Although it has only been a little under a month since I beat Katamari Damacy, I have thought about it at least once a day since then, as I've been listening to the soundtrack very often (with "Que Sera Sera" and "Roll Me In" being on repeat in both my mind and my computer) while also checking out speedruns and world record rolls. All of this has made me incredibly excited to check out the game's sequel, We Love Katamari, and I was curious to see what it was about the game that made so many people consider it to be the better experience, and the ever-so-sweet Japanese box art featuring the game's development team posing in front of Namco being another motivator to finally give the game a go. Like the first game, I was won over by the charm of We Love Katamari right when I saw its intro play for the first time, and not only did this game retain the spirit of its predecessor, but it also brought so many new ideas to the table that I can't see it as anything other than the definitive Katamari experience.

Whether you were grabbing everything in your path, trying to collect a specific kind of item, or trying to grab the biggest single item while avoiding its smaller lookalikes, pretty much all of the levels in Katamari Damacy end up with you rolling the biggest ball you possibly can, and while those level types are still here in the sequel and are as fun as they've ever been, We Love Katamari features a lot more variety in terms of levels and objectives. We Love Katamari takes the core mechanics of the first game and expands on them through its constant recontexualizations, and moving on from cleaning up after the King of All Cosmos' mess and instead doing freelance work for the fans of the previous game means that you're completing tasks such as cleaning up a kid's room, helping a sumo wrestler eat enough food to prepare for his next match, rolling up a head for a giant snowman, or even trying to light a bonfire while also keeping your own katamari's flame from going out. Not only do these new game modes make the already unique concept of the first game feel fresh again, but one of the original modes involving rolling up a certain item type was made much more interesting, as collecting flowers in a beautiful meadow or rolling up a gingerbread house for Hansel and Gretel was infinitely more compelling than collecting objects simply because the King of All Cosmos wanted you to. Speaking of which, We Love Katamari featured a lot more locales for its levels than the first game, and while the satisfaction of learning your way around each level so that you can get bigger in a shorter amount of time is still here to an extent (especially with the addition of alternate objectives for completed levels), I still loved just how new almost all of the levels felt.

Like I mentioned earlier, We Love Katamari focuses on paying tribute to the fans that made Katamari Damacy the surprise hit that it was, and while the first game was already filled with joy (save for the verbal abuse coming from your in-game father whenever you fail a mission), this felt like a game made out of pure love and passion, and my mood would improve immediately whenever I sat down to play it, including the times where I was in an already good one. We Love Katamari retains the timeless artstyle and surrealist comedy of its predecessor, and its quirky look really got to shine during the grandiose, gorgeously animated, and often hilarious cutscenes that showed the King of All Cosmos' upbringing and how he fell in love with the Queen of All Cosmos. As expected, the shibuya-kei soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal, and while I'm not sure if I can decide between the music for this game or Katamari Damacy just yet, I will say that the song "Angel Rain" from the flower and firefly levels might just be my favorite individual track out of both of these games. Because this was essentially a direct improvement on the original game in pretty much every way, I'd go as far as to say that We Love Katamari is one of my favorite puzzle games, and while I'm not all that interested in checking out the other games from the Katamari franchise due to the lack of involvement from its creator, Keita Takahashi, I do want to eventually play some of the games that he made on his own, including his upcoming game To a T.

Essentially the perfect sequel - it expands the original experience in every direction to create a much more full-featured game while sacrificing nothing.

The understated writing of the 'story' is once again wonderful, but is now very explicitly a metatextual exploration of the director's complicated feelings about the original game's success and the necessity of a sequel. Not particularly well-trod ground for mainstream video games in 2005! That a game this good was essentially made under duress, and that the game itself is constantly pointing that out and making light of it only makes it that much more funny and intriguing.

But most importantly .......... guys ......... you can roll so much bigger in this one!!! Even having played it like ten times over the years, this STILL activates areas of my primitive game enjoyer brain that have been dormant since sometime in the arcade era. Pure, primordial gaming stuff in here.

it's peak....

I recently bought a CRT and I wanted a game to test it on, and since this game is so short, I may as well replay it. long and short is that katamari feels like a game that's happy not in spite of everything but because of everything.

