In the original Katamari Damacy, you’ll play a lot of stages based on the idea of making the largest ball in the time allotted. These types of levels remain in We Love Katamari and that’s great. But it plays with the central mechanic of rolling a Katamari to the next level with unique missions. Throughout the level, you’ll meet the fans of Katamari Damacy, with each fan having a request for you. The King of All Cosmos will launch you into the level to satisfy his ego.
One level involves collecting fireflies to help a guy study in the dark, next you’ll have to collect items for a fundraiser so that strawberries can be purchased for Red Pandas so that they don’t grow into normal Pandas, and in another, you’ll roll around a comparatively small Sumo wrestler and collect food for his match with Yokozunas. There are missions that require speed, some that require avoiding certain items, and others that require growing your Katamari exactly to an exact size without any size indicator. In a bubble, Katamari Damacy’s mission design was fine, but We Love Katamari is a big improvement.
During each level, you can find a present and at least one Cousin – which can be used as a playable character – hidden in the environment. Getting all of the Cousins unlocks the final levels, which can be a real grind if you’re not paying attention. When some levels last 17 minutes with four Cousins, replays are necessary. Which is a bit excessive when some levels are 17 minutes long. You don’t need to unlock this final level to have a good time with We Love Katamari, but if you want to see everything expect a grind. Throughout the original We Love Katamari, cutscenes tell the story of how the King of All Cosmos met his Queen. As part of We Love Katamari REROLL, these still exist, but the Royal Reverie content takes place in the King’s childhood.
Throughout the game, you unlock Royal Reverie and play five new levels as the young King of All Cosmos. You can access these levels via the Bamboo Sword of Memories, which appears on the map. These stages are roughly in line with the existing backstory cutscenes, like Boxing. There are just five new stages in the new Royal Reverie mode. None of which are particularly long, so we’d hoped there would be more to discuss. It’s great to have five new Katamari stages, especially when they each offer their own unique gimmicks. But for something that warrants an entire subtitle, we hoped for more.
You’ll know what to expect if you’ve played Katamari Damacy REROLL. The game runs well, and the artstyle has also transferred well to the new engine. As in the first REROLL, with designs that better reflect Keita Takahashi’s original artwork. Despite not quite living up to the first game’s incredible music, the soundtrack is great as always in Katamari titles. Fortunately, there’s extra DLC included in the Digital Deluxe edition. It includes tracks from Katamari Damacy and Katamari Forever, as well as Beautiful Katamari, exclusive to Xbox 360. Listen to Katamari on the Rocks and Lonely Rolling Star whenever you want.
We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie is the best version of what is generally considered to be the best Katamari game ever. As a result, if you already own the original and wish to purchase Royal Reverie just for the content, the extremely short runtime makes it very difficult to recommend it for that alone. In any case, for anyone who has never played this weird and wonderful game, it is highly recommended. And it also has a very fitting name.
