We Love Katamari

"The Prince finally rolls his katamari into Europe"

Coming from Europe I have not been able to experience the craze that is Katamari Damacy until very recently (3 Feb 06) when "We Love Katamari" finally got a release over here. Because of this, I eagerly awaited the game's release (people who know me would say that was an understatement). As I waited outside my game store at 9am to pick the game up I rushed home ASAP to finally taste the Katamari universe.

STORY
After the success of the game's predecessor, "Katamari Damacy" (which was unreleased in PAL territories), fans of the game are eager to meet the King of All Cosmos and have their wishes granted by him. You play once more as the Prince; a small, green, adorable guy as he fulfills the requests of fans by rolling up everything in his path with a special adhesive ball known as a "katamari". As the Prince rolls up things the katamari grows bigger and bigger which allows him to pick up bigger things. He must complete tasks based on what fans desire, from simply rolling the katamari to a great height to making it big enough to light a campfire. In one level he even rolls a wannabe sumo-wrestler around in order for him to gain weight and win his next match.

GRAPHICS
People look at the graphics and think to themselves "Compared to games like Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy X the game doesn't look particularly great." Only when you play the game and see the size and detail in some of the levels and how much you are able to interact with virtually everything that you realise that it's a good thing to sacrifice great graphics for more enjoyable and longer lasting gameplay sometimes. The designers have created models with a very low polygon count and simple textures for the sole reason that it expands the life of the game. On top of all that, the graphics fit well with the bouncy, happy and somewhat cheesy-ness of the whole game.

The game seems to feature well over 3000 different items that the young Prince is able to roll up. These vary greatly in size from minute items like pins and chunks of chocolate, to bigger items like humans, buildings and vehicles, to immense items like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Mt. Fuji and entire countries. Of course, there are thousands of other things that fit into this spectrum of size and it can take weeks of solid playing to find them all.

MUSIC
The music from We Love Katamari is one of the greatest things about it. It is extremely catchy, extremely well written, extremely memorable and, above all, extremely fun to listen to. Having heard the soundtrack to the original game before hearing the music this game has to offer I had extremely high expectations. Usually expectations are quickly shattered but this game delivered everything I hoped for in terms of music and more.

Most of the songs in the game aren't like normal tracks from a video game soundtrack. Most of them have vocals and play like songs for a normal album. It features a eclectic range of music from the jazzy main theme "Katamari on the Swing" to the light rock song "Everlasting Love" to a sort of funky but fun "Bluffing Damacy". There is even a hint of a laid back romance in "Angel's Rain". Some of the songs contain little excerpts from the original soundtrack too. For example the song "DISCO*PRINCE" features the chorus from the Katamari Damacy song "The Moon and the Prince" while "Sunbaked Savanna" is a medley of a number of Damacy tracks arranged entirely in animal voices.

Playing through the game will unlock new songs for you to listen to and you can listen to any song you have unlocked during any level so if there are tracks you're not too keen on you don't have to listen to them. I assure you that by the time you play the game for a few hours that there won't be a track you wouldn't listen to. Another thing I can assure you is that you won't be able to resist humming the songs even when you're not playing the game. I can't seem to go through a day without singing "Naaa, na na na na na na na, Katamari Damacy!" at least once. If you think you'll like this game then this will be one of the greatest soundtracks you'll ever hear. And if you loved the original game's soundtrack you won't be disappointed.

CONTROLS
The concept of the Katamari series is very simple and this includes the control system. The game primarily uses the analog sticks on the Dual Shock 2, using the other buttons for menu selection and camera control only. The primary controls are extremely easy to learn. You move by pushing the two analog sticks forward. Push them back to move backwards and push one up and the other down to turn. There are other things you can do to aid you aswell. Pushing L3 and R3 let you do the equivalent of a 180 turn and you can dash by quickly pushing the sticks backwards and forwards. You can also go into first person view to take a quick look at your surroundings etc. Like I've said already the controls are very easy to learn and you'll almost have them mastered by the time you've completed the first proper level.

