We ♥ Katamari - First Play

The silly, quirky, and totally unique world of Katamari Damacy returns with We ♥ Katamari. A surprise sleeper hit when it was released, Katamari Damacy was one of those games that is hard to describe and even harder to explain why it’s so fun. Ask any fan, and you’re likely to receive a response like the following: “Well, you’re this little guy with a ball, and you roll stuff up. But it’s really fun!” I will be the first to admit that while I loved the concept of the first Katamari, I didn’t love it in practice, though I desperately wanted to. Something fun, different, and seemingly endlessly replayable? Sign me up. Sadly, Katamari caused blinding headaches for me, so it was with some trepidation that I picked up We ♥ Katamari. I really did want to love Katamari, and this time - I do.

For those unfamiliar with the basic premise of Katamari Damacy, the giant “King of All Cosmos” made a cosmic boo-boo and destroyed all the stars in the universe. It was your job, as his son the pint-sized Prince, to take your katamari, a nubbly ball that far outsized you, and roll around the game world to pick up various items so the King could replace all the stars with these progressively larger katamari. Naturally, since nothing in life is as easy as it sounds, it sometimes took quite a bit of rolling to form huge katamari. The bigger your katamari got, the more large items (think houses and trucks) you could pick up.

We ♥ Katamari takes the basic premise of Katamari Damacy and tweaks it in totally delightful ways. The King of All Cosmos, surprised by the adoration of Katamari fans across the globe, decides that you - once again the wee Prince - must help these fans with their requests. The game world gets kicked up a notch: instead of merely rolling a plain katamari around in various environments, you can now take your katamari to the F1 track for a high-paced spin, keep a flaming katamari burning long enough to light a campfire, or help Hansel and Gretel roll up a gingerbread house to satisfy their sweet tooth.

The game controls remain the same from the first Katamari, for the most part. The analog sticks are the only controls used, which does take a bit of getting used to if you haven’t played Katamari before. Moving both sticks upwards will have the Prince roll your katamari forward; moving both sticks back will have him pull the katamari backwards; moving one stick up and one stick to the side will have you move in a diagonal direction; and so on and so forth. There’s a great quick introduction to familiarize you with the controls, and while it always takes me a while to get rolling, once I get into the groove of using both analog sticks in tandem, I find myself zipping along at a pretty impressive pace.

The graphics are as trippy and fun as ever. The people and animals found in many of the worlds sort of look like updated Fischer-Price toys, and while the game world isn’t necessarily impressive from a realism standpoint, they’re not crude, either. The simplistic sort of graphics really just fit with the whole alternate universe that you and your katamari seem to exist in. It’s a bright and happy world, to go along with a fun, light game. One of the high points of the first Katamari was the soundtrack, and it remains the same with We ♥ Katamari - really well produced tracks that fit spectacularly with each stage. Bouncy and poppy, the songs really are one highlight of the Katamari experience and always help get me into the groove of things. And let’s not forget the satisfaction of rolling up a whole herd of mooing cows or shrieking people - the ambient sounds, especially when rolling up objects, are pretty great.

The levels seem to have endless replay value. After completing the first stage (where you are given a time limit and a minimum katamari size to attain within that time), you can go back to a level and replay it on a “how fast can you roll up your katamari to a given size” mode. After completing that stage, you can then go back and replay both mode to try and beat your intial scores, either in size or speed. I’ve had fun playing the few levels I’ve already beaten over again. In addition to the “how big/fast can you go” aspect, there are royal presents to be found in the various stages. I’ve acquired a crown, a giraffe hat, a snowman’s nose, and a camera at this point; my wee little Prince looks pretty snazzy sporting his really tall giraffe hat, if you ask me. You can also roll up more colorful pint-sized cousins of the Prince while rolling your katamari around, and you are able to switch out your Prince for one of these other characters after you find them.

The dialogue with the various fans you encounter in each stage and the King has been positively hilarious. Bemusement at the unexpected success of Katamari Damacey is evident, and the dialogue at times turns to self-deprecating humor that really is funny. The King and the fans are also pretty harsh on the poor little Prince: if your katamari wasn’t impressive enough, or your time too slow, you often get quite the tongue lashing. Failing a level will also lead to a cowering little Prince on the corner of your screen while the King turns very dark, scary, and Darth Vader-esque and shoots lasers out of his eyes at you (it really just makes you want to call the Cosmic Child Protective Services).

We ♥ Katamari is one of those games that’s hard to describe, and you really just need to pick it up for a spell and play around with it, but this has to be one of the best sequels I’ve ever seen to a game. I haven’t found any negatives to it, and they only improved upon the original. The game seems more expansive than Katamari Damacy, and the different tasks you get from your fans change things up in a satisfying way. It’s hard to explain why creating a giant rolling ball of stuff is so much fun, but it really, truly is. There are also co-op and versus modes for two players, which I am planning to cover in a later Play Rating. With the success of games like Katamari Damacy and (hopefully) We ♥ Katamari, I hope we start seeing more quirky and unique games for the “big” consoles. I’ve found that a lot of interesting concept games find their way to systems like the DS, and it does seem that those of us in the US miss out on those really-bizarre-yet-bizarrely-compelling titles that come out in Japan. Even though it’s next to impossible to compare We Love Katamari to any other title on the market, I’d love to see more fun yet odd games hit US shores, accessible to those of us who don’t own a DS. I look forward to getting deeper into the Katamari world in future Play Ratings - so far, this one looks like just as much a winner, if not more so, than it’s predecessor.