We Love Katamari
 

The weirdest and most unique games I've played. It teaches you how to use the analog sticks very well and nothing's more exciting than rolling a 3600M Katamari. They should really make more "collection" games like this, it's the best new idea to come from Japan in a long time. That and the OST is weird and badass at the same time.

An excellent sequel to a thoroughly brilliant game. Namco was an absolute fool for not releasing the first title in Europe and is an even bigger fool for releasing the second title at full price =/

Still, I've been enjoying my US version for ages now. I loved the first game so much I bought an original copy and gave my burned copy away. Brilliant idea, brilliant execution, brilliant soundtrack, utterly wonderful US release. Even though the dub was unnecessary, hats off to Namco for keeping the original music.

We feel somehow moved.

Full price? I paid $30 for it (brand new) from Fred Meyer. Far lower than the full $50-$60 and still better than the 'budget' price of $40 that shows up a lot today.

Well put it this way, if Q were to buy it locally, it would equal about $70 US. ;_; I'm still shocked that EA made it a full price title in Europe. I mean, it's even budget priced (sort of) here.

I also find it amusing they shoved the original Katamari opening FMV into the PAL version of We <3 Katamari as a 'bonus'. Fantastic game, though! Rolling up groups of people at once and hearing the mixed mess of random screaming is quite satisfying.

$70USD? That's insane. I'd never pay that much for a game. Even if it was a limited edition or an import. Here you could buy 3-4 budget or used titles for $70. And EA released the game in Europe? EA overcharges for anything to make some money, Namco (the developers of the game) was kind enough to keep the game relatively cheap here.

Sure, EA might want to earn something, but Q said it was full price almost every new game, no matter what the publisher calls himself, costs about $70...

And I love this game, so very dearly. It's so much different than most of the games I've played. The soundtrack is zany (In a good way) and it's really funny. Every time I get to roll up entire continents and elephants, I laugh like a maniac:love:

Yeah, I'm sure that makes Q feel really good.

We Love Katamari is a really good game. It improved drastically over the original, but I think that people should play the first, first. The second improves so much that you're probably going to stick with it over the original.

Before it was out, I didn't think they could possibly make a better soundtrack than the original Katamari Damacy, but somehow they've managed to do it, specifically because of Everlasting Love and Disco Prince.

We <3 in itself is a great single player experience. I beat it all the way to the infamous rose level.

However, as a multiplayer game, it really shines. Nothing is more fun than doing levels together. It's difficult at first without the on-screen analog display *cough*Curse you, copyrights!*cough*, but you get used to it.

Even running around the level select meadow and singing to round up all of the cousins is fun... then ramming into the ones you hate multiple times. Battle mode is fun, but it's not the best of the mutiplayer.

Qwarky, why do you have Face's avatar and signature?

This game is rather repetitive though. The first one was fun for being so original and because you couldn't wait to be able to roll up the next big object, but this game just feel sort of "meh". They try to mix it up with levels like the sumo wrestler level or the firefly level, but it doesn't quite match up to the first experience.

The problem is, I don't know how they can one-up themselves as far as any future sequels besides making the levels competitive and having an enemy cousin try to roll up your stuff; bump into your katamari to decrease its size, etc.

I don't. You will notice the signature is the same, but the avatar is different. Mine is Kagura, while Face has Osaka. Bukkake Bandit has Tomo, so we are the three Bonklers from Azumanga Daioh. It's an ava/sig chain between us three.

We <3 Katamari is still fun. About 5 months later, I still play it often enough. And before it was released, I had been playing Katamari Damacy for about a year. It's one of the few games that's ultra-replayable and one that I have never gotten sick of. As for price, it cost $50 total for both of them, so it's money very well spent.

I absolutely adore this game. I think it's mostly to do with the music, but also it's addictive as all. No matter how many times I play it, I never get bored with rolling up those little origami birds or finding those little jumping Chinese men.

I <3 Katamari!!!

Some of the levels are a pain in the ass to superclear though. The Firefly level being a notable one. At the point I'm at in the game, there's not much left to do but superclear and make insanely high scores (such as trying to break 3630M on the As Large As Possible Mission #5).

I've only had the opportunity to play the first one, but i'm really impressed with how they made this game. The music's great. The humor added in is actually funny, and the graphics and the concept of the game is unique.

I still have to try the 2nd one. >_<

Honestly, I played We <3 Katamari and didn't find it to be near as charming as its prequel, Katamari Damacy. Sure, there were really fun missions, such as rolling the fireball and the race course, but it didn't have the same "feel" as the original did. The music wasn't NEAR as catchy as the stuff in the original, but there were a couple catchy songs at any rate. Good for a rent, but I didn't enjoy it to the point of purchasing it as I did with KD. I dunno.

I note a source such as MTV loses credibility, but still, I felt that KD didn't really deserve a sequel and this quote backs it up:

"Suddenly celebrated for his originality, Takahashi would soon have to tackle the possibly contradictory idea of doing a sequel. He told his bosses at Namco several times that he wouldn't do one. "But it came to a point where the company was willing to release a sequel without me," he said. He discovered that the company's planned sequel seemed more like a re-release, primarily swapping Christmas graphics into the original game. "That went against everything I wanted to do with Katamari," he said. So he agreed to get involved."
-- http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/151...ml?headlines==

Interesting, does this mean there will be no 3rd Katamari game (not counting Me And My Katamari for the PSP)?

