I've gotten Cowbear and rolled up The King but, go figure, I can't get 100% in the cloud stage. I waste so much time trying to find the smaller clouds at the start. I've tried to map the level out in my mind, but aside from the thunderclouds around Mt. Fuji I can't figure out where everything is (because of the angle, probably). I always end up running out of time before I can snag the last few clouds.

Does anyone have any tips that may be of help?

Obviously, you need to get large as quick as possible, so keep practicing until you get a good idea about where the small clouds are when you start. Also, use CnR a LOT. There's almost nothing to run into, so just keep doing it back and forth across the stage until there's just a few clouds left to hunt down.

Dash, dash, and dash...totally helps! I tried that level way back in the beginning when I got the game and I thought I'd never get 100% on it...I kept playing it over and over again, getting 495, 498, 499 over and over again but eventually got it.

Practice makes perfect, eh? Well, that's how I finally managed to get Cowbear (hate the Cowbear... hate...) so I suppose I can do the same with clouds. It just seems like I've played that stage over and over already, and I should know where things are by now. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention. Katamari is one of those games that make your mind wander, for me at least. Strange as it may be, I find it relaxing.

Anyway, thanks. You're right about CnR-ing... I don't do that as much as I should.

Sorry for my ignorance :D but what does "CnR" means?
Thanks a lot, this topic may be useful for me. I'm not able to break my record of 479 clouds... I must improve myself! :lol

CnR is Charge and Roll. Also known as dashing. :)

Understood, thanks :thumbsup Just a thing: do you usually dash your katamari when you play to get items fastly or it is just useless?

for me personally, on a level like clouds, i'll do nothing but dash once i get big enough to pick anything up. I don't really dash in levels like stage 1-5 because i always bang into something and and get stuck though once in a while I'll dash on stage 5 since it's the world and once you get big enough, you just pick up everything.

I'm one of those people who played the game for a while without ever realizing the importance of dashing. When I first saw Yoshifan's videos (he dashes constantly) I was blown away. It was like he was playing a different game than I was. It takes practice, Lo7, but CNRing is just a way to move a little faster and get to your goal quicker.

I've never seen Yoshi's videos or something like that, and I have always played with my own strategies and so CnR is not used a lot by me. Now I'll try dashing more and I'll let you know if it works better. Thanks a lot for your tips. :D

You can find videos at the Speed Demos Archive site, which has been discussed here a lot, and which slo_bro is very much involved with. And Yoshifan (Stephen Chan) still has his videos posted -- they're not hard to find. I've got some of my own too. It's always educational to watch somebody else roll.

Oh, it works wonderfully!
Today I rolled up 498 clouds.I had even saved almost 30 seconds so I was looking for the 2 left clouds, but I couldn't find them... :( and time ran out...

i got 98% the other day.

i got all 10 shooting stars and finally beat the medium and large campfire stages so i'm setting cow-bear and 100% on flowers, countries, sweet house and clouds as my next targets.

on the underwater level i noticed a present that was on a lilly pad in the middle of the lake by a boat.
it looked like the only way to get it was to go up on the fishing hook then C'n'R at the lilypad the mometn you get off the hook.
so it does have other uses other than just going faster.

From my FAQ on GameFAQs:

i find it easier to go around the edge as you can see the small clouds in vertical loops that spin around (kinda like a ferris wheel).

you can get your first upgrade pretty quick if you get the route right.

once you get the first upgrade, the camera angle becomes much friendlier.
this is when you want to start c'n'r-ing in zigzags across the level.
like this \/\/\/\/\/\/\.
as you do this you get bigger and bigger and keep going back and forth in zigzags picking up clouds on the second run you werent able to get the first time round.
when you get down to only a few clouds left, concentrate on areas with lots of clouds clustered together (or even better, in long strips) c'n'r-ing through them, then moving on to the next one going in big circles around the level.

i got 97% on my second try using this strategy.

I addressed that, the time you spend waiting for all the clouds in those wheels to come around into range kills any chances you have towards the end. It's much easier to get those rings when you're ,uch bigger and can hit them in one go. There are plenty of smaller clouds hidden in the large cloud banks, you just can't see them as you pick them up..

that tactic works for me.
ive only tried twice and i got 97% and still had time left but messed it up at the end coz my mate walked infront of the tele lol

admitedly i havent tried vix method yet coz i havent really looked at her walkthrough except for the cowbear level.

post #1 woot woot

personally i didnt have too much trouble with this level =/ i got it on the 3rd try (i suppose by sheer luck, 5th if you count 2 runs on friend's game awhile ago) rolling around at the end wondering if i got everything... and then i ran into something and ended with 8 seconds left =/

beyond the very beginning when getting up to size, i actually didnt CnR much at the end. this leaves me to believe that the main trick is just CnR until you get high enough to pick up the cloud man :x at that point i wandered around slowly hoping to find the rest

since i think the key to getting 100% is starting off, here was my basic idea~

roll SLOWLY to forward right of the start (dont know if there are multiple spawns in this one, spawned the same spot all 3 times) and pick up 4 or 5 small clouds if i remember correctly. after those i ran through 1 or 2 of the bottoms of the verticle loops and by then i was just about set... no idea if those first 4 or 5 did anything but it seemed to work on my last 2 tries :P

*edit* after that point i believe i was big enough to dash back through the main sections and start growing fast

hope it helps ^^;;

Wow, you got 100% in Clouds within your first 3-5 attempts?

:applause

For me even that stage took many many tries before I got them all, at least 20 or 30.

Yea the cloud stage is very hard to get 100%. I hate the angle of the view in the beginning. :mad

i guess you can stick another 3 attempts that ended after 30 seconds when i was just trying to figure out where the tiny clouds were

beginners luck i suppose? ^^;;

i suppose i should add to CnR in a circle instead of running straight through the level when youre trying to grow =/

maybe ill try cloud stage for speed some time :O after... i complete everything else... so that will be about another 6 months or so? -_-;;