Developed/Published by: Namco
Released: March 10th, 1998
Completed: 3rd June, 2015
Completion: Finished the game, but didn’t rescue all the wee guys to unlock the extra vision.
Trophies / Achievements: n/a
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is one of those 2.5D platformers that used to be all the rage back in the day. Remember them? The one that always stands out in my mind is Pandemonium, probably because it was published by Crystal Dynamics and in all the video game magazines of the time. I thought it was completely ugly and was totally uninterested in it; after all, at the time of Pandemonium everyone was going ga-ga for Mario 64 (and, to be honest, at that point I was still mainly a PC gamer.)
It’s quite surprising to find that Klonoa came out as late as two years after! It’s a slightly strange one, pals. On one hand it’s a short and fairly simplistic platformer (there’s only about 12 levels, some of which can be long-ish) on the other it’s got loads of slightly complex if vague world-building and the kind of plot (and certainly antagonist) you’d expect from a Final Fantasy game or something.
Oh, and it’s got the cutest cat-rabbit hero in a Pac-Man cap (note: if you don’t like cats you won’t think he’s very cute, but he looks just like a cat I know, Pixel, so I love him.)
As a platformer, it’s awkward if interesting—Klonoa has a simple jump and a brief hover that lacks too much lateral movement, but can “grab” enemies and by throwing them down jump higher. It works like a double jump, and although the game starts without too much use of it, by the end you’re using grabs and throws to chain together fairly lengthy climbs, and it’s pretty good!
I was a good deal less fond of the type of things I’ve been mollycoddled out of by now, though—die at a boss and you have to play the entire level over, and if you do something daft like beating a level with only one life and save, when you start the next level you’re stuck with one life even if you use a continue! One boss (Joka) is a surprising difficulty spike (and I do mean spike, nothing else in the game is as hard) that very nearly put me off this whole thing entirely.
In this incarnation, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is somewhat dated, so I’d assume you’re better off playing the re-release on Wii (thankfully just called Klonoa). Either way it’s a charming and pleasingly short little title with a very Japanese sensibility that we seem to be losing.
Will I ever play it again? I’d play the Wii version if I ever found it for pennies.
Final Thought: That Japanese sensibility: if you want a perfect example of what has been lost, consider the “we should modify our game so people in the West will like it” re-design of Klonoa that they pitched. I’m not sure I can think of a better example of how utterly incorrect Japanese-style pandering to Western tastes can get, and it’s been endemic in the industry for years.
