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We Love Katamari could be the proper online game sequel. Dialing nearly each beloved mechanic and element from the primary recreation as much as 11, all whereas ditching a few of Katamari Damacy’s much less beloved facets, it’s no shock that this entry is the fan favourite. For higher and worse, its re-release, We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie, asks you the query, “If it ain’t broke, why repair it?” With a handful of remixed ranges, crisp HD graphics, and a smattering of quality-of-life options, Reroll + does its finest to keep away from stepping on the unique’s toes whereas bringing the practically 20-year-old recreation into the current day in clear, vibrant HD.
That new facelift may really be We Love Katamari Reroll’s most vital addition. That’s to not say that the sport didn’t look nice again on PS2. Actually, its visuals have aged remarkably effectively in comparison with a lot of its contemporaries. It’s simply that in comparison with fashionable consoles the PS2’s shade palette and graphical capabilities lend a dim, washed-out look to even the brightest, most vibrantly multicolored video games. Anybody who performed the unique again within the day could be shocked to listen to that, however even a cursory search or look at a Let’s Play may shock you.
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Leaping 18 years and roughly two-and-a-half console generations into the longer term, the distinction is staggering. Even on a non-OLED, launch version Swap, We Love Katamari’s rainbow shines with brilliant colours that pop virtually as a lot as the sport’s charming writing and completely unimaginable soundtrack.
For the uninitiated, We Love Katamari is the second recreation within the Katamari Damacy franchise. Launched on PlayStation 2 again in 2004, Katamari Damacy made waves due to its eclectic soundtrack, kooky writing, visible design, and genre-defying gameplay. Your father, who additionally occurs to be a flamboyant god, the King Of All Cosmos, has a bit an excessive amount of enjoyable and drunkenly destroys the celebs within the sky. It’s as much as you to repopulate the evening sky with new stars. To take action, you’re tasked with rolling up every thing on Earth, which is your entire gameplay loop of the Katamari franchise. Consider it like a dung beetle rolling its ball of… effectively, you already know; or a snowball rolling down a hill. As your ball (or Katamari) grows, you may decide up larger and greater gadgets. You may begin rolling up ants or pencils and find yourself amassing total continents.
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The proof right here actually is within the pudding: whereas it doesn’t sound all that particular, an indelible sense of scale and development permeates each single problem earlier than you. Earlier than you already know it, the sport’s kinetic nature can have you hooked as you jam out to among the finest soundtracks within the pantheon of video video games.
Like 2018’s Katamari Damacy Reroll, this rerelease doesn’t contact or take away from something that makes the sport nice. It nonetheless feels nice to roll up all types of bizarre odds and ends, individuals, animals, and the occasional cousin, which function further playable characters. The soundtrack remains to be a banger for the ages (too proper we’re mentioning it once more — it truly is that good), the writing is laugh-out-loud humorous and tinged with some intelligent commentary on what it means to be a sequel, and plenty of problem ranges add some welcome variety to the forms of ranges you will encounter as you roll up every thing in sight.
Past some sharp new visuals, this punched-up remaster does roll a number of new options into the combo. The largest get comes within the type of 5 “new” ranges; the titular Royal Reverie. These further challenges aren’t precisely what we’d hoped. None of them are unhealthy by any means, however they’re all remixed variations of present ranges, and a few are simply straight-up reskins of challenges from the principle recreation. Whereas the act of rolling up a Katamari will at all times scratch an itch not quenched by many different video games, anybody anticipating wholly new ranges may wind up a bit dissatisfied.
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It’s a troublesome spot for remaster developer Monkeycraft to be in. On one hand, with out the involvement of the unique recreation’s improvement staff, wholly new ranges could be a giant ask and will very simply result in backlash from followers in the event that they weren’t as much as snuff. On the opposite, this re-release prominently boasts its new ranges. Once more, these entries are nonetheless nice enjoyable, however they’re not totally as new because the advertising and marketing for Reroll + Royal Reverie would have you ever imagine.
Different welcome additions vastly enhance the sport’s high quality of life, nonetheless. You may create playlists along with your favourite tunes to jam out to whereas rolling. There’s additionally a brand new trace characteristic that makes development a lot simpler, particularly for newcomers who haven’t nailed the ebb and stream of a Katamari stage.
Conclusion
In rounding off Katamari Damacy’s rougher edges and upping the ante with extra various mechanics and challenges, even goofier writing, and a terrific soundtrack, We Love Katamari cemented itself as a excessive watermark for online game sequels in 2005. Even with out the remaster remedy, the sport’s maintained its luster remarkably effectively however Reroll + Royal Reverie is (an admittedly skinny layer of) icing on an already decadent cake. With plenty of strong quality-of-life updates and sharper, brighter visuals, that is undeniably one of the best ways to expertise the 2005 basic.