, as the goal is to just roll up everything in sight, there are 2 notable exceptions: Ursa Major, where you are trying to find the biggest bear possible (the Kintaro Bear), and Taurus, to catch the largest cow possible (the Holy Cow). But, the level ends the second you touch any bear or cow, no matter how small it is. After a few hours (and a few hundred swears) I was able to master the Ursa Major stage, and I can now get the Kintaro bear just about every time. The Taurus level was more difficult, though, since I didn't know that the Holy Cow appeared in the forest, and I always did a shooting drop into the enclosed village area, with the Holy Cow moving around, and the 4 cow men standing around the middle. If I didn't hit one of them on the drop, I usually grazed one as I bounced after a dash trying to flip the Holy Cow. Eventually I managed to roll up the Holy Cow, leading to much relief. I assume that I'd be able to get the Holy Cow most of the time now that I know how to get it in the forest, but I don't have much of an urge to play the level again to find out.
I recently played through Katamari Damacy's sequel, We ♥ Katamari. While the graphics are slightly better and there are some more inventive levels, the control doesn't seem as tight and the music isn't nearly as good as in the original. The one area where the sequel outshines the original is frustration. The Cowbear stage, where the goal is to roll up the huge Cowbear, and touching any cow or bear instantly ends the level, is even more infuriating than the Taurus stage from the original game. You have to get to just shy of 8 meters to flip the Cowbear, and it's pretty easy to get up to that size without touching a cow or bear, but it can be tricky getting into position, dashing to flip the Cowbear, and then adding it to your Katamari before some random little cow or bear prevents you from claiming your prize. Like the Taurus stage, I haven't played the Cowbear stage since beating it, and I don't plan to anytime soon. But, unlike the 150cc Special Cup on Mario Kart, at least I did beat these ridiculously frustrating Katamari levels (on the other hand, I'm not even close to collecting 1,000,000 roses, which is just torture).
Still, the fun of all the other levels of these Katamari games more than cancel out the frustration from these cow/bear levels. The fourth game in the series (besides the two PS2 games there was also a game for the PSP, Me & My Katamari), Beautiful Katamari, is going to be released later this year. It'll either be an XBOX360 exclusive, or it'll be on the Wii as well. I don't own any systems from the current generation yet, and as long as Beautiful Katamari isn't released for the PC, it'll probably determine which system I end up buying. The graphics look great, and there should be less intra-level loading (which was another major frustration in some of the later levels in We ♥ Katamari), but the major thing I'm looking forward to is online multiplayer. The multiplayer in the first game was awful, and in the second game it was only slightly better. Hopefully with the power of the new systems and the online multiplayer with up to 3 other people, Beautiful Katamari turns out to be the best Katamari game yet.
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