CRT tv was cool too, i like my scanlines

we love katamari is a weird game. i'm not talking about art direction or anything like that, but rather what it symbolizes to katamari and the videogame industry as a whole. sequels aren't a rare thing, but they are often unnecessary and convoluted. if a game exists, why make a sequel trying to surpass what you did in the past? isn't this claiming yourself a right that you don't have, analyzing if it's a product rather than a piece of art? well, i don't know. a lot of my favorite games are sequels and i like how they can be really aggressive towards itself, and we love katamari is a game that tries to answer this question by being extremely aggressive towards katamari damacy.

like a lot of other developers inserted in the japanese industry, keita takahashi didn't want to develop a sequel for his game. katamari damacy is what he wanted to achieve, so why make a sequel? you see, katamari damacy is a game about mass consumption. just roll all this trash in a fucking ball and throws it away in the space. perfect. then, we love katamari tries to make this more obvious than its prequel, everything that you are doing is "worthless", all the katamari you roll are small, they can be always better and better, bigger and faster. even the cinematics (that i didn't give a shit at the first game) are trying to say this at your face. all the stages are bigger yet they fell the same. you are doing all those things that you already had done, but with changes here and there. all the fans of katamari damacy wanted a sequel, and we love katamari is the perfect sequel of an already perfect game.

honest and straight to the point, the perfect sequel! they made an insane and ridiculous game concept and somehow made it 100x better in a years time, improving on literally every single aspect; from the charm and goofiness, the performance, the quality of life, the scope, adding multiplayer, more challenges, collectables, cousins and more things to do and see and experience and enjoy and play and watch and i could literally go on and on and on. these guys really know their audience and i would say they have successfully mastered the art of FUN and what it means to make video games for the sole purpose of enjoyment and to create cool experiences! i would recommend this game to anyone interested in learning how to make fun through gameplay alone, this game transcends culture and language and even gaming itself, it is just a pure and fun and innocent idea. i think about this game A LOT, it's a crazy source of fun even in my imagination, imagining things being rolled up, kinda like how some people imaging like sonic running across buildings on a car ride, (i still do that sometimes), but when i'm just staring at the world i just imagine my little katamari scooping everything up. just ignore all the people, animals, insects, flowers, buildings and everything that i'm rolling up, none of that really matters, just learn to let go and have a little fun sometimes with your mind. i'm so impressed day by day the more this game consumes my thoughts and as the title suggests, we fucking love katamari!

O objetivo dele até que é simples, a única coisa que se faz o jogo inteiro é empurrar uma bolinha e aumenta-lá de tamanho, mas mesmo o jogo sendo só isso, ele consegue ser muito divertido, vários momentos eu me pegava rindo da história, pois ela é bastante divertida e até que engraçadinha. Uma outra coisa que brilha bastante nesse jogo são as músicas, cada missão tem a sua própria música, e é uma melhor que a outra, eu prestava mais atenção na música do que no jogo.
Resumo de tudo, o jogo é bom e divertido, foi poucos momentos em que senti raiva ou me frustei com alguma missão, a jogabilidade é simples, mas que consegue divertir bastante, e também tem uma ost incrível.

An all but perfect console generation defining game. It feels like an ample celebration of Katamari's success, with the amount of tweaks and level variety being used to accelerate the game to incredible quality, but also as a declaration to fans as if to say "We're honored you love Katamari, and here's more, but mostly because we're having fun."

If you love Katamari, I genuinely believe it to be the crown jewel of the franchise, but even if you've been hesitant to try it, this particular entry is the game that may convince you of the series' charm.

Elite - a perfect encapsulation of the PS2-era's offbeat, wholesome charm. Starting off as the size of a pea to rolling up entire cities with this game's effervescent soundtrack is just a dream. The graphics, the colors, the mood, the idiosyncratic gameplay all just clicks here. Still has the issue of repetitious missions and the occasional collision problem like the (still awesome) previous game (which this improves upon in essentially every respect), but there's simply no arguing with this game's dreamy and almost childlike feeling of fun.

Oh man, it's good. Like, really really good.
I gotta say, for a director like Keita Takahashi, a man that absolutely fucking HATES the ideas of sequels, despising them to the point of categorizing them as anti-art, whistles, he actually might have made one of the greatest sequels of all time.

