We Love Katamari

"Will YOU Heart Katamari?"

A sound like distant thunder. A shadow is cast over the land. People crowd the darkened alleys... for pandemonium has been unleashed. Without warning, your house is torn away from its foundation as if it were a toadstool sitting daintily in a meadow. A horror strikes you as your foe is revealed. You're being attacked by... is it your entire town? Yes. Your entire town has been rolled into a ball. There's no time to process this bizarre happenstance before you too are swept up within the cascading eclectic clutter.

Lucky for you, "We Love Katamari"... sequel to the infamous "Katamari Damacy"... puts you in control of the fury, not the fodder.

Gameplay

...And so it goes that in this notably Katamari Damacy-like adventure, you once again take control of the tiny prince... to once again guide your katamari from victim to victim. And for those of you who don't yet know whether you may or may not love katamari, let me explain: A katamari is a little odd-shaped ball. The prince, your little hero returned from "Katamari Damacy"... pushes this ball around his environment. Anything small enough to stick to it will stick to it. Eventually, you will have a grand accumulation of various and sundry items all layered on top of one another and your katamari will be able to pick up even larger and larger items. And so the pattern snowballs into one big unstoppable katamari, a magnet for anything that isn't nailed to the wall... and sometimes even that's not enough to stump your stride. Both of the control sticks are used. They control as if you're using your own hands. You push both sticks to roll the katamari forward. If you ease up on, for example, the right stick, the katamari will turn right (as all the force is on the left side). This makes for super-intuitive gameplay, but be warned that even a small and light katamari can sometimes seem needlessly clunky.

In "Katamari Damacy," the little prince was a lone soldier on this unusual quest to gather up a galaxy of clutter. This time, though, the prince has accomplices. Within the many and varied worlds you'll come across many and varied royal cousins to the prince. This is nothing new... this was seen in the first game. What's new is that you now have the option to accost said kin within the game's "select meadow" (from which missions are selected) and pass the sacred duty of katamari-pusher onto one of them. The only difference discernible within gameplay is that some of the prince's taller cousins can well and truly get in the way of your reading space in the pause menu.

Story

The King of All Cosmos has become quite a hit. In "Katamari Damacy" he, in a drunken rampage, danced his way through the universe bashing all of the stars out of existence. Here be the raison d'etre for the young prince's katamari patrol. The plan was to roll up as many items as possible, after which the katamari composition would be lifted up into the cosmos to be turned into a bright and shining star. Lather, rinse, and repeat until a suitable number of replacements is in place. The story of "We Love Katamari" can be summed up in four words: "Pandering to the Crowd." The people simply adore your astronomical wonders and are coming up out of the woodwork with requests. What's a King to do? Simple! Call the son from whom you stole all of the credit, and send him back out to fill up his katamari with some all-new credit, all yours for the taking.

Graphics

The graphics are blocky and odd. Furthermore, it is completely necessary for them to be as such. You have to understand that there is simply a HUGE number of things lying about in this strangely conceived world. Even as we are about to embark on another generation of video gaming, polygon count is still a real issue. You can only have so much stuff going on at one time on a single screen, and even with the simplified aesthetic of the game I'd be easily convinced that the envelope is pushed almost too far anyway at times. This minimalistic approach is less of a burden than it was in "Katamari Damacy," in which the objects (especially living things) were a bit on the starched side. In "We Love Katamari," the populace is lovingly dynamized with short but effective animation loops and some physics have been interjected as well. Crashing into a stack of flower pots in "Katamari Damacy" produced a ceramic "thud" and little else. In "We Love Katamari," said action results in a swagger and sway from the stack which nearly topples over but rights itself with a wobble and a roll.

Sound

The sounds of "We Love Katamari" show a marked improvement over those in "Katamari Damacy." The soundtrack is larger (though sorely missing a few of the choicer pieces from its predecessor) and, for what it's worth, the game allows a music toggle before each stage. Many sounds have been recycled, but all seem crisper, and the totally new sounds are bliss. The main function of the sound effects is to herald the sticking of something to the katamari. Snare a cat, hear it meow. Grab a dog, hear it bark. Capture a skyscraper, hear the cacophonic orchestra of blood-curdling screams issuing forth from the unwitting multitude of the building's doomed fare. These noises layer upon each other with remarkable fluidity, so the katamari truly does leave an impressive din in its wake. But back to the music... the game features many cutscenes, all of which are told with melancholy under the cool tide of some beautiful alien melodies.

Finally...

I could easily deduct more points from "We Love Katamari" based on the graphics and story, but the purpose of this piece doesn't warrent such a deduction. Both are serviceable, both are frankly as good as they could be. The sound is more or less heavenly, and the gameplay is superb with the exception of some occasional clunkiness and minor issues with the camera which result from that clunkiness.

Sit back, relax, and don't look down as you're swept up within your gargantuan katamari. You're about to be a star.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/05