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.
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.