It's tough to expect a Japan only Wonderswan exclusive of a puzzle platformer series with an already small player base to get a ton of love, but wow - this game feels so unsung for what I expected on a 8-bit (color) platform.

I do agree with some of the other reviews I've seen that Moonlight Museum is definitely leaning toward the "easier" side of things. I would treat it (as I'm sure it was developed as such) as a predecessor to the GBA titles in both gameplay style and difficulty, as it tends to use much less mechanics in its levels comparatively as well. That said, its puzzles still feel incredibly rewarding to navigate through, and the last world still has a couple of moments that will give some pause to think.

Where Moonlight Museum shines however is the pixel art. I'm sure there's plenty of titles on the Game Boy as well that leave shock and awe, but never has a single color pixel art title leave me sitting on multiple screens, amazed at how someone was able to draw something so gorgeous. It absolutely looks stellar during the cutscenes, with the in-level graphics and music being just as great. The only miss the game has is the story - it's a bit all over and provides more fluff than not (tough to discern how much of that is the game vs. the available English fantranslation), even if it still provides plenty of charm.

The WonderSwan definitely tends to be a platform that's left to forgotten handheld lists or "weird game library" videos, but this is absolutely a gem of the platform more people need to experience.

“The moon shines brightly in shades of gray…”

Last year I played Klonoa: Door to Phantomile for the PS1 and really loved it. It had a great presentation, really fun, if a bit easy 2.5D platformer and probably one of the best stories I’ve seen for the genre. I wanted to play the sequel but sadly IDK when that’ll happen but it finally hit me. There was a game before Klonoa 2 which was Kaze no Klonoa: Moonlight Museum for Bandai’s WonderSwan. This was a Japan only handheld meant to compete with Nintendo but sadly even with a color variant, the handheld never was successful with the sales being about 3.5 million over the 4 years it was made in. Namco wouldn’t support the handheld too much with only Kosodate Quiz: My Angel, Tekken, Mr. Driller (color only) and Famista being the other series represented on the handheld that Namco developed. I do wonder why they used Klonoa for such an unpopular handheld but no more time for questions, time for the actual game.

Storytime in Moonlight Museum is done at the beginning and ending of each world and it’s about Klonoa and Huepow meeting this girl who tells them the moon has been broken apart and the artists near the Museum are up to no good. Klonoa and Huepow meet all of them and have their own damaged viewpoints on art and Klonoa has to find the fragments of the moon and teach the wrongdoings to the selfish artists. The plot is not as in depth as Klonoa 1 but this is a side story so it gets the job done though I don’t really feel too much from the story even if the images are very nice.

Now it’s time for that gameplay and we have a 2D game this time. Due to the primitive hardware, the .5 aspect of it is gone which is understandable. That’s not all, however, as the game is more puzzle-like than the first game. This was done due to the team wanting Klonoa 2 to be more action while Moonlight Museum would be more about the puzzles. It’s pretty smart when you think about it as it would not only fit the series but it would help design it for a handheld. Klonoa can still use the wind bullet and grab enemies to throw or jump in the air with the help of one. He can also still hover for a couple of seconds but the distance as for usual is pretty short and slow. You’ll be traveling through five visions (the game’s name for worlds) with six levels in each. You can also collect thirty Dream Stones in each level to fill in more of the artwork that represents the vision that you can then view in the gallery. Finally you need to collect three Star fragments to let you out of the level and move on to the next.

One really interesting aspect about the game is the use of horizontal and vertical viewpoints. Some levels require you to rotate the handheld as the screen is now more vertical letting you see more above you. It never feels jarring or bad which is quite impressive. Even cooler is if you beat a level and go back, you can pause and make the game flip the viewpoint so it can now be a horizontal or vertical view. I don’t think you get anything for doing them all the second way but it’s still interesting from a replayability standpoint. Makes me wonder if the whole game is designed well for both viewpoints.

