The original Katamari Damacy game was first released in 2004. The iconic game and all of its nonsense and hubris saw a remaster with Katamari Damacy REROLL in 2018. This was great for fans of the roll-it-up franchise, but they were soon clamoring for the sequel. We Love Katamari to get the same treatment. Now is that time.
We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie is an HD remaster of the beloved second installment in the series. It also includes some bonus levels that tell the story of the young King of All Cosmos, where you can take control of him as he attempts to pass the tests his father set for him. For those unfamiliar with Katamari, it’s a perfectly normal and logical story with routine gameplay.
That’s not true; it is bananas. In the first game, the King of All Cosmos destroyed all the stars in the sky and tasked The Prince to go to Earth with a katamari and help him to create new stars as replacements. How do you create these stars? By steamrolling everything in sight using the Katamari, which, in turn, makes the Katamari larger, allowing you can roll up bigger things.
Katamari Damacy Is Just As Bananas As Ever
Everything you collect with the Katamari becomes a new planet or stardust named after what it predominantly comprises.
The second game is basically the same, except The Prince is now tasked with creating more stars because the King only filled in the stars around the Earth. The rest of the night sky is still completely empty. Each level sees you take requests from random people on Earth. The game acknowledges that it is a game and that the first game was incredibly popular and beloved by all. Thus the King wants to please his fans by creating Katamaris for them.
Well, he wants you to create them.
Some requests will need a Katamari of a specific size within a certain time limit. Others will need to collect certain types of objects like candy, flowers, or animals. In each case, you remain a tiny little weirdo trundling around and essentially stealing things from people. During each roll, there are also cousins and presents to find. You can switch to any discovered cousins in the lobby and play as them. They are all superbly strange looking. My personal favorites are Macho and Dipp. If you leave Macho alone, he just starts body rolling while Dipp is a little disco lad.
Presents are wearable accessories for your odd-space children to wear. I opted to get the deluxe version of the game for a few dollars more, and this meant that I got the superb accessories of a tiny King and a tiny Prince that cling to your antenna as you roll around. Worth it.
A Chance To Relive My Gaming History
The world of Katamari is a kaleidoscope of colors and insanity. There are rainbows, people sporting gigantic pompadours, unicorns, dancing insects, and most importantly, Scuba Cat, now in HD. It’s crisp and colorful, and every little detail of madness has been lovingly restored and brightened up for modern platforms. Now the leagues of can-canning robots and the King’s perpetually baffling tangents will confuse you in the highest of definitions!
The Katamari games played a large part in my life at university. The original Katamari Damacy came out the same year I began my degree (yes, I am old) and was swiftly followed by We Love Katamari the next year. Both were my hyper-fixations and helped me deal with the stress of university and devastating family illness while I was across the country. Once you start rolling, it’s extremely hard to stop, and I finally knew what Fred Durst was talking about.
The controls are simple. Use the joysticks to roll around, and press them in for a quick turn. There’s no jump option, but you can roll on up surfaces if you are big enough. Although if you smash into anything you can’t roll up, you’ll either fly in the opposite, lose some of the things you’ve rolled up, or both.
Now it’s time to take this moment to plead the case that Katamari is a horror franchise. Sure, Katamari fans request the King, but what about all the people you roll up on your technicolor adventures? They don’t want to be rolled up by a 5cm high cosmic child and have their atoms spread across the sky as stardust. This is evident by the ear-splitting screams that emit from people as you incorporate them into your writhing mass. This is probably not a popular belief, but I stand firmly behind it. Imagine it from the perspective of one of the giant pompadour sporting cyclists. That’s not a good time.
Wrapping Up
We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie is a perfect remaster of a perfect game. Nothing has been changed other than sharpening it up and brightening the colors even more. It’s multicolored madness of the highest degree with a soundtrack of baffling tunes and a cast of terrifying space children. Thank you for returning, benevolent King of All Cosmos.
We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie is out now on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox X/S, and PC.
