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Namco's Katamari Damacy was a fun little game, but in the grand scheme of things, it was more than that – it was a rallying cry to the industry, that games needed more innovation and less dependence on yearly sequels. And yet here we are, about twelve months later, and we have a Katamari sequel. Out of principle, this just shouldn't be. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing – one of the few major complaints with the original was that it was over far too quickly, so giving players another opportunity to roll around with the King of the Cosmos is really just granting the wishes of the public.

We Love Katamari starts off by echoing this concern. Breaking some kind of metaphysical barrier, we learn that Katamari Damacy was just, in fact, a video game. The King of Cosmos is more or less sick of rolling, but the people of Earth just loved his exploits so much that they clamor for more. Once again taking on the role of the tiny Prince of the Cosmos, it's your job to answer the pleas of clamoring fans.

The original Katamari Damacy swept up gamers and non-gamers everywhere with its bizarre charm. By rolling a sticky ball (the titular "katamari"), you collect little items from around the area. As you collect more stuff, your katamari eventually gets bigger and bigger, which allows you to roll up larger and larger stuff. You start by grabbing little bits of garbage on the floor, then eventually you can pick up cats, humans, cars, buildings and eventually whole continents. It was, as many will tell you, a brilliant game.  

 

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By the end of the time, you had all of the countries on Earth, leaving a lonely, blue ball of emptiness. So this poses the question – where could Katamari possibly go from here? There's not much bigger than the whole planet, so what would you do, roll up the universe? Someone at Namco must've had a similar idea, because one of the ultimate goals of We Love Katamari is to roll up the sun. The sky is still pretty bare at the beginning of the game, so you'll still need to roll up lots of stuff before you can even begin to undertake such a massive task.

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Until you get to that point, We Love Katamari plays around the mission objectives to expand the variety a bit. A fair number of levels still involve getting your

katamari to a specified size, but one mission lights your ball on fire, challenging you to continuously grab stuff before your flame extinguishes (and yes, you can set innocent bystanders ablaze.) Another level removes the time limit entirely, and simply asks you to roll a snowball around a ski resort, collecting as much stuff as you can to help build a snowman. Yet another has you rolling around a sumo wrestler, engorging him with food until he can beat his opponent. With these wackier objectives, there are plenty more creative landscapes - one stage is a bright pink valley with mythological creatures, another takes place underwater, where the hook from an unseen fisherman possesses an ominous threat to our dear Prince.

Even the storyline is more interesting this time around. Every few levels, we are treated to sparsely animated interludes detailing the King's tragic childhood beneath his cruel parent. Painfully amusing, these clips do quite a lot to explain why the king cruelly punishes his son with flaring lasers after failing a level.

We Love Katamari is still a little bit on the short side, but there's a bit more in the way of replay value. You can still collect little trinkets to decorate your prince, or various royal relatives that are roaming around the Earth. These don't really do much of anything on their own, but getting enough of them will eventually unlock extra missions. For those that need to complete their games 100%, We Love Katamari should offer far more playtime than for those who just need to see the ending.

While the original Katamari was known for its goofily infectious soundtrack, the sequel doesn't fare quite so well. There's still a slew of wacky Japanese lounge songs, but none of them come close to the gorgeous "Lonely Rolling Star". One of the best is the level end theme, with an upbeat chanting of "Starlight!", that accompanies the King's semi-praise of your handiwork.  There's also a medley of themes from the first game, this time sung by a choir of dogs and cats. While it's amusing, it really just reminds you how much better that soundtrack was.

Many people really wanted a two-player mode in Katamari, but the one-on-one competition mode was little more than an afterthought. So Namco decided to create a cooperative option, but it's not quite what you'd think. Instead of having two katamaris rolling around, the two players each roll part of a single katamari, and both have to work together to get anywhere. Once again, this feels like a cop-out, but maybe the PS2 just can't handle anything larger than that.

The mantra of We Love Katamari is "more and crazier.” It's not really a better game than the original, as the controls are still a little bit wonky, but it is more creative, and you have to give props to the developers for giving us some humorous reasons to play the same (excellent) game again. Plus, for a pseudo-budget game, priced at $30US, it's really hard to say no to another chance to roll up people and toss them into outer space.

- Kurt Kalata

(October 13, 2005)

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