When it comes to the puzzles themselves, it’s pretty varied as you’ll be messing with stuff like bombs, switches, enemies, and lots of blocks. There’s a lot here and the game likes to introduce more as you go through the game. Surprisingly it’s not too hard which I guess makes sense since Klonoa 1 was rather easy. You will probably almost never die in this game just because of how easy it is to keep your health at full with three hearts at most. Every room is basically a checkpoint and even better, you can just pause and click retry to reset a room and not just the whole level which is nice. Surprisingly it never really gets boring despite the levels never really doing anything unique outside of adding new general mechanics. The only notable gripe I had was Klonoa being kind of slow making the bits of nothing feel kind of draining at times. I was amazed how nothing really stumped me, I’m not sure if it’s just that easy or maybe I underestimate my thinking skills but you probably won’t need a guide for any part of the game. It also keeps the enemy respawns from the PS1 original which helps if you make any screw ups.

The bosses in this game are…well actually there are no bosses. Yeah not even at the end there is one. Kind of weird but guess since the game isn’t about combat, they just aren’t here at all. That said, there is still content to do after the fifth vision and credits. You get six extra levels and surprisingly the first two feel like actual platforming which took me by shock, they even keep track of your best time. They’re pretty fun too which makes me kind of sad there isn’t more. The other ones test your reflexes and timing with the final two having the hardest puzzles in the game. Still they aren’t too tough and by now they really love giving you lives so you’ll be fine. Finish this world and you’ll get a new ending cutscene though there seems to be no 100% award which is a shame unless what I got was it because I did 100% every level on the first go around. Still it’s probably my favorite world in the game and a nice way to end off the game. Though Namco what was up with basically reusing a room in the last level? Feels very off to do it that one time.

Graphically Moonlight Museum looks pretty nice for the handheld. Now granted I’m no expert on the handheld but there’s some nice visuals and combined with the more unique feeling themes like a prison, it really makes the game stick out from the rest of 2D platformers from that era. My only nitpick is I don’t like how inflated enemies don’t squish down when on a lower ceiling. I also really like how Vision 5 looks with the moving background really giving a lovely night view. I mentioned it earlier but the cutscenes look nice too along with the gallery images. The music by Junko Ozawa & Hiromi Shibano is a mixed bag. Some songs don’t sound too bad but my god the Giant Fort and Laughing Prison themes are so repetitive that after six levels, you’ll go insane. Some of the other tracks sound decent with my favorite being the Palace of Clouds theme. Klonoa’s voice clips from the first game are also here and sound nice though they aren’t perfect as expected. Overall it looks good but needs some better songs which is a shame considering how good the music was in the previous game.

This game was hard for me to rate because it has some good stuff going for it like the fun puzzles and just being a fun chill experience. Though it can feel slow at times, the biggest issue for me and it’s not really the game’s fault but it just can’t compete on what made the previous game so great. I understand the struggles and I’m glad they did what they could to make this a fun experience but I could see this game being boring for some. If you like these levels that have you roaming around, solving puzzles, finding keys and fragments, and just not fighting bosses then you’ll have a good time. A fan translation does exist and it’s pretty high quality but language barrier isn’t an issue anyway so if you haven’t played this yet and are curious then have a go at it. This side of Klonoa would continue on the GBA but I won’t redo that review for a while. It was a nice 5 hour journey and I’m glad I gave it a chance, hoping Klonoa 2 will be fun whenever I somehow if ever can get the chance to play it. Bye for now!

Klonoa had a nice resurgence in appreciation last year with remasters of his most beloved Playstation adventures, but his other journeys remain in the past and are more likely to be forgotten. Some might not be familiar with them, but there were three GBA games, a volleyball game(!), and Moonlight Museum. The "2" might make this a bit surprising, but not only was Moonlight Museum developed alongside Klonoa 2, it actually came out before it, making it the actual second Klonoa game! The lack of a 2 in its title is justified, though, because Moonlight Museum tells a smaller scale and lighter story while also being a shift in overall design philosophy compared to its predecessor and where 2 would end up going with its increased focus on "action" and setpiece-esque levels.

