We Love Katamari REROLL Review

 Nana, nana-nana-na-na-na~

 For the third review in a row, Faris is playing a noteworthy and often talked about entry in a popular series. One who's positives and flaws have been analyzed to death, while the series itself has either altered entirely or not continued much at all. So uh, let's just talk about We Love Katamari real quick.

The better of the PS2 Katamari games, (Sorry original, you never got a review) We Love Katamari frames itself as a sequel existing purely as a thank you to the fans. The plot is throwaway, literally a series of gags about fans requesting new Katamari levels and the King obliging to stroke his ego. Yet, I kind of love it. It puts me in mind of that sequel to Don Quixote that becomes simultaneously meta as hell while also giving fans exactly what they want.

Because the gameplay is solid, in fact it's outstanding. Balancing a high skill ceiling with a moderate challenge and very accessible level design and goals. Where the original Katamari had an issue with timers being overly generous to the point where you could literally clear an entire level with minutes to spare,  this game manages to pace itself just so that unless you're outright speedrunning or reaching the peaks of optimization, you will only just be finishing up at best before that last minute rush kicks in.

Meanwhile, at the lower levels, We Love Katamari provides a fairly sizeable challenge, I played it as a kid and recall getting very stuck on several levels, but never insurmountably so. I don't know that I could recommend this as either a first Katamari, or to anyone looking to totally 100% it. This game has some challenges (ROSES) that are very intentionally insane to complete, and if you're new you should take advantage of that to play the original Katamari before it becomes too easy.

The remasters are thankfully great, a little janky but the most accessible ways to play the games with little to no issues in the port. Though the new levels in REROLL are meh at best. Still, very much worth checking out if you haven't already. There's a reason I didn't even bother mentioning the controls or satisfaction of rolling things up, they're already so well known it feels like I'd just be using it to fill space. Kind of like I am now.

Bamco DLC practices remain shite though. $20 for in-game Katamari 1 songs, bleh

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