We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.2 Update

We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie is a 2005 third-person puzzle-action video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2. It is the sequel to the 2004 sleeper hit Katamari Damacy. The player controls a diminutive character named the Prince as he rolls around an adhesive ball called a “Katamari” to collect increasingly larger objects, ranging from coins to pencils to buildings, to build stars as ordered by his father, the King of All Cosmos.

A remaster, We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, was released on 2 June 2023. The sparkling Katamari floated in space, restoring the lost starry sky. With the revival of the starry sky, the King’s fans multiplied worldwide. In response to their wishes for success, the King wanted to fulfill everyone’s dreams, and the Prince continued to roll the katamari to make it happen.

“We Love Katamari Damacy” has been remastered, the second title in the Katamari series from 2005. The game features completely redesigned graphics and an improved in-game user interface for a more enjoyable experience. Exciting new features, such as the Royal Reverie, have been added. Players can now roll around as the King during his childhood, facing challenging new obstacles. Will the young King overcome these tough challenges? Additionally, a selfie mode has been introduced, allowing the Prince and his cousins to take quick photos while rolling through the stages.

The game is simple yet deeply engaging. Roll the katamari, collect objects, and make it bigger. From everyday items like paper clips and snacks to massive structures like telephone poles and buildings, even living creatures can be rolled up. Once the katamari is complete, it transforms into a star that illuminates the night sky. Remember, you can only roll up objects smaller than the katamari’s current size, so strategize your approach. Note that this product is based on the 2005 release of “We Love Katamari” on another platform, with some differences in specifications.

GAMEPLAY

In We Love Katamari, the player controls the Prince, the 5-centimeter-tall son of the god-like entity the King of All Cosmos, who rolls around a “Katamari”, a magical ball that causes objects smaller than it to attach to it. The player moves the Prince throughout each level, collecting objects to fulfill objectives set by his father. Collecting a certain number of objects causes the Katamari to grow in size, allowing it to pick up larger objects that couldn’t be rolled up earlier.

Objects range from household objects like coins, pencils, and dice, to larger ones like buildings, mountains, and clouds. If the katamari collides with a moving object or a wall, objects attached to the katamari will fall off and decrease its size. Rolling against a wall allows the player Katamari to “climb” it to reach higher areas. We Love Katamari differs from its predecessor in its level design. The standard game mode is “Make A Star”, where the Katamari must grow to a specific size as determined by the King.

New game modes include making the Katamari as big as possible with a limited number of objects, rolling up snow to create the head of a snowman, collecting children and delivering them to a school, and using a sumo wrestler to roll over food items to gain body mass. Completing missions unlocks an alternative version of the level that features a new objective. In most missions, players can find a cousin of the Prince which, when rolled up, can be selected as a playable character.

There are also items known as “royal presents” that unlock clothing that the Prince and his cousins can wear. A cooperative two-player mode is available, where each player controls half of the Katamari and must work together to roll up objects, as well as a “Battle” mode where players compete against each other to roll up more objects than their opponent.

PLOT

The first story in the game is a self-referential story of how the King of All Cosmos is reacting to the unexpected success of Katamari Damacy. After completing his goal to recreate the stars in the sky, the King of All Cosmos was surprised to discover that he had many fans down on Earth. King of All Cosmos seeks to help fulfill the wishes of his fans—with the help of his son and his son’s cousins, who again travel Earth, rolling things into a Katamari. The second story tells the life of the King of All Cosmos before becoming King.

His father always pushed his son to go further and punished the future King whenever he failed a task. In his early life, he was a boxer. After losing first place in a boxing tournament, the Emperor throws his son’s second-place trophy into the river out of disappointment. At some undisclosed time, after an argument concerning a strawberry shortcake, the future King runs away from home and gets into fights with street punks who in one altercation slice off the front of his pompadour haircut.

The dejected future king bumps into a woman and they fall in love at first sight. The future King’s father lectures. In frustration and anger, the son lashes out, knocking his father to the ground. The king walks away without any further dispute, confusing the future king. Later that evening, the future king spies his father deep in thought, staring at the second-place boxing trophy. Recalling the incident from his childhood, and imagining his father fishing the trophy back out of the river, he realizes the love underlying his father’s stern exterior all these years. He bursts into the room, crying, and kneels before his father to beg forgiveness.

The father places a hand on his son’s head and supports the future King’s relationship with his future wife. After this reconciliation, all is well between the Emperor, the son, and his fiancée. But soon afterward, the Emperor falls ill. The Emperor crowns his son as the new King of All Cosmos and collapses shortly after. At a later undisclosed time, the King is now a grown man, pacing back and forth in a waiting room. Suddenly, he hears the sound of a baby crying in the delivery room, as he rushes to investigate, and a nurse appears from a doorway to call him. Later, the King and the Queen are then shown happily looking down at their son, the Prince of All Cosmos, newly born and wrapped in a blanket, the character that the player controls during the game.