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.
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.