Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile is a fairly breezy game. It took me a while to warm up to it, but after a couple levels I was on board. The style of the game is beautiful, personally I prefer it to any of the later remakes. The 2D sprites look great, and the environments are simple but very evocative when combined with the competent score. It's a game that just feels great to play.

Klonoa really only has one main mechanic, you can grab enemies and use them to double jump or as a projectile. Combine this with a sort of fly/float you can do to maintain height in a jump for a few seconds and that's pretty much all your options. The game explores these mechanics very thoroughly, and whie the difficulty ramps up toward the end I never really found it too difficult even in the bonus level.

For me, the length was about perfect. When credits rolled I was satisfied, and surprisingly even quite invested in story, world and characters. Looking forward to playing the sequel!

Oh my god.

Easily one of the greatest narrratives and works of art of all time, and its a shame that it has gotten so unappreciated after all of these years. I'm a sucker for subverting the audience, and I think that this narrative pulls it off flawlessly. There's a reason why I've obsessed over this franchise for five years, and while I don't want to give it away, all I can say is that you just need to play the game to get to that point.

also the game is pretty good too.

Klonoa is one of those games that just has a really strong concept that most of its gameplay focuses around. You can pick up monsters and hold them over your head, which lets you double jump off them, throw them, and do a couple other things. This is really the only mechanic besides a single jump and a particularly wimpy float, but the game makes it work very well. It's a 2.5D platformer and showcases a much better idea of what to do with the genre than most others (Sorry, Kirby 64): levels twist and turn around each other, even dropping you off on different paths at certain points, attacks come and can be sent forward and back, which means there's a lot more potential than "normal" sidescrolling, and I think Klonoa lives up to it fairly well.

What I could do without is the lives system- granted I'm generally not a fan of the concept and its ubiquity in older games, but I think Klonoa could really have used to ditch it. It's going for a Kirby-esque more relaxed feel I think, and that doesn't really work when in the back of my mind there's always the nagging reminder that 1) If get a game over I'll have to do this really long level again 2) If I die too much the odds of that happening in the next level are higher. It's anxiety-inducing and doesn't really belong IMO, especially when the game itself is not that hard, but does feature some kinda mean jumps, and some slightly finicky mechanics regarding the hover.

On a more positive note, I think the bosses are great. Similarly to the levels, some of them drag on a bit, but there's a lot of creativity at play here. To close things off, I'd like to praise the atmosphere- I'm not sure if I really get the "dream" feel from the relatively restrained concepts (I could see most of them belonging in most other platformers- while I sure couldn't imagine NiGHTS' Soft Museum being in any other type of setting), but between the music and the visuals (man I wish there were more games with this style), they're quite great still. Finally, a shoutout to the hilariously ballsy direction the story chooses to go, I respect the shit out of that.

After finishing Silent Hill four times in a row I wanted something cuter to cleanse my palate a bit, and did this fully deliver!

The entire world Klonoa was intentionally made to look like a children's fantasy storybook, something that you whould read a kid before sleep to have sweet dreams, this is not only one of the prettiest PS1 games I've seen, but it might be the one with the strongest art direction. Everything from the colors, character and level design, even the way characters talk in cutesy gibberish during cutscenes, but some things like names are clearly heard, like we're listening to some fantasy language, it all oozes that childlike joy that I also relate a lot to some artistic trends from Japan during the late 90's (specifically the movie Catnapped or Little Nemo) and that I also consider very pretty and nostalgic.

I wasn't expecting the game to be a bit sad at times. Of course it is still within what you'll expect from a fairytale where our hero or their world must go through some hardship, it was a surprising touch that added a bit more to what is a simple yet very enjoyable story if you still remember those old childhood fables.

Gameplay is simple, but it takes advantage to every avaliable action that can be performed into a 2.5D space to the max. Making the player able to see platforms on a different plane that you can later explore gives a great sense of depth to the levels, moreso in the cases when we can interact with them by throwing enemies (quick detail here that I forgot to mention, the enemies on their ball forms are adorable, every single one could make great plushies) or just to keep the space consistent. Even the lackluster glide Klonoa does makes all the difference in some late game jumping distance.

A small detail that I notice is that besides map modeling, only the bosses are fully 3D modeled, I don't know if it's just me but I think it may be a way to convey how otherworldy and different these enemies are now that they are influenced by the power of nightmares, Ghadius being in that state constantly adds a bit to his presence...

Overall a very cute and worthwile experience (even if a bit short compared to other platformers), with fantastic visuals, cute and heartfelt vibes, and great music.