No words can accurately describe my love for both this game and its outstanding sequel.

The dream like setting and colourful cast of characters pop against the admittedly generic 90s mascot characters that plagued this generation which makes it only the more sad that this game has never really garnered the respect it truly deserves.

When I feel like it I'll update this review with some more fleshed out thoughts but anyone bothering to read this should know that both this game and its sequel are unforgettable experiences that will leave you a changed person by the end.

Klonow? Klone-a? Klonoooooooooooooooooooooooooo-

Oh my god, what a video game! It's so fun and adorable! The cutscenes are stunning for PS1 standards and the art direction and soundtrack are fantastic. Every single aspect of this game is so charming, from the level design, to the world, to the characters, to the story. It's so hard to dislike! And that ending, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF! And people still claim that video games can't be art, huh?

Just play this if, for some reason, you haven't. And if you have already played, just play it again. It's a mastapiece, and it's sad that Klonoa hasn't become a big name in the realm of video games but it's nice to know that there are still people who regard this series as a gem!

Klonoa is a cute-as-heck mascot platformer from the 90s! This game doesn't waste your time, gets straight into what makes it interesting. It's a brisk combination of precision platforming and puzzle platforming, my favorite! The 2D-sprites-made-out-of-3D-models in 3D environments look really great! The environments are real pleasant, and the levels are big and sprawling enough to evoke the scope and maze-like aspects of each area! Klonoa's probably the best "2.5D" platformer I've ever played, because this game, it's hard to describe... There are moments when paths wind and curve, you know? But there are also places where paths branch, and when they branch, each path winds in a different dimension in 3D space! And platforms will take the player forward and backward on planes, and players can interact with the foreground and background. At five hours, I'm a bit sad the game ended so quickly, but I'm really glad that I played it, and glad that I could, in fact, finish it before losing interest. I would highly recommend Klonoa: Door to Phantomile to platformer fans or fans of cute, pleasant games.

Oh my gosh, what an absolute masterpiece. There is not a single thing this game sets out to do that I don't absolutely love.

The gameplay is so incredibly clever. You, as Klonoa, have the ability to inflate your enemies like a balloon and throw them. This is used for clearing enemies but this is also used for really fun puzzles. While they tend to be simple, it's the use of dimensions that make the game so fun. Klonoa is bound by a 2D plane but the environment and what he can interact with is 3D, making this a 2.5D game. What the level design does with this is so imaginative and enjoyable with the ability to make the player think beyond the boundaries of a sidescroller. Klonoa himself is also enjoyable to play as. Having an enemy picked up will grant you another jump which in later levels you'll have to chain with multiple enemies in the air. The enemy pick up mechanic makes boss fights pretty engaging with some of them even using the double jump to hit your foes. It's a flawless gameplay formula that can be easily built upon like Lunatea's Veil's diversity and the handhelds' emphasis on puzzles, although this is only a review for Door to Phantomile. The game can be finished in one or two sittings, so it never really overstays its welcome either even if I wish I could play more and more of this.

The aesthetics and music are both wonderful. Every environment is distinct and beautiful with an accompanying soundtrack of tons of memorable songs. The aesthetics are very PS1 but they don't feel dated at all. The graphics all look distinct, charming, and very good ranging from the sprites of most characters to the polygonal environments to the stellar CG cutscenes that still hold up to this day. There's not one environment that doesn't look beautiful. The soundtrack is astounding too and I listen to it often. One of my favorite songs if not my favorite song in general is from this soundtrack, "Untamed Heart." The melancholic yet peaceful vibe of the song speaks to me and the way it uses a past motif found in "The Windmill Song," a very happy Level 1 theme, in a somber way reflects upon the series' themes of grief and depression.

Speaking of, the writing for this game is so intelligent yet charming. It starts with a lighthearted romp that turns into a message about mourning that never loses its edge or feels like it never turns into anything else. This game genuinely made me cry multiple times, it's so so good. I don't want to spoil anything but it genuinely feels like I'm playing through a wonderful animated film that tells its story that can hit children as hard as adults. It serves as a wonderful build-up to Lunatea's Veil which takes the themes of Door to Phantomile and builds off of them even more, although this is still only a review for one game. This game is also pretty funny when it wants to be such as the side villain Joka's antics, although the game drops its light-heartedness directly when he starts getting serious as an actual threat. Klonoa is a charming and likable protagonist that drives the story in ways I never feel bored of. He's a bit simple of a character but it's his childish and honest nature that makes the events around him carry so much more weight.

This is a game I wish I could play for the first time for people. This is a game I aggressively recommend to people even if I have to show myself play the game. I wish this had a rerelease, but at the time of review the series has been left collecting dust for more than a decade. If you give this game a chance, you will not be disappointed.

Klonoa is a game that maybe not everyone has played, but everyone has certainly heard of, and it might be hard to see why at first.

The gameplay premise of this 2D platformer is actually very simple: you pick up enemies and you either throw them in various directions (and dimensions) and/or double jump with them. Outside of this move and jumping there isn't much going on, but if Klonoa proves anything is that platformers are mostly made on their level design rather than base moveset.

Klonoa is a game that makes everything of its pretty short length (12 levels in total): every level has some sort of theme, whether it impacts the gameplay or just the visuals, to make them distinct from one another, without ever moving away from the core mechanics, but in fact gradually asking more and more out of the player. Not having any sort of gimmick stage is pretty impressive for a 1997 platformer, coming from an era where everybody was doing something gimmicky for variety (padding)'s sake, which shows how confident the developers were in their core gameplay.

The main and only real problem with the game is that it feels like it could've done a lot more. For about half the game it feels like the training wheels are still on, which is a shame because the last 4 levels or so really show how fun Klonoa can be with more complex enemies, layouts and puzzles. You'll be surprised at how much leverage the designers get out of such a simple idea.

Despite that, playing Klonoa is definitely a pleasant experience. It's nothing necessarily groundbreaking (nor do I think it wanted to be), but the combination of the well utilized main mechanic and weird dream-like atmosphere will definitely make an impression. And if that doesn't, the really bizarre ending might.