In 1997, Namco released a 2D platformer for the original PlayStation called Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. The game was not a big success, but it was rather good, and as word got around, the game’s second-hand price shot up and people became more interested. About a decade later, Klonoa’s not exactly enjoying any more popularity, but has managed to star in no less than five different games. Since people still do not know who Klonoa is, Namco has decided to go back to the beginning to remake the original Klonoa game on the Wii with prettier graphics and without the lengthy subtitle in the hope that someone in the expanded Wii audience will care. They should, because Klonoa is a beautiful, solid platformer with just one problem – it is just a little too easy for its own good.

Klonoa puts you in the role of the titular character, a sort of floppy-eared cat creature with a tendency to float around, throwing his enemies and wearing clothing that toes the Namco company line. At the start of the game, Klonoa has a nightmare that involves a mysterious airship crashing into a mountain near his home village of Breezegale. One day, the dream comes true, and Klonoa and his friend Huepow discover two mysterious creatures near the crash site; Ghadius and Joka, who are searching for a pendant which contains mystical properties. Unable to find the pendant, they kidnap the local singing diva, Lephise. After setting out to rescue Lephise, Klonoa and Huepow soon discover that Ghadius wishes to turn the land of Phantomile into a world of nightmares, so they make it their mission to stop him. Klonoa’s story may seem like it should be quite straightforward and even cheery and carefree, but there’s a certain sense of despair which accompanies each plot development. The story can be quite bittersweet, and even depressing at times.


Stopping Ghadius and Joka from hatching their evil scheme involves running through the five different lands of Phantomile – the wind village Breezegale, the kindom of water Jugpot, the tree village Forlock, the temple of the sun Coronia and the moon kingdom Cress – each of which contains three levels. The game is a standard two dimensional platformer, but works within a 3D world. You can only move in two dimensions, but the game uses some tricks to make it appear 3D like winding paths and enemies in the foreground and background. The game’s level design is a treat – the early parts of the game introduce the core concepts without confusing or boring the player, but it can get pretty sneaky, particularly in the latter stages of the game where levels break into multiple paths. There’s even a tricky maze stage which has a rather fiendish solution.

Klonoa’s abilities are fairly basic, particularly when compared to other popular platforming characters. He can’t bounce off enemies, bash them around or set them on fire; instead, Klonoa’s bag is to capture enemies with his special ring grappler and throw them at each other, and whatever other obstacles get in his way. You can also use captured enemies to propel Klonoa into a double-jump, and flap his ears for a limited gliding ability. The game makes the most of Klonoa’s move set – you need to know all of his abilities in order to get through the game, particularly with some of the tricky puzzle sections and the major boss fights. Klonoa provides players with several control options; Wii Remote, Wii Remote and Nunchuck, Classic Controller and GameCube Controller, all of which give players a sufficient level of control. The remote and nunchuck combo lets players use some motion controls to toss enemies and such, but it’s entirely optional.


As fun as Klonoa is, the fifteen levels expire quite quickly. Most players will blow through the game in around 4-6 hours. More than half of the game’s levels are tremendously easy, filled with enemies that don’t attack or even threaten the player. There are a few little extras for getting some hidden items around the levels, along with a mirror mode for playing the game backwards and a couple of time challenges, but there is not a whole lot of replay value. Klonoa was released at a budget price of $US30 in North America back in May, enough up for its stunted length, but Australian gamers will be expected to part with 70 dollars, which is quite a bit more when compared to the standard Wii price of each region. It does not seem like that much, however, when you consider that your other option is to hunt down the original PlayStation version which will cost you a whole lot more.

Since most players never played Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, it will be more difficult for them to appreciate the improved visuals of the remake. The world of Phantomile is bright and colourful – each level has its own distinct personality, which helps to keep the game feeling fresh throughout. The remake adds a whole lot of detail to the world, and gives it a nice spit and polish to bring it up to more modern standards – Klonoa is easily one of the best looking games on the Wii. All of the pre-rendered cutscenes from the original game were redone in real time, which makes the game sync up a whole lot better. The remake adds in an English dub of acceptable quality, but players can also play the game with its original Phantomilean language, a sort of garbled form of Japanese.

Klonoa may be short and easy, but it is a beautiful, high quality platformer, and that is something that the Wii is running a little short on. Namco has played it pretty safe with the remake – they have given the game a nice visual tune up, recreated all of the old pre-rendered scenes in real time, and bumped the gameplay speed up, but they haven’t made any major changes to the game’s story or core gameplay. It would have been nice if they could have packed in a few more extras or secret levels to inspire players to go back for more. It might seem a bit expensive, given the length and the fact that we are not getting it at the budget price that other areas of the world were treated to, but Klonoa is worth the price of entry.