If you asked someone who grew up on the first two PlayStations: “What’s your favorite platform series”, most of them would probably answer something like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, or Jak and series like Daxter. These series are undoubtedly the most familiar, but the selection of decent platformers on the PlayStation is definitely more than that. One of the lesser-known series that still has some loyal fans is Klonoa, where players control the titular character of the Goutu hybrid and have the ability to use his wind ring to pick up enemies to solve platforming puzzles and challenges.
Namco (or Bandai Namco Entertainment today)’s platform series offers plenty of charm and surprisingly good game mechanics, but Klonoa only got two main titles and a few handheld spinoffs before things calmed down. The last game released in the Klonoa series was the first game in the Wii remake in 2008, which was almost 15 years ago. This makes the release of the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series even more special for fans, with Bandai Namco now re-releasing Klonoa: Gates of the Phantomille and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil to celebrate Klonoa’s 25th anniversary. Considering that Klonoa 2 has been locked to the PlayStation 2 since its initial release in 2001 (which of course made the game more expensive on the used market), this re-release is likely to be a hit with fans who want to revisit the series. Ideally, this collection should include handheld games from the series, especially since most of them were never released outside of Japan in the 2000s, but understandably the focus is on two main titles. After all, they are the most familiar and are very similar to each other enough to form a unified whole.
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There’s a story in the Klonoa game, but it’s so inconsistent and messy that it acts more as background noise than engaging storytelling. The short version is that our hero Klonoa gets a special ring that blows gusts of wind, and this ring takes him to a different world and requires his instructions. There was potential for a good storytelling in these games, but Namco didn’t consider it a priority at the time, or meaningful details were lost in translation.
What Klonoa games lack in story, they make up for in charm, and you’ll find plenty in this series. The characters have a whimsical design that will entertain nostalgic and new players alike, and you’ll get plenty of nice and fresh staging, a bright and crisp color palette to tackle. The game also features dialogue spoken in fictional languages, and while it’s a little annoying at times, it’s also an irreplaceable part of the franchise’s charm. Well, mostly, because in some cases the characters’ voices are so scary that they give you a headache every time they open their mouths. Huepow was Klonoa’s sidekick in Game 1 and was by far the worst sidekick, and his squeaky noise made him the worst sidekick in video game history, surpassing even Navi and Fi in Zelda games Waiting for fans to “favorite”. However, despite a character like Huepow, you get a collection full of joy and fun. Combined with creative stage design and the use of camera angles (especially in Klonoa 2), it’s easy to go back to this old pack of platforming fun. We’re not talking about a revolutionary platformer here, some elements haven’t aged as much as others, but the whole set is still well executed.
However, some of the visual appeal and uniqueness of the series has been lost in the transition to the new platform. This re-release gives you both a remake of Klonoa 2 for PlayStation 2 and a 2008 Wii version of the original PlayStation game from 1997, a choice that makes sense since the Wii version was created to give players something closer to what they got from Klonoa 2 Known in Klonoa 1 of the experience. Not only will this decision fall on those who crave the classic style of the original PlayStation game, but those who crave the cel-shading style of Klonoa 2 will also be a little disappointed, as the remake features an updated style with slick textures. The problem is that the style feels impersonal, boring, and lacks any kind of uniqueness, which is what we’ve seen from several low-cost platformers over the past decade as “a dozen by one” style. The new graphic style gets the job done, it’s positive to see how the developers are approaching the original level design and background details, but the uninspired and cheap demos leave you craving the option to switch between old and new looks, like LucasArts’ old hits as seen in the digital remake of the game.
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Another factor that makes the collection feel a little cheap is the limited settings in the options menu. For example, you can adjust the button configuration, but only to the four main action buttons, not the shoulder buttons or triggers. In one of the levels in Klonoa 2, the player is tasked with riding a hoverboard through a dark cave, collecting diamonds along the way, a task made more difficult by the fact that the diamonds are the same color as the tracks. I can imagine this must be a nightmare for colorblind players, so more accessibility features would be appreciated. The worst part is still the pixel filter, which tries to give the game a certain retro feel, but ends up making the screen blurry and smudged, with colors swirling with each other like oil on water. This filter doesn’t fit any game at all, and the execution is so horrible that I’ve never seen a worse attempt to give a modern game a retro-metamorphic feel.
Despite these shortcomings and hiccups, you’ll also make some useful additions to the collection. Both games can be enjoyed in co-op mode, which was previously only available in Klonoa 2, which will help nostalgic parents share the Klonoa experience with a new generation of players. In addition to the new visual style, the audio has also been tweaked, and the music in Klonoa 2 in particular is surprisingly good and deserves a lot of attention. Now you can also adjust the difficulty, and speed runners will appreciate the stopwatch mode for an extra challenge.
The biggest new feature is, of course, the chance to play games at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, something that’s available on the next-gen platform. The PlayStation 5 version is perfect for the task, and aside from a slight framerate drop when beating bosses in Klonoa 2, I didn’t notice any technical issues during testing. The series also has surprisingly fast load times, so fast that you didn’t have time to read the helpful hints on the loading screen in the first game (in Klonoa 2, the loading time was only a few seconds longer). On the Switch, however, the technical situation is different. This version has a lower resolution, longer load times and no HDR support, but all as expected from a console with less firepower compared to the PlayStation 5. On the other hand, performance issues are harder to accept. The Switch version consistently runs at 60 frames per second (closer to 50 fps most of the time) and has noticeable response time issues along the way, which you can notice in the first phase of Klonoa 2, where frame rates and Response times take a serious hit. The series is still playable on Switch, but performance issues make the experience less than playable on next-gen consoles.
While some of the charm from the original has been lost over the years, a lot of platformer fun can be found in the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series. It’s not hard to see why this dog-rabbit creature still has a loyal fan base, and despite some outdated elements, the level design is still good enough to entertain new and old players for hours on a lazy summer day.