Klonoa has always had navigation-focused puzzles and a lean towards thoughtful and "slower" gameplay compared to something like a Mario, but Moonlight Museum really takes it to the next level. Gone are the boss fights and 3D visuals. The music is significantly more limited and the Wahoos are crispier and crunchier than any piece of fried chicken you can find. The story is still there, but it's more abstract and philosophical, focusing on the relationship between dreams and art instead of a more straightforward "save the day" narrative. Ultimately, it's all about the puzzles pretty much all the time and the lack of audiovisual splendor might disappoint people coming off of the beautiful console games, but if you take this game as it is and let it do its own thing, you'll be rewarded with a very well designed and complete experience.

Every level tasks you with collecting three star pieces, which are scattered about the level and hidden behind puzzles to solve. Many of these puzzles, especially early on, can just be a matter of finding a way to jump high enough like how you would in the original game, whether it be with enemies or blocks, but if there's one thing this game excels at, it's making use of every little thing it has hidden up its sleeve to concoct expansive puzzles. Every world introduces some kind of new gimmick to make things trickier, such as wind currents that always blow you upward unless they're blocked, blocks that can be pushed but not picked up, and explosive enemies that blow up on a timer once picked up. The game also makes use of the Wonderswan's form factor to make some stages horizontally or vertically oriented. This doesn't significantly change the gameplay, but the choice is utilized to gently accentuate the level design in effective ways. If a level has a lot of vertical movement, it'll probably make you hold the Wonderswan vertically, which lends itself to a more comfortable perspective for what's on offer. Each world builds up the complexity surrounding each of these mechanics I mentioned in a natural way so that the early levels are easy, but the later ones require a full understanding of all your options.

For example, throwing an explosive guy and letting the timer tick down is easy, but what if you have two with different timers? Can you juggle those timers with having to move them across the room and into specific locations that may require navigating past wind currents or lining up blocks? What about having to do that while spiked enemies try to get in your way? If the explosion doesn't reach your target, can you set up arrow blocks to redirect the explosion while also making sure to do it in time? I probably don't need to belabor the point any further, it should be obvious by now that these puzzles can get devious! Don't let that scare you too much, though, because the nastiest tricks are reserved for the EX stages, which are unlocked after finishing the game.

The EX stages really expect you to think outside the box when they're not introducing challenging platforming sequences with high stakes; one particular moment requires you to take advantage of a specific (physics, I guess?) interaction that's never necessary to acknowledge beyond an exclamation of "oh, neat" otherwise! Normally, Klonoa can't grab things if he's in a narrow corridor because of how he holds things above his head, but if you grab an enemy and then quickly move into the corridor before the animation completes and moves the enemy above Klonoa, the enemy will be squished down and allow you to carry it in the narrow corridor. When the game asked me to do this to get a bomb through a corridor with spikes preventing me from just throwing it through, you can probably imagine that this took me a while to figure out!

Even when Moonlight Museum is at its most challenging and mentally taxing, it never gets frustrating because of how concisely and smoothly designed it is. Levels are never too big and Klonoa's immediately available verbs are limited enough that the range of actions you can take never feels too overwhelming. Levels have a linear, guided flow to them that allow the player to easily tell if they missed something. If they get to the exit without having all three stars, they know exactly what they missed, and the 30 crystals per stage that can be used to unlock gallery images are often used in ways that guide the player to points of interest or extra areas that offer more challenging optional puzzles. Lives and health are generously placed and there aren't any time limits given to clear stages, so you can take as long as you need to pick up what the developers were putting down. Like I said, this game is all about the puzzles, and every single choice made ensures that those puzzles are engaging without being intimidating.

