For a long time, Sonic fans have long wondered why SEGA didn’t do the obvious thing and commission Sonic Mania 2 from its developers. Turns out, they did try to. However, the Mania developers decided they didn’t want to retread old ground by making a 2D Sonic game, and decided to take a bold, creative risk. I really want to applaud the developers for trying to make a fresh, new take on a 3D platformer that’s momentum based and also puts the emphasis on character movement. But I really can’t in good conscience recommend this game to anyone but the biggest fans of speedrunning, momentum-based games, pre-analog camera control platformers, and Sonic.

A big break of traditional game design Penny’s Big Breakaway does is breaking away from using the second stick as camera control. Instead, you use the stick to control Penny’s Yo-Yo. On paper, this should give you way more freedom of movement than just double-jumping or dashing or spinning via contextual or different button controls: for instance, you can quickly dash in a direction that’s not the one your left stick is heading towards, allowing you some handy emergency clutches. It’s basically a super-powered version of the advanced cap-jump trick you can do in Mario Odyssey, promoted to a main starring role.

However, it’s also that removal of camera control that screws up the hypothetical elegance of this new movement system. The camera automatically changes viewpoint in order to show what’s ahead. Again, on paper, it’s not bad (it makes hunting for collectible an actual challenge of reading the road in front of you ahead and anticipate where possible path deviations might lie). But your constantly changing viewpoint that’s out of your control makes it very hard to accurately move both sticks in the direction you want them to go.

These things make for a very steep difficulty curve, that will ensure that most players will not nail these gameplay mechanics by the time the credits roll. I’ve had a nice time of reaching 80% item completion on my first runthrough, but I definitely struggled in the later levels to keep a nice flow going. It was a harsh reminder that playing fast, momentum-based games like Sonic elegantly is a skill that takes a long time to master, and I do not fault most players to give up before that point. However, it’s unfortunate that Penny’s Big Breakaway lacks the precision itself to make the road to mastery a great experience for those who do want to engage in the challenge. Lots of people have already commented on the bugs which can seriously screw up your game flow, but even beyond that it lacks the clearly communicated nuance that a game like Celeste has in your movements and punishments that makes platformers like these tough but fair.

To wrap it up, I really wish I could give this game four stars. I’m a huge fan of the work of the developers, and their commitment to take the ambitious and revolutionary path, especially for what is essentially their first 3D game. I just hope that they’ll hone in on the unique potential of this game and polish it in their next project. Like Sonic the Hedgehog, whose first game showed potential that was only really realized in the sequels, Penny and Yo-Yo need to have a little more time to practice their skills in the wings.

Katamari Damacy was one of the pinnacles of the PS2-era of gaming, a time where technological advancements had finally made ambitious and novel game concepts possible without too many restraints, but also when the cost of development hadn’t risen so much that big game studios still greenlit such projects. But even this period of gaming wasn’t a bastion freed from the yokes of capitalism. Creatives still needed to grease and gaslight executives into greenlighting such creative projects, and if that project became a meteoric success, said studio execs wanted to milk the shit out of that success until all the magic had evaporated. Such was the fate that Keita Takahashi, lead designer of the Damacy games, found himself in.

We Love Katamari is a blatant and self-aware reaction on the roll-away success of Katamari Damacy. Taking place after the first game, instead of reacting with abject horror at the rolling-up of Earth by the King of All Cosmos, mankind has now become fans of the King and ask him for random katamari favours. The King, bored by the prospect of the job but not immune to even the most superficial praise, sends his son and cousins to do the fanservice for him.

It is a satirical frame to what is basically the same gameplay as the previous game. You roll your ball via manipulating both control sticks independently, adhesing small objects to your ball in order to grow it so it can stick to even larger objects. Katamari Damacy used a very logical progression of scale: with every level, you would start with increasingly larger balls until at the final level, you would roll up the entire world. We Love Katamari trades this progression for variety; next to the standard missions akin to the previous games, you are also asked to roll up different types of items like fireflies or snow or tyres, in order to satiate the fans.

And the fans will never be satisfied. Even if you roll up a mission with a high score, you will be chastised by them for not living up to the impossible expectations that they have cooked up in their dreams. It makes them downright more dismissive than even the King, contender for Worst Father in Video Games.

This frame, which would be downright cynical if not for the same absurdist vibe as the previous game, puts you in the shoes of the creator. You feel like, in a way, you’ve been there before.. Even if it’s “”””objectively”””” a better game with more varied missions, a higher difficulty and even more swag for your player characters, this game can’t quite capture the same glee and surprise as the original game because it’s obviously not an original game. It is still a great game, don’t get me wrong, but We Love Katamari also wants you to move on and find joy in the unexpected, rather than the tried and true.