Some of my favorite stages involve different types of katamari. There's a stage where the katamari is on fire, and your goal is to roll it up a hill and light a campfire. The only problem is, as you roll, the fire starts to go out. To keep the flames burning, you must collect flammable objects. Roll for too long without adding fuel to the fire or fall into some water, and it's game over. Things speed up during a racing stage. Instead of walking here, the Prince is driving a tiny car. You have no control over the katamari's forward momentum -- you can only steer the ball around a race track, dodging full-sized cars until you grow big enough to collect them.

There's even a stage where you're not rolling a ball at all. Instead, you're pushing around a way-too-skinny sumo wrestler. The stage is littered with food, and as you collect the munchies, the wrestler gets fatter and fatter. Your ultimate goal is to make the guy so fat that he'll roll right over his opponent when you take him over to the sumo ring (which you must do before time runs out). These goofy stages make the game feel fresh, even if they are just variants on the standard formula.

Remember in the first game how you could replay stages to attempt to beat your previous score? Not only can you do that here, but the stages also have secondary goals as well. Oftentimes, the stage layout is slightly different, too, so there are a lot of extra things to see by going back and retrying cleared stages.

Double Your Pleasure

Adding even more replay value is the two player mode, which allows you to play through stages in either a co-op or competitive mode. I talked about co-op in the last preview, but now we've gotten a chance to try the vs. stages. Although they're nothing major, they are definitely more involved than the multiplayer bits in the original game. Like the single player stages, there are multiple goals here. Sometimes, both players will be racing to collect a specific item somewhere in the level. You then fight for possession of it until time runs out. Other times, you'll both be racing against each other to collect as many of a particular item within the time limit. Whoever has the most of the item when the clock counts down, wins.

Rolling through water takes some getting used to.

As anyone who has played the original could tell you, the game's music plays an important part. Although the first game featured an eclectic (and often hyperactive) mix of musical styles, this game's tunes are far mellower. Sure, there is the occasional bouncy J-pop tune, but the soundtrack as a whole is more is tune with some of the more somber tracks from Katamari Damacy. That's not to say that the soundtrack's bad -- quite the opposite. It's just not as immediately catchy as its predecessor.

Now that we've gotten to try the Japanese version of the game, we can't wait for Namco to release it in the U.S. Sure, the game is a blast right now, but we really want to read what the flamboyant King of All Cosmos is saying to his son. For the time being, though, we're content to enjoy the kanji-less cinemas that chronicle the King's youth when he clashed with his demanding father and met the girl who would eventually become the Queen of All Cosmos. Hurry up, Namco. Americans deserve to play this one, too (and release it in Europe this time, while you're at it)!