The result of how this game turned out is such an insane achievement; The guy absolutely didn't want to work on the game when the idea of a sequel was presented to him. He immediately declined when it was brought before him shortly after the predecessor's release, and in good old fashion business lingo, they basically told him we're making it with or without you. Either way, this was going to be made, so he reluctantly accepted his position as Director once again. Despite the deck being completely stacked against his wishes, I'm thoroughly surprised how excellent this ended up being.

For starters, nothing was cut, you've got that signature Katamari Damacy gameplay: You roll shit up, and attempt to make it bigger than the State of Texas. On top of that, collectables are back as well, returning in the form of presents, and The Prince's diverse assortment of cousins. However, not only do old collectables return, such as the camera, but all the cousins from the previous games make a return, INCLUDING the addition of brand new ones. My favorite had to be Slip, he's basically a Paper version of The Prince, à la Paper Mario. It's such a simple design, but it's so goofy and different compared to the originals cast of what were pretty much mostly color swaps.

So yeah, you've got all your old stuff, but you're probably thinking...that's it? More of the same? Well, yeah, but the real charm of it all is how the levels are structured this time.
In an attempt to become a bigger acid trip than the original, the story of the game centers around fans of the previous game, yes, THE GAME Katamari Damacy, asking numerous favors from the King of All Cosmos, as a result of their adoration of the previous game. It's a metanarrative plot, but it uses this self awareness in one of the best, and most heartwarming ways possible.
The game itself is basically a giant thank you note to all the fans, that supported, and played the original Katamari Damacy, hence the name We ❤️ Katamari. It's a neat way to show the dev's gratitude, while providing an explanation on why we have another bolder, improved, and ambitious Katamari game.

For example, as mentioned before, you have your standard levels where you reach a certain size, within a certain amount of time. However, levels similar to the first game's: collect this specific item structure make a return, but with a much more unique twist. One of these levels involves a fan asking the King to help start a bonfire at the local campgrounds. You do this by setting a Katamari on fire, and fueling the flaming Katamari with objects you collect, whilst keeping the main goal in mind of lighting a pile of wood on top of a hill. These missions are what make the gameplay loop of this particular installment so much fun, you never know what type of level you're going to get.

One of my favorite levels in the game had to be the racetrack; Some dude asks if you can show him cars being rolled up, and you go about this by entering a race with your katamari, and collecting shit at high speeds the entire time. It's your standard "get bigger" level, but you can't stop the katamari from moving so fast.
Another one of my favorites had to be the snowman level; It's such a refreshing pace breaker from the rest of the game's structure, since all you're doing is rolling up a ball of snow, like how you would in real life, except there's no time limit. You can just relax, enjoy the snowy scenery, and choose when you want to stop rolling around the snowball.
This overall, made the game immensely enjoyable from start to finish, and I never got bored because of it.

I also want to mention that I played through the PS2 version of this game, and this was my first time playing through it. The only other games in the series I played were half of the first game (although I recently finished it right before playing this), and about 70% of Touch My Katamari (yeah, that's the title). Reason why I mention this, is because I honestly recommend that, if you can, play the original, and this sequel on the PS2. Your saved progress from the first, to this, carries over; Without giving away how the game ends, it was nice seeing my combined progress from the first and second game come together to help me reach the end goal.
If you can't, playing the remaster should be fine enough, I only played the first two levels of it, and it seems like a nicely polished version for newer audiences.

That being said, this quickly became one of my favorite PS2 games ever, and I'm glad to have finally played it. It's so good that I bumped the first game down to four and a half stars, because this was such an awesome improvement. I'm actually a bit interested in tackling the other sequels in the series, despite Keita Takahashi not being involved with them. I'm curious about comparing those to these two games. So to follow this review, I guess I'll do a Beautiful Katamari review at some point. I WOULD do the PSP game but the controls for that look...clunky.
To conclude, here's my favorite track from the game, and go look at the manual for this, because this is one of the coolest I've seen for a video game.

Favorite Track : https://youtu.be/bhfnVc49S_I
The Game's Manual : https://archive.org/details/we-love-katamari-manual-ps-2/mode/2up

I'm not a nostalgic person when it comes to game preferences, or just in general. 2005 was the worst year of my life and most media from that time fills me with a visceral disgust. With that being said, We Love Katamari is one of my favorite games of all time despite a severe handicap. This game is going to give you a good time, or burn out your PS2's disc lens trying.

