Namco knows that Katamari Damacy was a great game and they aren't afraid to boast about it. From the start of the intro, We ♥ Katamari revels in the awesomeness of its predecessor, and thankfully, it mostly lives up to Katamari Damacy. The gameplay that made Katamari Damacy so fun is still in place.

The object of the game is still relatively simple: Roll as much crap into a ball as you can in a certain amount of time. We ♥ Katamari made some changes to that formula. There are now some speed stages where your goal isn't to make the katamari as big as possible but to make it a certain size in a certain amount of time. There are still stages where you need to make your katamari a certain size without ever knowing precisely how large the katamari is, and stages where you need to collect as many of a certain type of item as you can within a time limit.

We ♥ Katamari also boasts superior "episodes." In Katamari Damacy there were periodic episodes that followed the family of an astronaut getting ready to go into space soon after the King of all Cosmos destroyed all the stars in the sky. We ♥ Katamari tells the tale of the King's childhood. Although these episodes don't have as much to do with the actual game, they make up for it with pure awesomeness. When one of the episodes boasts a scene with the young King jump-kicking a knife-wielding hoodlum, there can be no doubt that the episodes are completely worth it.

One disappointing aspect of We ♥ Katamari is the soundtrack. The music does not come close to matching the music of Katamari Damacy. The main theme still exists but is mangled. There is no lounge music or swing or any of the other fun styles found in Katamari Damacy. Instead, the music is mostly JPop with some poor remixes of Katamari Damacy music thrown in. The music isn't terrible, but it certainly is a let down.

I beat We ♥ Katamari in less than 24 hours, but its replay value makes up for how short the game is. After you play through the game once, many of the levels can be replayed with different goals. Some levels that required you to build the Katamari as large as possible in a certain time limit now require you to get the Katamari to a certain size as fast as you can. There are different changes to different levels. For such a short game, We ♥ Katamari can kill a lot of time. Getting top scores on every variation of every level could take forever.

Overall, I am very happy with We ♥ Katamari, and I cannot wait for the next Katamari game.

9.0/10