We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie

My first hour with We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie reminded me exactly why this series carved out such a devoted following: there is nothing else on PC that feels remotely like it. You push a sticky ball called a Katamari around environments ranging from a cluttered bedroom to a full town square, rolling up objects smaller than your current size and growing incrementally until paper clips give way to cats, then cars, then buildings. The controls use both analog sticks simultaneously in a tank-like scheme that feels strange for about ten minutes and then becomes second nature, at which point the whole loop clicks into something genuinely satisfying. What made the original We Love Katamari stand out from its predecessor is the sheer variety of stage objectives, and that variety is intact here. Standard size-within-a-time-limit stages are the backbone, but the game regularly throws in curveball missions: keep a flaming Katamari rolling to light a campfire without touching water, fatten up a rail-thin sumo wrestler by collecting food items before his big match, or collect 1,000 paper cranes under pressure. Eternal Mode, new to this remaster, strips out time limits entirely if you want a more relaxed roll, while Selfie Mode lets you pause and snap photos with the Prince and his unlockable cousins. These cousins function as alternate playable characters, cosmetically distinct but mechanically similar, and hunting them down gives completionists something to chase beyond score targets. The Royal Reverie addition is the headline new content: five stages where you play as a young King of All Cosmos under the demanding eye of his own father. The cinematic framing is funny and adds some genuine lore texture to a character who is usually just a hovering megalomaniac issuing orders. The stages themselves, though, are the weakest part of the package. Most reviewers and players agree they lean on remixed versions of existing levels rather than wholly original environments, and a couple tip into frustrating territory with stealth-adjacent and combat-style conditions that feel awkward given the rolling mechanics. They are short enough that they will not sour the experience, but if Royal Reverie was your main selling point, temper expectations. On the presentation side, the upgrade from PS2 visuals is clean without being overcorrected. The art style was always pop-art bright, and the HD pass makes colors pop against modern monitors without losing the toy-box charm. Load times, which were rough on original PS2 hardware, are essentially gone. The soundtrack remains one of gaming's most distinctive: a rotating cast of J-pop, bossa nova, and full choral numbers that somehow fits perfectly. A paid music DLC bundle adds 25 tracks from across the series for players who want a deeper playlist, which is worth knowing before you assume the full soundtrack is included by default. The honest caveat is content length. A focused playthrough of the main stages runs a few hours, and even completionists hunting cousins, presents, and hidden Namco franchise stickers will not find an enormous game. The score-attack loop and Eternal Mode do add replay value, but this is a game you finish in a weekend, not a month. For newcomers to the series, that is an easy sell at the right price point. For returning PS2 fans, it is everything you remember but sharper and faster to load.

Alex · Scout Team

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