Katamari... Will you marry me? (We Love Katamari (PS2))

Member Name: BTlover

Product:	We Love Katamari (PS2)
Date:	17/12/07 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun gameplay

Disadvantages: Sad to see it go so suddenly

In the present-day age of gaming in which corporate conglomerates such as Electronic Arts have all but guaranteed that the only way today's games can truly fly off the shelves is by developers sticking to what they know will sell, last year's Katamari Damacy came out and proved that innovation and uniqueness can still exist despite seemingly becoming a lost art at a rapid rate. The ball-rolling puzzle sim took the gaming world by storm with its hilarious nature, funny characters, and unique design.

And now, we're treated to Katamari Damacy's wonderful sequel. In the last Katamari Damacy, the King of All Cosmos became an icon for his work in returning the stars to the sky. But something still seemed missing...

When We <3 Katamari first begins, Prince is in the middle of a pristine meadow on Earth. Everyone notices who Prince is, and they immediately begin hounding Prince to do favors for them. Be it lighting campfires, cleaning up kid's rooms or rounding up origami paper cranes, Prince happily agrees to help them all out. The people on Earth all want to meet the King of All Cosmos, and despite the King turning down nearly every favor when Prince first approaches him, it takes but one good mention from a fan to change the King's mind.

Naturally, Prince does all of these favors by rolling katamaris. Katamaris are little balls that Prince rolls around in each level, and if he rolls over something smaller than the katamari, the item will get stuck to the katamari. As the katamari grows bigger, so will the items that Prince is able to pick up.

It's a simple formula, but it happens to work. The gaming community appreciates random insanity more than virtually everyone else, and when you have a game with levels that begin with you only being able to pick up banana peels and end with you being able to pick up virtually everything in the world, you're left with a hilarious gaming experience that every gamer out there needs to feel at least once.

We <3 Katamari goes a bit deeper than its elder brother in terms of level design and variety -- a lot deeper. In the first Katamari Damacy, you simply rolled katamaris as large as you could, as fast as you could, in every single level. We <3 Katamari does far more than this. You will get to roll a fireball, a snowball, and even a sumo wrestler. You will roll up fireflies, paper cranes, and even countries. And in what is easily the best level of the game, you will get to roll a katamari that can easily clear 3000m in diameter. To put this in perspective, the biggest possible katamari in the original title could not clear 1000m. Those fans waiting in the meadow to hound you will add a lot of replay value to the game, because even after you clear a level the fans will bug you to go over and replay it. And you're not one to turn down a fan, are you?

After you beat the game, which should take no more than a few fast hours, you'll unlock the Katamari Memorial in which you can listen to every song or watch any scene in the game, including all of the scenes from the original Katamari Damacy lumped together in one movie. This is one feature that the original sorely needed, and it being in We <3 Katamari shows that the game's designers listen to the desires of their fans -- Much like what Prince does in the game, incidentally enough.

Best of all may be that even after the game ends, nothing is truly over. There is item hunting to be done, secret levels to unlock, and perfect scores to tally in virtually every level of the game. The physics of the game are also much better than they were the first time around. In the first game if you were stuck between two places, things would fly off your katamari like mad. In We <3 Katamari, this was fixed. It's also much more difficult to crash or to be thrown around while small, and it's easier to climb up to higher places without fear of losing the things you've rolled up. We <3 Katamari does what few sequels are able to do: leave the original formula in tact but fix the flaws. Most sequels these days try to be entirely different games, but Namco realizes that they have a true gem on their hands and didn't want to screw it up.

Graphically, We <3 Katamari comes a long way from what was in the original. The polygons are more detailed, are animated a little better, and the scenery and atmosphere are superb. This game also has more levels than the original, which I loved the idea of recycling level designs all through the game. And the music, while not quite up to the precedent set by Katamari Damacy, is still absolutely wonderful and gets the job done. Katamari Damacy itself simply had a soundtrack that set the bar too high.

We <3 Katamari is a game that retains everything that was good about the original title in the series, and nearly perfects everything that was missing. Add in infinite replay value and great level design, and you arguably have the gold standard for how every sequel should look.

Summary: A perfect example of ok graphics combined with fun gameplay.