Klonoa (Wiimake) Review
Me actually completing this review was enough of an accomplishment that I've made through this year. I've worked on this for long enough. Get ready to read what multiple months took, for some reason.
Ooooooh, this is Klonoa: Door to Phantomile alright.... While it's most certainly a way to play it, it's.... worse than the original? I mean, it's not bad, but it's not good, either. Letme explain this better.
Many consider Klonoa: Door to Phantomile an underdog in the PlayStation Library because compared to most of the games that came out during that generation, Klonoa didn't exactly... meet the love and attention that other games had such as Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot had received.... in the US at least. In Japan, this game sold like hotcakes; a bunch of the fans loved it for it's fantasy, dreamlike aesthetic with cute, relatable characters and a charming story with a surprising (and tearful!) twist that for those who've played this game, will know what I'm talking about. Klonoa over there was successful because it was a lot more lenient on if your games were 3D or not, and that's the reason some games like this (and Gradius Gaiden) exist on the system. Everyone loved the game, selling over 50k copies in that country alone. Meanwhile America? 1 thousand.
Compared to the others, that's not a lot of copies at all, especially considering that the game is now considered to be one of the hardest games to get physically because of it's poor reception here. There are two attributes to this: The fact that media sellers criticizing games that fully didn't make the jump to 3D, and the horrendous advertising that this game had; not a single one of them connected their advertising to the original game's story and it's intentions to the player in the slightest. However, this didn't stop a small community of people from liking the game. In fact, I'd say that Klonoa is one of the biggest niche communities I know because like some other games that people might not know of but it isn't too niche, Klonoa was one of the few that've done justice on the long run, especially with the first two mainline games in the series being story enriched as they are.
But as good things always come, there's always a negative thing to go with it aswell. This is in the form of how Namco treated the series right after Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil's release; Literally RIGHT after. After the release of that, they decided this game needed to lock into a new audience primarily towards children, making every spinoff fit a completely different vibe that caters towards them. Starting with Empire of Dreams in 2001, Klonoa: Beach Volleyball and Dream Champ Tournament in 2002, and Klonoa Heroes: Densetsu no Star Medal (aka The Legendary Star Medal) in yet again, 2002!. Someday I plan to play these entries to see if they are actually worth playing, but from what I had played back then as well as the people who had played the PS versions first, a lot of people say that not a single one of them are as story-enriched as the PS ones. While they're not bad in the slightest, they suffer from being overly simplistic, and took the problems that DtP had, and added so many characters that just say and do a couple of things. They did bring new characters with personalities like Chipple and Guntz, but they also dumbed down the personalities of the original cast of characters....
Skipping over that dreadful period, Klonoa would see a brief hiatus form Namco until 2008 when they've released a Door to Phantomile remake on the Wii simply known as Klonoa. This entry doesn't look bad, but that Klonoa redesign and voice.. Is this Klonoa? Or some adult rabbit trying to be the kid that we all know and love? The voice acting is also in English and whatever DtP had originally, and while thankfully not heavily compressed, they don't sound as good and memorable as the cute-sy "voice acting" the original game had. But it's still Door to Phantomile, and with me talking about the game preivously, it's my job to see what this one changes outside of the ones I've mentioned to see if it still holds a candle to the one that some folks all know and love.
※ Story (Score/5)
The narrative core of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile remains largely faithful in the remake, with the primary distinctions lying in its presentation to players. These changes manifest through revised dialogue between Klonoa and Huepow, alongside enhanced animations and expanded scenes. However, some of these alterations feel superfluous, particularly in the interactions between the two protagonists, which I find fundamentally misguided. In the original, Klonoa and Huepow shared dialogue equally, reflecting a collaborative partnership where both expressed distinct emotions in response to their circumstances. This balance fostered a sense of companionship. In contrast, the remake shifts much of Klonoa’s dialogue to Huepow, reducing their dynamic to that of coworkers pursuing a shared objective, lacking the warmth of their original bond. This shift is particularly jarring given Huepow’s underlying motives for involving Klonoa in the issues Phantomile is going through. In the original, Huepow’s intentions remained ambiguous until the pivotal “strange dream” revelation Ghadius mentions before the fight with Nahatomb, preserving intrigue. In the remake, however, these motives become suspiciously apparent by the halfway mark, undermining the subtlety of the original. As someone who experienced the original first, I find the remake’s portrayal of Huepow’s interactions overtly manipulative, casting him as exploiting Klonoa more explicitly than in the original, which diminishes the emotional depth of their relationship, as for newer players, I honestly don't know how they would feel to know when something's up.
※ Gameplay + Replay Value (2.5/5)
The best thing (and sometimes the worst thing personally) when it comes to writing the gameplay for Klonoa is the fact that I don't have to say much compared to my previous review of the original Door to Phantomile. Klonoa controls very much the same there as here, outside he feels a bit faster, and a bit easier to control than the other. The best comparison to the feel of Klonoa would be akin to how he feels in Lunatea's Veil, especially since one thing I haven't mentioned throughout the story is that this game tends to reuse a bunch of assets from said game. I wouldn't be surprised if I was right in this.
