‘We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie’ is Bursting With Joy and Charm

Hello. I am: the most biased writer possible to be reviewing this game. Do you want news? I got bullied in fourth grade in elementary school for reading the internal pamphlet We love Katamari on the school bus. Maybe because It looks like this, or maybe because those kids didn’t know the joy of the Katamari. Whatever the reason, my spirits were not dampened. We love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie It brings me back to one of my favorite games as an adult, and the sheer joy of playing it again for the first time ever.

There are many Katamari games now, but only two of them were led by series creator Keita Takahashi: Damacy Katamari and We love Katamari.

We love Katamari It’s a delightfully reluctant sequel. Buoyed by the success of the first game, Takahashi takes some light jabs at the audience as they clamor for “more”. However, the Prince and his abusive hot father, the King, are here to deliver the goods.

The plot? The King has destroyed all the stars in the cosmos. By accident, of course. The Prince and his numerous, badly formed Katamari Cousins ​​must roll instead of the stars in the sky with heavenly bodies of sugar, household goods, and scores and scores of living beings with different emotions. Don’t worry, they are happy to be there.

Most of these levels involve rolling as much or to some extent as fast as possible – and these are the game’s brightest spots. The core game of rolling items only works a little less than you to gain size quickly when your only objective is getting as big as possible.

Other levels that are often very enjoyable involve meeting some criteria, such as getting as close as possible to a target size. Another asks you to roll as many lightning bugs as possible so that a bookworm can study in the dark. The most dangerous thing is to roll a cow or a bear into your Katamari – just one. As soon as you roll up anything bear or cow related, the level ends, making for a tense (and sometimes maddening) experience.

All levels are accessed from a stunning overworld screen that I spent more time with than my flesh-and-blood family in 2005. Here, fans of the first game and various citizenships who want to complete tasks petition the King to roll them. a Katamari of some proportion or specification.

But I give the less favorable levels a pass. Why? They are still having fun. Rolling the Katamari is fun. And guess what? Who cares if you did a good job? Well, okay, the King and the fans could care less, but they’re always down to give him another try. Your personal goals are the only ones We love Katamari cares about. The blunt scoring system, which emits different voice planets according to how “well” you did, is the only indicator of your success.

The feeling alone We love Katamari Looking to spark one of joy. From the amazing soundtrack of Shibuya-kei to bright pastel colors and funny low-polygon models, everything is pure serotonin.

This easy atmosphere is reflected in the deceptively simple controls: you just use analog sticks to control the Katamari. They’re basically tank controls: pretty intuitive, but also a little confusing. This is by design, and presents the main challenge of the game: getting where you want, when you want. Dash rolls are a good way to cover distance quickly, but bumping into obstacles will cause you to lose parts (and therefore size). Quick spin is great, allowing you to turn 180 degrees in an instant. Other than these two maneuvers, you’ll be moving forward at a moderate pace, simply trying to plan a way forward and hoping you’re big enough to roll everything up.

Soundtrack of it We love Katamari one of legendary, genre-defining proportions. The Shibuya-kei microgenre emerged out of Japan’s booming economy and consumer culture in the 1990s. It is a sample-heavy, hypnagogic genre of pop music featuring inventive soundscapes and melodic styles similar to those found in jazz fusion. With a focus on warmth and nostalgia, it’s a perfect fit for Katamari. Katamari Damacy was no exception in the music department, and its sequel features remixes of fan favorites and some new material, from J-rock to future funk.

If you are a Katamari weird like me, you’ll love the Collections tab. Here, you can take a detailed look at every low-poly item you’ve rolled up, as well as a short and sometimes funny description of each one. As a child, I learned a lot about Japanese culture from these reports, especially about food and cultural items such as the teru teru bozu. If you see rainbow-colored text on a scrolling item, it’s new to your collection: something you’ll be gloating over as the hours go by.

I honestly get emotional just thinking about this game, and like I said, I’m probably the most biased reviewer ever for that matter. Still, putting my objective big boy hat on for a second, I wish we had more in the way of “bonus content.” The side adventure and the clips that accompany it about the King’s youth are nice, and certainly more than they could add, but there is a lot of this world that the games haven’t explored yet. And those pain point levels I mentioned earlier certainly haven’t gone anywhere: when I want to play some again We love Katamari I hesitate to choose any of these more specialized tours.

All that said, We love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie as close to a perfect remaster as I could ask for. There was just no way to play this game outside of the original hardware, and I have unlimited grateful to be blessed with this remaster. I’ve introduced so many friends to this series thanks to this release, and I think that’s really in the spirit of the game as a whole. We should all be grateful games like Katamari exist at all, and I hope that new audiences will enjoy the series thanks to these remasters.

This review is based on the PlayStation 5 version of the game. Bandai Namco provided code for review.

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