When Katamari Damacy REROLL suddenly rolled into existence less than 5 years ago, I absolutely loved it. And my biggest complaint was the lack of We ♥ Katamari content, as it felt to me that a new title mixing both the original and the sequel would’ve been a far better choice. Well We Love Katamari REROLL is here now, with lots of improvements, a little added bonus in the form of Royal Reverie and, sadly, with a few unfortunate issues.
Just like the original Katamari Damacy or it’s enhanced remaster, the gameplay of the title is very unorthodox, but also fun, simple and exciting. As the Prince of All Cosmos, you are sent on tasks by your father King of All Cosmos, all of which involve you rolling a ball (though there are exceptions) that can be rolled over other objects to get them stick to it. Which objects can or cannot stick to the ball fully depends on the size of the ball itself and usually at least one of the objectives for the game is to simply get a bigger Katamari ball before the time limit runs out.
Unlike the first game, however, We Love Katamari has lots more levels where simply getting the Katamari as big as possible isn’t the main task and instead you have other goals. And many levels in the game also have several stages of completion, from one that lets you consider the level complete and move on, to the one that fulfils the ultimate goal that is often very hard to achieve. Doing so, unlocks more fun stuff and specifically in the remaster, more levels in this new Royal Reverie mode, where you play as the young King of All Cosmos and try to complete the tasks his Papa set for him, all of which are usually harder than the main game and all of which are somewhat based on the little scenes you see when you’re playing through the story.
The only huge complaint with the game is that it has several odd technical issues that are either entirely new and were not in the 2005 PS2 original, or are remnants of the old design that was kept and sometimes feels at odds with the game. The new issues include the horribly small draw distance for a lot of objects, that actually makes the game harder in stages where you need to collect specific things, as you don’t see them from just a dozen meter away and can lose precious time when going for best scores. Another issue is the fact that the game can occasionally freeze for several seconds for no apparent reason, before continuing as if nothing happened. And finally, as a remnant from PS2, every time you get bigger than a specific size, some levels have a bit of a loading before you can continue, which seems odd for a game like this in 2023, but at least keeps the cute dialogue boxes from the King.
Other than that, a lot of little improvements were introduced and the game is more fun to play. I’m also glad that unlike Katamari Damacy REROLL, that for some reason lacked autosave (at least when I’ve played it), We Love Katamari REROLL does have it. The visuals are more beautiful than they were in the first remaster. The music is as amazing as it has ever been, remaining catchy and fun and you will be singing along before you realize it. The controls are as finicky as they used to be, which is a shame, but also a part of how these games work.
I loved We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie and while it’s hard to choose between the two, I tend to prefer the sequel. If you were to choose which of the two games to start with, I’d suggest this one. But really, you owe it to yourself to play both now that they’re available on modern systems. They’re absolutely lovely.