We Love Katamari Review

Your Last Roll-oh.

Rolling up Paris - that's one way of solving the whole EU rebate problem, we suppose.

We Love Katamari isn't spectacularly different, and that needs to be made clear straight away. Much of the core gameplay is pretty similar. Katamari Damacy had a basic hook - collecting things by rolling over them - which simply worked, and as such, didn't need to change very much in the sequel. Instead, creator Keita Takahashi and his team have focused on expanding the range of different types of mission you can get in the game - letting their imaginations run wild on the possibilities of the game mechanic, and creating a game that feels much more confident and creative as a result.

The basic idea behind the game is grin-inducingly silly; after the events of Katamari Damacy, the Cosmo King has become a major celebrity on earth, and everyone really loves him (hence the Japanese name, Minna Daisuki Katamari Damashii, which translates more accurately as "Everyone Loves Katamari Damacy") - to the extent that they keep petitioning him to help them out with things. Unfortunately, he's incredibly lazy, and can't be bothered doing anything - but when they stroke his ego, he relents and, while he's still lazy, he sends the Prince out to do whatever's needed.

This allows for a much wider range of missions than we saw in the previous game, with a far more varied set of goals and winning conditions. As a simple example, an early mission sees you tasked with tidying up a boy's room by picking up the 100 items of junk lying around; others will see you creating a giant snowball to serve as the head of a huge snowman some people are building (and true to life, simply rolling the ball around on the snow does make it larger, although picking up things is still vital), keeping a burning katamari alight by picking up flammable objects and then using it to light a bonfire, or, in one of my favourite missions, rolling around a sumo wrestler picking up food which he absorbs and grows, until he's big enough to roll over and "defeat" another sumo wrestler waiting for him in part of the level.

Other missions are even more surreal. You'll find yourself rescuing Earth from a meteor strike by picking up the nations of the world (a task you may recall from the end credits of Katamari Damacy, if you played it) and then picking up the meteor before it hits; running around underwater, or hovering in the skies above the islands picking up clouds to stop it from raining. Many missions involve growing to a certain size in order to "defeat" something, so you have to use your judgement to say when you're large enough; quite a lot of them aren't timed, or have no fail condition, but you'll keep repeating them to do them faster or get a bigger Katamari.

I'll have some of what they're rollin'

Katamari Classroom Terror. Just wait for Jack Thompson to get his hands on this.

The payoff as you progress is better, too. You gradually populate a world with the people you've helped, the objects you've won and the "cousins" - small, freaky, prince-like creatures who can be found on some levels and whom you can play with once you've found them - that you've collected, and you can walk around all these and interact with them to find new parts of the game. Later on, you can give a shot to "rolling up the sun" - a game where you have to roll up all the previous Katamari you've created and try to create one large enough to roll up the sun itself, which is one game mode we don't recommend combining with hallucinogens of any description. But best of all, this time around the short cut-scenes tell the tragic and emotional story of the Cosmo King's young life and the birth of the Prince. It takes a certain taste for surrealist humour, but these - along with so much else about the game - reduced us to tears of laughter on occasion.

The mechanics of the game aren't perfect; some levels are slightly frustrating because you can build your katamari to a good size and then get lost looking for the thing you have to defeat, leading to the timer running out on you, while other later levels seem to buck the difficulty curve entirely by simply being far too easy. Levels where you have to pick up a specific type of object - the larger, the better, but even the smallest will do - can be frustrating when you build up to a certain size and then accidentally pick up a tiny object of that type, ending the level abruptly on you.

These are minor niggles, however. The game retains its beautifully abstract styling and adds a level of creativity that even the first Katamari Damacy didn't touch. The soundtrack, believe it or not, is even better than the first - repeating many of the themes and even re-recording some of the songs, but building on it with a wider range of vocal styles and even some excellent classical music in places. Plus, the addition of Rolling Up The Sun and the levels where the challenge is to do the best you can rather than simply meeting an objective and moving on to the next level gives the game much-needed longevity, as does the much improved two-player mode - which sees you and a friend having to cooperate to move the Katamari around the level, which is an exercise in teamwork rather than competition, but can admittedly be an exercise in frustration if you're not on the same wavelength.

Katamari Do Your Best

Underwater Katamari two-player action requires either teamwork, or a willingness to resort to physical violence.

In other words, we love We Love Katamari. We expect that some will criticise it because it's about rolling around and picking things up again, but once you scratch the surface of this amazing game, it's clear that imagination has run wild to an extent that makes the first game look restrained. We Love Katamari is consistently surprising and full of unexpected delights even for players who squeezed the last drops out of the first game; it takes the concept that we loved so much and asks "I wonder what else we can do with this" with a huge cheeky grin on its face and a pocket full of Class-A drugs, Party Rings and bathroom cleaning products.

In short, it's brilliant - and even if you've never played the original Katamari Damacy, it's accessible and hugely enjoyable, with a learning curve that'll be kind to beginners while still providing plenty of entertainment to veterans of the Prince's rolling expeditions. To play it is to understand the slightly arrogant title - and hopefully, this time around, European gamers will also get a chance to love Katamari.

9/10

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