It's better than bad - it's good!

Game Info.

Genre Action

Publisher/Developer Namco/Namco

Release 9/05

In the original Katamari Damacy, players played as the Prince of All Cosmos whose father, the King, on a bender destroyed and later regretted destroying the stars and the moon in the sky. Your task was to roll things up onto a sticky ball called a "katamari" (which means "clump" in Japanese). Once you got the katamari to a certain size, the King would put it up in the sky and it would replace one of the stars lost to his drunken rage. Simple enough? No? Well, it gets even stranger.
We Love Katamari takes the same concept of rolling up clumps of stuff that will be turned into stars even further. According to the story, everyone on Earth loves the video game Katamari Damacy. The world is supposedly full of fans of the King and the Prince who would like to see them use their katamari-related powers to save their day. So this time, as the Prince or any one of his 30-some cousins, you must go around taking requests from people, plants, and animals alike and further fulfill their katamari dreams. (Don't worry, it never gets any less bizarre to those who play it.)

Gameplay
About a third of the "requests" you get from fans boil down to just the standard "grow to a certain size in the time limit" stages. These really haven't changed a bit, but they nevertheless still feature one of the best gameplay models I've ever had my hands on. Rolling around a gigantic ball that thinks stick to is one of the most profound ideas to come out of gaming in years, no matter how you look at it. And to those who haven't played with it, it's damn fun.
The other two thirds are levels that, some more than others, put a unique spin on the standard Katamari gameplay. These are for the most part executed with flying colors. There's a level in which you collect hundreds of fireflies to light up a student's nighttime studies, a level where you roll up flammable objects onto a fireball of a katamari to kindle a giant campfire, a level where you roll a snowball katamari to make the head of a giant snowman, and tons more. A few less noticable features help polish the Katamari gameplay, such as being able to play as any of the Prince's cousins you collect and getting to look on the pause menu through all the individual items your katamari has rolled up since the start of the level.
The "taking requests" aspect of introducing new levels can be a little confusing - it's easy to imagine someone never noticing a certain level just because they weren't sure who (or what object) to talk to on the index screens. Aside from feeling pretty derivitive of the first game and a little too non-linear and disjointed on its own, We Love Katamari comes out with gameplay that is exciting, fun, and adorable. It's really an experience that should not be missed by game players of any creed.
9/10

Control
As in Damacy, you control the katamari by pushing both sticks in tandem, and in my opinion, this still works as perfectly as ever and gives these games a totally unique feel. There are still physics issues like passing through objects unexpectedly or colliding with an object much more strongly than you realistically should. It's debatable whether this hinders or helps the flow of gameplay, but in my opinion, it just feels unnatural. One improvement is that the Katamari doesn't seem to get jammed the way it always would in Damacy, causing you to lose a large portion of your clump. However they managed to fix this, it works great.
8/10

Graphics
The quality of the animation is still not so great and the textures are as appaling as ever. But lighting, special effects like lightning and fire, menu graphics, art design, and overall variety in the visuals have all improved greatly. On top of that, this game almost never slows down when the screen gets cluttered - a problem that plagued Katamari Damacy.
7/10

Sound
The soundtrack may not be quite as incredibly brilliant as Damacy's, but that'll be hard to expect from any game from now on. What we're left with are just as many memorable songs that are just as well-composed from a lot of the same talented artists who kicked our asses the first time around. Unfortunately, it's just not as great of a mix this time. Like Revolver is to Sgt. Pepper's (or maybe vice versa, it's hard to say).
9/10

Replay Value
This game seems like it has far more levels. If it doesn't, that's a very good thing, because something about the mix or the quality of the new challenges keeps me on it like a drug. The final "get really freakin' big" level also lets you grow to about 4 times the size of the one in the first game. This alone should challenge players at least for a few days. Then of course there's the myriad of items to collect throughout the levels. Add on top of that a nearly impossible challenge of collecting 1,000,000 roses in a final secret level, and you should never be without something to do in this game.
9/10

Overall
Overall, would I say We Love Katamari is a better game than Katamari Damacy? Yes, it is better, but I can't say for certain that I like it more, because it's just not all that different. Really, half the time I'm playing I fall into a trance just because I've done this gameplay so much already. Granted, there still is the other half of the gameplay in the special missions that I love and respect this game for. No matter what, it still kicks ass that we now have two Katamari games in one 12-month period. I'm amazed Namco was able to do all this so fast. Bravo. But really, I think I've had my fill of Katamari. Next time, if there is a next time, I want them to come back with all-new gameplay that's just as mind-blowingly original as Damacy was last year. Wouldn't that be something?

FINAL SCORE: 9/10
=Amazing=
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