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Fans of the Katamari series know to listen to the wisdom of the King of All Cosmos. The grand ruler of all things makes his return in Me and My Katamari on the PSP, and his son the tiny Prince is also back to roll up everything on Earth into a giant clump. But something's rotten in Katamariland, and the King knows it. Just read some of the things he says in this game, and ask yourself whether the King is thinking what we all are -- that the Prince's first portable outing is a major downturn for the once-acclaimed series.

"Just Your Everyday Katamari."

The design of Me and My Katamari doesn't stray far from its console predecessors. As the miniature green Prince, you'll be repeatedly fired out of a slingshot directly into your father's impressive crotch package, which somehow -- it's not really explained how -- transports you to a city on Earth. There, you'll start rolling up anything you can find into a giant clump, which series fans and Japanese majors know is called a "katamari."

At first, you'll only be able to pick up small objects -- pushpins, erasers, candy, and the like. But as they get added to your katamari, it snowballs, becoming larger and larger. Then you'll be able to roll up bigger things like cars and people, eventually becoming so large that you can roll up islands, clouds, even entire continents.

All this is done to the beat of some of the best and most oddball music ever to accompany a video game -- jazzy vocal tracks in Japanese and English from a variety of obscure bands and singers. While it's a bit disappointing that the majority of the tracks are simply pulled from previous Katamari releases, the fact that you can pick your favorite tune at the beginning of each level helps ease the pain.

"We Feel Something Pathetic."

Where this Katamari begins to roll off the tracks is in the control scheme. Put simply, Katamari's dual analog controls just don't have a proper substitute on the PSP. Using the face buttons to control the ball is awkward at first. And while the learning curve isn't especially steep, the pain of having to jam on those buttons for extended periods of time never goes away.

But this is a forgivable hurdle -- after all, playing Katamari on the go is worth a little sacrifice here and there. It's a lot tougher to accept, though, the utter lack of variety in Katamari's levels. Previous games did recycle environments quite a bit, but they managed to make each trip unique. Me and My, however, has basically only four different small levels -- a house, a town, a park, and a city -- and they are recycled ad nauseum.

All too often, you'll finish up a challenge, start the next one, and find that you're in the same place you just rolled up, only with slightly different decoration (it might be nighttime, or a different season). Part of the fun of Katamari was discovering clever new sections of levels, ripe with new objects fresh for the rollin'. This sense of wonder is almost completely absent from Me and My.

"We Detest Loading."

The PSP's limitations as a piece of hardware are on full display here. In the PS2 games, when your katamari reached a certain size, some small objects disappeared and larger ones were added to the field. But this was all done seamlessly. Me and My actually stops the game and goes to a loading screen when this happens (although said screen usually features the King talking about how much he hates it).

Also, since the individual levels are so small and so few, Katamari resorts to stringing them together to form the game's later challenges. So rather than one lengthy, seamless roll-a-thon, you'll play in one space for a few minutes, then be stopped and magically transported to a totally new playfield.

"Who's Bored? We Are."

Yes, the King really does utter these words at the end of each and every level. At first it seemed like he was being sarcastic, but then Me and My Katamari really did get boring. The lack of variety in the levels was a major factor. But even more so was the constant loading and unnatural, abrupt transitions. The joy of Katamari isn't just in the rolling gameplay -- it's about the feeling of power when you start out tiny and end up ginormous. Me and My Katamari lacks this entirely, and as such pales in comparison to its console brethren.