I just started playing this game last week, and it's definitely a great sequel in every sense of the word. Whether playing alone or with someone else, it's impossible to not have fun playing this game. Besides, even my sister (who's usually not in to these types of quirky games) wanted to play this game with me, so it has to be good.

The most daunting task for me will to get 1,000,000 roses. It looks to tak a while since I only get about 500-1,000 every minute.

I never encountered that stage, but everyone always talked about it.

I probably missed something, knowing me, but I really didn't give the game much of a chance as of yet. I think you need to collect all of the cousins before it opens up, or something along those lines.

Just curious.

well I heard a lot about this game, but still, I hesitate to buy it.... I don,t know if I will really like it, or if I like it, for how long i'll enjoy playing with...

is it the kind of game where you play 20min and it's really fun and after it's really boring?

I may wait for the psp version, this seem more fun on a portable system...

As for me the game is awesome =) I just love to roll around and pick up all kind of stuff =) Music is great and rolling in two is fun. Shame that it is so short =(

What I really love about this game is the fact that playing it for hours on end doesn't strain your thumbs nearly as much as most other games do (DMC3 *cough*).

I thought the sequel was lackluster compared to the original. Sure, there were some nice ideas added, like the underwater levels and a shitload of tiny pieces to pick up, but it didn't quite reach the scale of its predecessor.

And by saying scale, I mean it literally, because the only "big" level in We Love Katamari was the final one and all the rest was just boring and repetitive.

I liked how the original levels allowed your Katamari to grow larger and larger throughout the game. This was a thing I really missed and disliked about We Love Katamari. The music was also nowhere near as good as in Katamari Damacy.

I'm curious to see how the orginal compares to WLK. I've heard there are levels where you can roll your Katamari forever. I might pick it up someday to load the constellation data to WLK...

I prefer We <3 Katamari over the original, simply because it contains more replay value, a better soundtrack, and more variety. I'd say the original is a good game, but it's nothing in comparison to what they've managed to accomplish with it's sequel.

This game should be a model for what a sequel should be. Not just a re-hashing of the same old shit, but a creative and innovative totally new approach to the original game's most charming aspects.
While this game, to me, seemed a bit slower than the original, both in load times and the turning of your chosen character, it was still very welcome in my game collection. The first was a blast.
When someone new plays it, I always get the :? face from them, until they roll up a cat, and then they're hooked for life.
Incidently, I bought a King of Cosmos statue just recently. I can't wait til it gets here!

One of the best things to do in WLK is roll up the King and Queen, it may take a long time, but the immense size your Katamari gets from doing so is a big reward. I only have about 150 items to go until I've picked up every item in the game.

How do you roll up the King and Queen? Which level is that?

I'd guess that it is possible on the Elephant level. It's the only one I'd encountered where the katamari gets that huge. However, I've not managed to get that large yet. But being able to collect entire islands is brilliant.

That's right, I think there are even a few Kings and Queens but I don't think you can roll up more than one of them in one go before it times out. You can see them walking/flying around and stuff.

The immensity of the King and Queen is very great. You'll need to be around ~3000M to pick up the Queen and over 3200M to snag the king. Let's just say it's harder than it seems.
For some reason they won't say excatly how big you have to be to pick up the King or Queen, but picking up both is definatly worth the trouble. Also you have to roll up the King at least once before you can attempt to roll up the Queen.

So thats why i wasnt able to find the queen anywhere (;^_^)..
I appreciated the different flavor of this one. I also commend the introduction to 2p co-op/battle, they seemed a bit better than the old Vs. mode. This game overall has a lot going for it, though the loading times were slightly depressing. i didnt realize that the original didn't load except upon level entry until i had to listen to the king ramble on about this and that for a while. maybe the lack of several different loading points gave katamari some of its charm.

Would the original Katamari Damacy be worth a shot? I heard great things about it, but I don't want to get slapped by the fact that I played the sequel first (meaning if there's too many missing features, I'll hate the game).

Katamari Damacy is a great game. I have only done 3 parts of We <3 Katamari, but Katamari Damacy has a different and pretty funny story.

I'd say go for it. Even though you might not appreciate KD as much playing it second, it's a very great game. I played it first, and I liked it way more than WLK. I don't know if it's possible to like the prequel more than the game you played first though.

Sure it is, I like starwars and the prequels were okay.

Yeah, but that's different, because it's a movie (or I assume you're talking about the movies) and doesn't involve much interactivity. With the exception of hitting play. If the two games are similar in many fundamental areas save for some scenarios and missions, there's a great chance for hierarchy and it usually is oriented towards the one with the "most", in my experience anyway. Perhaps that didn't make sense.

But, there's quite a few cases of me liking the game I played first, rather than its predecessors and successors. For some crappy examples I can think off the top of my head: Mario 3, Final Fantasy 6, etc. This is very offtopic though, so I'll cut myself off...

At any rate, it's worth at least renting KD

I don't think Final Fantasy is a worthy comparison because there isn't really a similarity...since rarely do characters make two appearances. (FFX-2 doesnt count cause yeah)

But Katamari Damacy is pretty fun...We <3 Katamari is better because you have the co-op version as well as head to head with different cousins.