Some of the actual elements that were introduced into the wiimake is the whirlwind—a rather useless attack that slows down the enemies for a period of time. I did not know about this attack until I was almost finished with the game when I guess I did something to the wiimote, and Klonoa did a funny little animation, and the enemies became slower. I honestly don't understand why they brought this into the game because if there is one obscure fact about Klonoa that someone that's running a channel dedicated to talking about Awesome Klonoa Facts, then this would be a great contender to said list. I guess another exclusive thing to mention is that this Klonoa takes 10 hits to die rather than 6, making this already easy game that gives you a bunch of lives and 1-ups into a borderline cakewalk. Wake me up when someone finishes the Wiimake blindfolded. I actually had to thank this game for this change alone because as someone who finished the original & had not much of a good time feeling the energy that this game had, I wanted to get it over so quickly.
And last but not least, are the extra content. There's a gallery, cutscene viewer, a time attack and reverse mode (with some extra kaizo challenge portals in some of the stages), and a model viewer, for some reason. As much as these are appreciated, I wished that there was a bit more added to the extra content, but for a game that is very specific with it's story, I can't imagine any other thing they would add. As such, I would rate the Replay Value the same as the gameplay. Even tho this game legit adds more than the original, it's not enough to make people come back to play it after you complete all of these: It would just be the same heartwarming story of Klonoa getting used to save the world by a ball/human hybrid.
※ Graphics (1.5/5)
This might be a little bit of an insane score to give to the graphics for this game, but trust me, I'm cooking something here. Let me explain. This may be a bit long, and most importantly, a bit personal.
You see, when it came to the original Door to Phantomile, it was a technical marvel: placing 2D pre-rendered sprites on a 3D plane was something unique that not a bunch of platformers had ever thought about doing to shapen things up. And instead of keeping the stages mostly linear (they're still linear but you get the point), you're able to go through twists and turns through the wonderful and colorful environment that as you progress through the game, under the effects of Ghadius spreading nightmare energy across the world, you can see the eventual degression of the looks of the environment, becoming a lot more dry and somber, and when the final scene hit as Klonoa gets taken back to his home, the song that the Diva Lephise sings—the Song of Rebirth—finally heals the world back to what it was. The graphics for Door to Phantomile was by definition, eye candy, taking what made games such as Kirby 64 and Donkey Kong Country and combining them together to what I think is visually (and performance-wise!) one of the best games on the PlayStation.
Meanwhile, this remake took everything on that away.
Something that I've heard from a specific Youtuber that has covered the series perfectly described this game's graphics in a nutshell:
The Klonoa wiimake turns the original game's identity and drowns it in hydrochloric acid.
Despite running on better hardware than the original PlayStation (the Wii is just an overclocked GameCube with some enhancements here and there), this remake looks like shit in most areas. The only places that I would disagree with this would have to be Cress the Moon Kingdom, the arena where you fight Evil Pamela, and the third phase of the Nahatomb Boss. Everything else is a downgrade from the original because it's too dry, dark, and putrid-looking. To think that a remake is supposed to be better ways to play the game it's remaking.. I think otherwise. I don't know if they managed to fix this issue in the Fantasy Reverie Series considering that the DtP in that game is a remaster of this game, but I am hoping that they did. Another downgrade is the cutscsnes.
One thing that technically makes the wiimake better than the original is that the CGI cutscenes are rendered in real time, but at the same time, having the merit of being in-engine is something that doesn't change how they still have the same issues that the rest of the game has. Combine that w/ the subpar English Voice acting (and this game's Phantomilian dub), and you get an experience that, should you didn't touch the original (you should do it RIGHT NOW), could be something that didn't need a fate like this game had.
※ Soundtrack (4/5)
Luckily, the soundtrack for the wiimake is exactly the same as the original PlayStation save for one song... The stage select theme. So we still got bangers such as The Windmill Song, The Tower of Balue, Jugpot Falls (my favorite song in the entire game), Wheel of Woe, Untamed Heart, and Sad Forest Drum. Something I did wonder is why didn't the rest of the music in this game get arrangements? Because tbh, hearing Resurrection with the ugly visuals of this game mentally hurts my mind and soul: They don't match the CGIs of the 1990s.
※ Verdict/Other Thoughts (3/5)
I'm so glad that I've finished covering this game. For those that read through this and feel that it may be a bit misjointed in certain areas, I apologize. Throughout the time it took for me to work on this review, a bunch of things happened, and at some point, I even started to lose interest in working on reviews. I've been working on other things that aren't gaming related, playing the same games over and over again, and rewriting reviews for games that don't even deserve it (don't ask unless you want to know), and just lacking the motivation altogether. With this review out of the way, I hope that I am able to get more reviews of different games out of the way, but I am in loss of what I could think about when it comes to other games I have on my Backlog. Other than that...
Thanks for Reading!