we love katamari is a weird game. i'm not talking about art direction or anything like that, but rather what it symbolizes to katamari and the videogame industry as a whole. sequels aren't a rare thing, but they are often unnecessary and convoluted. if a game exists, why make a sequel trying to surpass what you did in the past? isn't this claiming yourself a right that you don't have, analyzing if it's a product rather than a piece of art? well, i don't know. a lot of my favorite games are sequels and i like how they can be really aggressive towards itself, and we love katamari is a game that tries to answer this question by being extremely aggressive towards katamari damacy.

like a lot of other developers inserted in the japanese industry, keita takahashi didn't want to develop a sequel for his game. katamari damacy is what he wanted to achieve, so why make a sequel? you see, katamari damacy is a game about mass consumption. just roll all this trash in a fucking ball and throws it away in the space. perfect. then, we love katamari tries to make this more obvious than its prequel, everything that you are doing is "worthless", all the katamari you roll are small, they can be always better and better, bigger and faster. even the cinematics (that i didn't give a shit at the first game) are trying to say this at your face. all the stages are bigger yet they fell the same. you are doing all those things that you already had done, but with changes here and there. all the fans of katamari damacy wanted a sequel, and we love katamari is the perfect sequel of an already perfect game.

how do you take the most joyful, happy video game ever made and make it even better? by giving it a beautiful post-modern story about the first game's surprise success and how nobody can quite figure out what makes katamari fun. by giving it better, more expansive levels with a brilliant variety. by making a soundtrack that doesn't quite top damacy's but has its own set of absolute bangers such as disco katamari. so much more expansive, more adorable, more detailed and smarter than the first game. i love this game so much. pure unbridled weird surreal fun times.

i love how this was the first katamari released in europe so none of the self-referencing would have made any sense

I'm not a nostalgic person when it comes to game preferences, or just in general. 2005 was the worst year of my life and most media from that time fills me with a visceral disgust. With that being said, We Love Katamari is one of my favorite games of all time despite a severe handicap. This game is going to give you a good time, or burn out your PS2's disc lens trying.

The soundtrack is self-evidently great, even better than the first game and the first game's soundtrack is a contender for some of the best video game music I've ever heard. It's not just that the main stage tracks are varied and fitting of the atmosphere. The little piano jingle at the beginning of the game, Overture II, goes harder than most game's OSTs and it absolutely doesn't have to. The sound effects are fitting of how weird this game is, and I don't think there's any improvements I'd want to be made.

Graphically, it's not a leap from the first game, but it didn't have to be. It's a chaotic mess, but you never have issues reading what's happening on screen, and the visual direction of some of the stages, especially the gimmick ones adds more variety than the first game. For a Playstation 2 game, it looks fantastic and it's telling that the art style was mostly kept in tact for the remake, not much to fix outside of scaling up the resolution.

The King of All Cosmo's story is relatively simple and melodramatic for the sake of humor, but also played just straight enough to give this comedic character a meaningful arc that I got invested in. The flashback "plot" tying your progress through the game together could have been more comedic cut scenes like the original, but everything in this game is executed with such competence that I cared about the arrogant drunk and his connection with his father.

The gameplay introduces a few quality of life improvements over the original game, like less annoying collision physics and a better camera. On paper, the little tweaks this game does to the original's formula don't seem like they'd make a big difference, but they eliminated almost all frustration that I had from the original game. The stages have more of a gimmick focus, but not in a way that I found distracted from the core focus of the gameplay, and more traditional stages still existed. The game's amount of cousins and presents gives the game a ton of replayability, and I could see other people getting burnt out by the collection aspect of the game, that just never happened to me. If I start a fresh playthrough of We Love Katamari, it's easy for me to devote the next couple of days getting everything/going for larger planets.

I just have such a nice time playing this game. I'm very picky when it comes to video game humor, and all the bits in this game land like a Season 7 Simpsons episode. It's a loud and chaotic game, without coming off as obnoxious. I find the game really relaxing despite it's concept. We Love Katamari puts me in a better mood in a way that even games I'd say I like better can't. I think this game's one of the most sublime releases of the 6th generation. It's one of those games you can recommend to people who haven't touched video games before, and the most jaded brain-poisoned fans on the medium. One of the highest Smiles Per Minute pieces of media I've ever had the joy to play through.

So my emulator file got corrupted about a quarter of the way through.

I won't see the end of this one organically, but I can still vouch to its quality. It's so good. Controls have been touched up just enough to make everything feel smoother without removing the loose feeling of chaotically rolling around.

The music wasn't quite on par in terms of variety to the first game, but who cares. It's all so good.

Finally, the biggest surprise to me was the meta narrative. What an amazing place to take the franchise !

It's honestly a perfect sequel in almost every respect and, I'll say it, I love Katamari.

honest and straight to the point, the perfect sequel! they made an insane and ridiculous game concept and somehow made it 100x better in a years time, improving on literally every single aspect; from the charm and goofiness, the performance, the quality of life, the scope, adding multiplayer, more challenges, collectables, cousins and more things to do and see and experience and enjoy and play and watch and i could literally go on and on and on. these guys really know their audience and i would say they have successfully mastered the art of FUN and what it means to make video games for the sole purpose of enjoyment and to create cool experiences! i would recommend this game to anyone interested in learning how to make fun through gameplay alone, this game transcends culture and language and even gaming itself, it is just a pure and fun and innocent idea. i think about this game A LOT, it's a crazy source of fun even in my imagination, imagining things being rolled up, kinda like how some people imaging like sonic running across buildings on a car ride, (i still do that sometimes), but when i'm just staring at the world i just imagine my little katamari scooping everything up. just ignore all the people, animals, insects, flowers, buildings and everything that i'm rolling up, none of that really matters, just learn to let go and have a little fun sometimes with your mind. i'm so impressed day by day the more this game consumes my thoughts and as the title suggests, we fucking love katamari!

Is it possible to make a sequel and top a perfect game like Katamari Demacy? It's hard, the progression is so smooth and straightforward; you get bigger and bigger with fun side missions here and there. How can you make a game like that better??

Well, this is exactly how. We Love Katamari takes the concept of the first game and what makes it good, and takes so many new concepts and unique ideas creating an incredible and unforgettable experience. Every level is infinitely replayable and memorable. Instead of focusing on getting bigger, this game focuses on expanding the concept of what Katamari Damacy can do. Pretty much every level is memorable because the variety is so large, while still staying true to what makes Katamari what it is, it keeps you wanting more from start to finish. Even the dialogue and cutscenes are a huge step up, the King is extra brutal in this game and his origin story was a great inclusion. Truly a perfect sequel, Katamari really is a one-of-a-kind series.

What should we do with this perfect sequel? Oh! We can pop it into the cosmos. Yes, that's what We'll do.

O objetivo dele até que é simples, a única coisa que se faz o jogo inteiro é empurrar uma bolinha e aumenta-lá de tamanho, mas mesmo o jogo sendo só isso, ele consegue ser muito divertido, vários momentos eu me pegava rindo da história, pois ela é bastante divertida e até que engraçadinha. Uma outra coisa que brilha bastante nesse jogo são as músicas, cada missão tem a sua própria música, e é uma melhor que a outra, eu prestava mais atenção na música do que no jogo.
Resumo de tudo, o jogo é bom e divertido, foi poucos momentos em que senti raiva ou me frustei com alguma missão, a jogabilidade é simples, mas que consegue divertir bastante, e também tem uma ost incrível.