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

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

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

an amazing sequel to an already amazing game

great new level concepts and ideas while still staying true to the spirit of the original game, almost wholly an improvement in every aspect

probably one of the greatest gaming soundtracks ever

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.

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.

Keita Takahashi begrudgingly worked on a sequel to the first katamari game after Namco strongarmed him into it, and even though he didn't like the idea of a katamari sequel, he made one of the best sequels ever. We Love Katamari plays just like the first but adds lots of different ideas to its levels that really help in bettering the initial gameplay loop. The regular levels are still as solid as ever, but the new levels (ie. rolling fires to light a bonfire, rolling up fireflies to make a bright light) really improve upon the first games constellation levels.

The game has fun levels, a stellar soundtrack, and a lovely vibe, as the game spends lots of time complementing the king and thanking him, and by extension the player, for rolling all these katamaris. If you played the first game, you NEED to play this one, especially since the remake just released.

Good:

My favorite Katamari. Much improved gameplay over the first game. Various levels offer new and interesting experiences. Music is cool and eccentric.

Not Good:

Even with various maps, game reuses them every now and then. Wish every level was unique.

Verdict:

9 / 10

I always called this game We Heart Katamari. Anyways, it takes what the first game did and just does it again but better with more interesting level ideas, many of which you have to roll up specific things or have some movement-altering gimmick. All of them work really well, it's an absolute joy to play. The writing being so self-aggrandizing about the first game is incredibly funny, especially when you realize that the lead designer of the game originally didn't want to even do a sequel. He left after this one, which I think shows. Being able to play as all the cousins is fun. It's one of those games that will leave you with a big smile on your face even if you're having the worst day. Great vibes all around. If you just need a good time or something to lighten up, play this, or the original, they're both great. I'll never do that rose level though. Screw that.