We Love Katamari Reroll is a straightforward port of a straightforward sequel to a very unconventional game. If you have any experience with Katamari—whether it’s with the original PS2 games or the 2018 remaster Katamari Damacy Reroll—then you pretty much know what to expect already. You control the Prince of All Cosmos as he rolls around a Katamari—a round object that scoops up anything it touches to grow larger like a snowball. The Katamari can only pick up objects that are roughly the same size as itself, so the challenge of gameplay involves strategically rolling up small things like thumbtacks and board game pieces in order to eventually consume larger and larger targets. Little has changed since the first game, but We Love Katamari does retain its predecessor’s flair for bizarre and creative imagery. The story has shifted to a meta-narrative about the franchise’s popularity, and each mission involves fulfilling the wish of a Katamari fan by creating the Katamari of their dreams. The story is punctuated with flashbacks to the King of All Cosmo’s youth, providing his backstory in minimalist scenes that are bizarre, funny, and at times touching. There aren’t any bold innovations that make the game feel truly unique from its predecessor, but the end result is clever (and weird) enough to at least feel like it isn’t simply rehashing the same ideas.

New to the Reroll version of We Love Katamari is a side-adventure titled Royal Reverie where you actually play as the King of All Cosmos during his youth as he fulfills the orders of his own commanding father. This side adventure fits well into the original game’s structure, slowly unlocking new missions as you progress through the story, but its quality is a pretty stark contrast. The missions in Royal Reverie all have additional objectives that make them more challenging than the original game’s stages, but they are dull at best and a frustrating slog at worst. One asks you to create the largest Katamari you can in only sixty seconds, while another has you rolling up small fireballs to attack an opponent’s health bar without growing your Katamari. The challenge that ultimately made me give up on Royal Reverie was a pseudo-stealth mission where rolling up any of the fast-moving ghosts that wandered the stage would trigger an instant failure. These mediocre challenges—as well as the bland and straightforward dialogue that accompanies them—stick out like a sore thumb against the irreverent charm of the original game.

If you’ve ever played We Love Katamari or any version of the original Katamari Damacy, then you already know what you’ll be getting into with We Love Katamari Reroll. It’s an incremental improvement at best—both as a sequel to Katamari Damacy and as a port of We Love Katamari—but if that’s all you’re looking for then the end result will certainly be satisfying. Katamari is already such an unusual game that maybe its sequel doesn’t need to be particularly groundbreaking, and since it’s so rare for any Katamari game to be released at all it’s absolutely a good place to start for anyone that hasn’t gotten to experience the series’ weird and wonderful vibes.