Indeed, the sequel was really a huge step up from the original Katamari Damacy in many ways to me, as who have played all available console games in the series. (Nowadays I play in Steam.) Most expensive katamaries are particularly fun because you have much less visual cues than other games, but once you've immersed yourself into the world, you will see likely places to roam around.

> IIRC the first game had an eternal level whereas the 2nd game’s longest level was 18min.

For the record, a recent remastered version for PC does have eternal levels.