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Wattam (ˈwät-ˈtäm)

Noun

A combination of the Japanese word (wa) and the Tamil word (vattam) for circle.

It’s very important to know how to pronounce Wattam and what does this Japanese word mean. That comes clear in the game more than once. Why I decided to play such a odd game? Well, I’m an oddball and I like everything bizarre and outside of the box. I also like Katamari –games and the designer of Wattam is the creator of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, that’re my favourite games.

What Wattam is about? Well, it has a clear plot and storyline, but in the other hand the gameplay and game world is weird and different. And there’s lots of pooping and farting (they doesn’t even use toilet paper—eww!!). Yes, lovely.

The Mayor is all alone, but soon finds company on his empty square island, floating on… somewhere. One thing creates another and so on, until Mayor isn’t alone anymore and finds reason to live and keep searching for new friends.

This is the plot of Wattam and it sounds pretty OK. The thing is the way everything is done with gameplay and visually is the odd-key in this. All the characters are shapes, objects or usable items and every character is also playable. The main thing is to keep creating new friends until player can go another island to do almost the same thing again. The difference is the theme of the island, which is actually the four seasons, meaning there’s only four islands. Player gets all sorts of tasks to help others and mostly everything was left to be solved by the player herself. The game told very little the answers to problems and I had to try many different options until I get it what I had to do. I didn’t get stuck at any point and I played Wattam through in two sessions.

Some characters can eat and poop things out, one can flush them down the toilet, fly by farting, some can explode themsleves (and others with it), a tree can eat up others like Kirby and grow out various combinations of new characters… and so on. It’s very much trying different things, but also all is not super complicated, which was a good thing.

There was things that felt little too tricky or unfinished, such like the overworld map that was very limited where player can see and I couldn’t see the destination only due to the fixed camera angle, which was frustrating. Also, moving the characters felt sluggish at times and trying to jump on each other (sometimes I had to stack them) was annoying. Choosing the character was very tricky, especially when the screen was full of them and the choosing happens by trying to select them with analog stick. Thankfully, the menu provided a list of all characters with option to choose. The game had some performance issues. It was usually certain times, such as when exploding and launching to the sky, when a cutscene came and when the area was full of characters, then the game got sluggish. It didn’t bother me, since Wattam isn’t fast paced so it didn’t do me any harm (reviewed using PS4 Pro with fast SSD).

I enjoyed Wattam very much. It was weird enough for me and I’m not surprised to read online how Sony didn’t like the game at first and cancelled it, but somehow came around and liked it. Wattam isn’t for everyone—for sure—more of Katamari and Noby Noby Boy -likers. It’s colourful, simple, odd, hilarious, something new with story, not too long to get repetitive.

Always remember:

Wattam (ˈwät-ˈtäm)



n.

A combination of the Japanese word (wa) and the Tamil word (vattam) for circle.

4/5

“Shapes, objects, friends, laughing, pooping, farting”

RELEASE DATE: Dec 17, 2019

GENRE: Puzzle / Adventure / Family

DEVELOPER: Funomena

PUBLISHER: Annapurna Interactive

PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4

Microsoft Windows

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