GAMEPLAY
The surreal and innovative gameplay is what gives Katamari Damacy/We Love Katamari the cult following it has. The game plays by rolling up everything you can that the level requires: may it be flowers, food, stars or just everything that fits onto your katamari. Starting off with small items you gradually get bigger and bigger allowing you to pick up bigger things and to access areas you aren't able to access at the start of the level. This process can make your katamari grow up to abysmal sizes. On one of the levels your 1 metre katamari can grow up to sizes of over 2000m+! Of course you can't just go around rolling up everything to your hearts content. You have to be wary of larger items though as crashing into them can cause things to fall off your katamari! In order to pass levels you have to fulfill a certain requirement. A lot of the time you will need to expand your katamari to a specific height (and more if you can manage) within a limited amount of time. You might also have to grow it big enough to roll up a certain person or item or even get it as close to a specific size as possible without the help of the size metre in the corner. In one of the levels (almost) every item has some sort of monetary value and you are asked to collect as much money as you possibly can within a certain time. There are usually secondary tasks that go along with this that can be played once you've completed the original task. The main one is to expand your katamari to a specific height in the quickest time possible.

Along with the main objective you are trying to complete there are usually things hiding about the stage. Finding presents withing a stage allows you to wear many different accessories like scarves, glasses, masks etc.. One of the other sub-objectives is to find the Prince's cousins and second cousins. There are many of them to find and some of much harder to roll up than others. When you do find them, however, you'll be able to play as them instead of The Prince. There aren't any unique skills or abilities between cousins but everyone has favourites and it's nice to play as someone other than the Prince every so often.

MULTIPLAYER
We Love Katamari allows two players to play either co-operatively or against each other. I haven't had a chance to play the game with someone yet but I have had a feel for the multiplayer on my own.

When playing against one another the game is split screen. Each player gets their own katamari and their own cousin to play as. The main concept of this type of multiplayer is to gather as many of a specific item as possible in the time given, trying your hardest not to be rolled up by the opposing player while trying to steal items before your opponent can roll them up. You can crash into your opponent to make them drop items and allow you time to pick them up. Other than that I haven't had much chance to experiment with the multiplayer.

Co-operative mode seems like a new feature (from the best of my knowledge Katamari Damacy didn't have a co-op feature) and a difficult one at that. It brings co-operation to an entirely new level if you want to get the best experience out of it. It puts you and a friend in front of a single katamari as you both control it at the same time. This is where the two of you have agree on decisions at almost every turn or else your katamari will go nowhere. This seems especially difficult during the later levels. If you want competition with your multiplayer then this mode isn't for you.

REPLAYABILITY
We Love Katamari should last you quite a while. Just because you manage to master the basic controls doesn't mean you'll master your dash anytime soon, nor does it mean you'll be able to find the best routes to make your best katamaris. Getting better scores allow you to turn your katamaris into meteors and shooting stars aswell as planets and satellites, and I can assure you that you won't be able to reach those scores in a rental time. On top of that, you have all of the items to find to complete your Collection as well as find all of the cousins and presents. Finally you have the million rose level to beat. Of course, just because you've beat levels once doesn't mean you can't try and try again to beat your current record even if you have managed to beat the super clear score for every stage. There is also a variety of other unlockables to unlock along the way and even a photo album to collect photos in (once you've found the camera that is). Even once you've unlocked everything nothing is stopping you from having fun on every level.

CONCLUSION
We Love Katamari is an incredibly fun game even if you haven't played the first game and is, in my opinion, one of the greatest video game concepts since 3D modelling was first used in games. Just because it's simple and the box art is childish doesn't mean it won't be fun. I can assure you months of fun when you first buy it and I can also assure you that you will keep coming back to it in years to come. The story isn't exactly something you'd want to make into a novel, but who cares? Games that have incredibly fun characters, an incredibly fun soundtrack and incredibly fun gameplay don't need a great story. Now that I think about it though, a Katamari Damacy manga would be awesome...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/06