The soundtrack is self-evidently great, even better than the first game and the first game's soundtrack is a contender for some of the best video game music I've ever heard. It's not just that the main stage tracks are varied and fitting of the atmosphere. The little piano jingle at the beginning of the game, Overture II, goes harder than most game's OSTs and it absolutely doesn't have to. The sound effects are fitting of how weird this game is, and I don't think there's any improvements I'd want to be made.

Graphically, it's not a leap from the first game, but it didn't have to be. It's a chaotic mess, but you never have issues reading what's happening on screen, and the visual direction of some of the stages, especially the gimmick ones adds more variety than the first game. For a Playstation 2 game, it looks fantastic and it's telling that the art style was mostly kept in tact for the remake, not much to fix outside of scaling up the resolution.

The King of All Cosmo's story is relatively simple and melodramatic for the sake of humor, but also played just straight enough to give this comedic character a meaningful arc that I got invested in. The flashback "plot" tying your progress through the game together could have been more comedic cut scenes like the original, but everything in this game is executed with such competence that I cared about the arrogant drunk and his connection with his father.

The gameplay introduces a few quality of life improvements over the original game, like less annoying collision physics and a better camera. On paper, the little tweaks this game does to the original's formula don't seem like they'd make a big difference, but they eliminated almost all frustration that I had from the original game. The stages have more of a gimmick focus, but not in a way that I found distracted from the core focus of the gameplay, and more traditional stages still existed. The game's amount of cousins and presents gives the game a ton of replayability, and I could see other people getting burnt out by the collection aspect of the game, that just never happened to me. If I start a fresh playthrough of We Love Katamari, it's easy for me to devote the next couple of days getting everything/going for larger planets.

I just have such a nice time playing this game. I'm very picky when it comes to video game humor, and all the bits in this game land like a Season 7 Simpsons episode. It's a loud and chaotic game, without coming off as obnoxious. I find the game really relaxing despite it's concept. We Love Katamari puts me in a better mood in a way that even games I'd say I like better can't. I think this game's one of the most sublime releases of the 6th generation. It's one of those games you can recommend to people who haven't touched video games before, and the most jaded brain-poisoned fans on the medium. One of the highest Smiles Per Minute pieces of media I've ever had the joy to play through.

Is it possible to make a sequel and top a perfect game like Katamari Demacy? It's hard, the progression is so smooth and straightforward; you get bigger and bigger with fun side missions here and there. How can you make a game like that better??

Well, this is exactly how. We Love Katamari takes the concept of the first game and what makes it good, and takes so many new concepts and unique ideas creating an incredible and unforgettable experience. Every level is infinitely replayable and memorable. Instead of focusing on getting bigger, this game focuses on expanding the concept of what Katamari Damacy can do. Pretty much every level is memorable because the variety is so large, while still staying true to what makes Katamari what it is, it keeps you wanting more from start to finish. Even the dialogue and cutscenes are a huge step up, the King is extra brutal in this game and his origin story was a great inclusion. Truly a perfect sequel, Katamari really is a one-of-a-kind series.

What should we do with this perfect sequel? Oh! We can pop it into the cosmos. Yes, that's what We'll do.

One of the most satisfying gameplay loops ever, wrapped in understated but hilarious comedy, a timelessly beautiful art style, and a BACK-TO-BACK BANGER soundtrack. This game drips humour from every pore, be it the innate oddity of the gameplay, the chaos of a world in which you find King Kong & Ultraman coexisting with gnomes & thunder gods, or the meta satirisation of franchises. I can't go in depth on the soundtrack only because there's 17 tracks and I could rave about every single one. I also like the variety compared to the first Katamari, with a wider range of settings to explore (outer space, underwater, fairytale lands) and twists on the gameplay loop - a flaming Katamari which must be kept alight, a racecar Katamari which zooms around at high speed, a sumo Katamari who must be bulked up with ludicrous amounts of food. I'd perhaps rate the first Katamari higher as a 'pure' experience, but I definitely get more of a kick from this, with bigger laughs & out-there ideas that keep drawing me back. Can't say enough good things TBH.

Fave levels: Large as Possible 5, Flowers, Gingerbread House, Underwater, Animals, Fundraiser, Sumo Wrestler, The Sun, Save the Earth