It's so remarkable how consistent this game is that it bears repeating; the difficulty moves at the exact perfect pace so that every mechanic is given enough time to breathe, levels are always around the same length and never overstay their welcome, and just the right number of elements exist to make puzzles varied and interesting without being too overwhelming or tedious. There's even a convenient retry option that'll reset any room! Two of the GBA games, Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament, build upon this game's formula and add back things like boss fights and those hoverboarding sections, but I still think there's something to be said about this one's admirable level of focus. Like the many great puzzlers on the Game Boy, this game has very specific ideas that it wants to express to the player, and everything in the game is focused on doing just that. There aren't any wild swings here, nothing to distract from the gameplay loop, and those who love spectacle might find it to be a bit "bland", but if you're feeling what Namco was feeling and want to see the brain-teasing fundamentals of Klonoa pushed further than they've been, you'll love getting absorbed into Moonlight Museum and will appreciate the artistry on offer.

A solid puzzle platformer using the mechanics of Klonoa on the PS1 in a 2D space and going wild with the puzzle designs you could create out of them.

The music ranges from pretty good to downright painful, and you better hope you enjoy listening to crunchy WAHOOS a lot because this game has them in spades. On the flipside, the visuals of the game are very charming, and the pictures you'd unlock by collecting all the dream stones had me hunting them down in each stage.
The game has 5 regular worlds with 6 stages each and then a final EX world that's absolutely brutal. Transitioning from the bare bones mechanics you'd get out of Klonoa's abilities and slowly expanding into an entertaining challenge.

Moonlight Museum took its time to become something I truly enjoyed and appreciated, but once it did it was an absolute delight.

Apparently I'm the first person to review this game on the site lol. That should speak volumes for how obscure it is. It has some fun puzzles to solve, and some songs are amazing. So amazing they were remixed in Klonoa 2! That sums up everything interesting about this game. The story is completely forgettable, the spritework isn't nearly as good as some other wonderswan games and the experience starts to get arduous and bland as the game goes on. Also some songs make me want to rip my ears out. Play the GBA games instead. ...It's no wonder no one else could write a review for this game.

A very rough introduction to Klonoa.

As an early WonderSwan title, and Namco's first game on the system, I admittedly didn't expect too much. The core platforming is passable, and the alteration of Klonoa's gameplay to fit a smaller-scale, action puzzle romp works surprisingly well (though I have no knowledge of what changes were actually made to that end). Getting the moonshards to finish each level is straight forward, with increasingly difficult puzzles required to get all the dream shards in a level for 100%.

There is an apparent attempt at replicating the graphical fidelity of the first PlayStation title, with the level/graphic designers assuring fans they worked hard to that end. Despite those efforts, the backgrounds blur together in such a way that, during actual play, the parallax effects are not noticed or registered even subconsciously. Foreground elements are detailed and make good use of the eight tones of grey, but their size on an already minuscule screen leads to a great deal of remembering level layouts, particularly when juggling crates across an entire section. One of the developers allegedly proposed shrinking Klonoa's (and presumably all other) sprites to accommodate the fact some levels were made for TATE play. Those TATE levels are an interesting feature in theory, but those stages rarely take advantage of that focus on verticality. If anything, they are more frustrating due to limited horizontal screen real estate mixed with lateral challenges.

The misunderstanding of the hardware continues with the sound. Afforded only four audio channels and a dreadfully tinny speaker, Hiromi Shibano and Junko Ozawa wanted to ensure Klonoa's iconic "Wahoo!" would be reproduced. It is a valiant effort on Ozawa's part in particular, with the digitised speech coming through fairly clearly, but the constant yelping detracts from the already stifled music and sound design as every possibly resource is thrown at Klonoa's voice. On top of that, what music can be heard is innocuous at first, but agonising when heard non-stop for all six stages of a world. And that is in an ideal scenario, wherein the player has access to the WonderSwan's headphone adapter accessory. The puny speaker has the potential to output genuinely good sound, but everything clashes harshly in Moonlight Museum.

From what I've read, the Game Boy Advance entries are a marked improvement. With a greater understanding of the WonderSwan's peculiarities following Namco's other releases on the platform (as well as the later addition of colour) there was considerable potential for Klonoa to be great on WonderSwan. However, he was given no second chance here, effectively using the WonderSwan as he would an enemy, discarding it to reach a higher level.