The Munchables released with an ambitious marketing pitch, namely that the game was Katamari Damacy meets Pac-Man. On the surface this means that like Katamari Damacy on the PS2, The Munchables is a fairly inexpensive game. And while we lack a proper word for it – I suspect most would say quirky – the game also capitalizes on the strange-for-the-sake-of-strange Japanese-esk aesthetic that the Katamari series is known for.

My own comparison is to suggest that The Munchables is very much like a McDonald’s Happy Meal. The nutritional content is questionable, consumption may well induce a lethargic state, and the entire experience is bundled within a deceptively slick marketing package that has the ability to make us smile even while remaining aware of the committee thinking that birthed it.

Read on to find out why it became a guilty pleasure this week.

Taito’s Bubble Bobble taught us that it’s best to offer two lovable and similar characters, presenting differences meant more for vanity rather than changing the gameplay experience. The Munchables offers players the opportunity to choose between Chomper and Munchy, with the ability to alter that choice at any point during the game via the world map.

The Munchables live within a peaceful world covered in rainbows where they essentially eat all day long. When Don Onion and his space pirates invade the planet to plunder its resources, a healthy appetite becomes the key to fighting back this invasion. Players will eat as many pirates as possible and poop out the results at the end of each stage. And yes, devoured pirates are converted into orbs that emerge out of Chomper’s and Munchy’s backsides, leading up to the legendary orb at the end of each area, which resembles a candy colored poop – and this makes me happy.

There are a few easy comparisons to be made between The Munchables and Katamari Damacy, all of which are immediately apparent. The way in which eating pirates affects the characters borrows the same technique employed within Katamari. The player begins each stage at an assigned size level, and grows larger with each meal. Employing the same subtlety, the scale of this growth isn’t always immediately apparent until returning to certain sections to encounter enemies that were large now cowering beneath your shadow. Along the way Chomper and Munchy will evolve after consuming a certain amount of pirates, much in the same way a Katamari ball does.

The detour occurs when recalling the way that attempting to roll up an object that was too large proved impossible within Katamari. Rather than guessing the size of enemies in The Munchables, every pirate has a level appearing over their head that must match the player’s in order to be eaten. However, larger pirates can be broken into smaller, more edible enemies by using a power attack to ram them.

When it comes to control schemes, I suspect it will be quite awhile before any game matches the tactile bliss of the Katamari series – an example of interactive Zen that made movement part of the gameplay reward rather than a means of simply traveling between points A to B. The Munchables doesn’t strive for any strange Wii control for the sake of capitalizing on motion controls. Instead there is a simplistic design, which compliments the gameplay in a way I hadn’t expected. It reminds me of the casual way I play the original Super Mario Bros. games – slouched on the couch, caught up in the repetitious nature of the gameplay without interruption directly as a result of simplified controls.

Character movement uses the nunchuck, while pressing the A button on the Wii-mote allows you to eat what ever is in front of your character’s mouth. The charge attack is layered over this along with a targeting feature, and any kind of upward jolt with the Wii-mote activates a jump. That’s essentially all there is beyond a turbo eating feature, and also all that’s required – allowing a straightforward concept to remain so without unnecessarily complex controls.

An unfortunate comparison to Katamari would be a tendency to fight with the camera along the way – having no option to reposition it. However, most areas are open enough to downplay this continuing problem of design.

Drawing all the way back to my mentioning of Pac-Man at the beginning of this review, The Munchables demonstrates that a simplistic design can be successful – there’s replayability to be had here. Because of the cute factor inherent in the design, and the light difficulty curve of the game, it’s easily written of as a child’s pursuit. Being hit by enemies causes your character to lose some meals and necessitates shaking the Wii-mote to recover before being struck again - not once did I get hit a second time.

There’s no question that the experience is short – two to three light play sessions finished my copy. Each area is broken into three sections, with the final one serving as a boss confrontation. And this is the one place where the game loses some cohesion.

What really made the Katamari series engaging at first sight was the way it bucked the traditional standards of design dogma. And while The Munchables works to follow that example, it falls back on old habits, offering light platforming sections and boss encounters. At its worst, it uses the final stage to confront the player with every boss once again – which is one of the greatest videogame design sins I can think of. This takes away from the simple pleasure powering the core of the experience – eating, eating, and more eating. There’s certainly room for a more creative solution. A two player mode that creates an eating competition also makes my shopping list.

There are some expected extensions to the gameplay, including mirrored levels, time trials, an extra character, and vanity items that are gained along the way to customize your character. Assuming you enjoy singing vegetables - and who doesn’t? – The Munchables band will gladly play you any of the game’s 27 songs as well.

It’s difficult to not find both innocent and guilty pleasures here. I’ve still not gotten tired of using the turbo eating feature, which causes either character to lunge forward with open and hungry jaws. The various space pirates share a bizarre design charm that harkens back to Burger Time. Eating carrots that have mustaches, and then seeing them in your stomach in the top corner of the screen is never a bad design decision.

Beneath the selling point of the humor there’s a fundamentally sound mechanic at work that justifies the visit. While the brief experience may not prove strong enough to launch a series, a mix of legitimately addictive gameplay and bizarre design energy will help it remain an delicious oddity even on the Wii.