[Only Door to Phantomile!]
I actually own the original PS1 Door to Phantomile, but I've never played past the first two visions (what the game calls its stages for some reason), and pure convenience (mainly my PS3 not reading discs particularly well and the controller also not being completely reliable anymore) led me to now play this remake instead.
And, you know, it's a fine remake. It looks a bit cheap and the cutscenes lose a lot of power when using in-game graphics rather than just reusing and upscaling the very charming FMVs of the original game, but at least the absolutely fantastic soundtrack and charming, gibberish voice lines haven't been touched at all. The core gameplay of Door to Phantomile also feels basically just like I remebered it, which is to say that it's good. Nothing remarkable to be honest and the game does play basically the same from the first stage to the last, though the difficulty curve feels does amp up at a good pace and the game's short enough that its fairly few gameplay ideas never really grow stale. The 2.5D also still looks great, which does suddenly make me wonder why basically no platformer released after Klonoa tried a similar approach with it's stages that wrap themselves?
Anyway, it's a fine platformer, though there are certainly better playing ones with more interesting mechanics than just jumping around and throwing inflated enemies. Surprisingly, the biggest strength of Door to Phantomile lies in its writing. It's deceptively simple and starts out like the most generic platformer you could ever imagine, but gets progressively more interesting throughout the game, and manages to have some surprisingly though provoking moments and dialogue that will stick with me for quite som time, plus the unbelievably sad ending that I had somehow not spoiled myself on before playing the game. I didn't cry over it or anything, but it certainly made me feel some type of emotion, and isn't that all we want from our games, truly?
I actually own the original PS1 Door to Phantomile, but I've never played past the first two visions (what the game calls its stages for some reason), and pure convenience (mainly my PS3 not reading discs particularly well and the controller also not being completely reliable anymore) led me to now play this remake instead.
And, you know, it's a fine remake. It looks a bit cheap and the cutscenes lose a lot of power when using in-game graphics rather than just reusing and upscaling the very charming FMVs of the original game, but at least the absolutely fantastic soundtrack and charming, gibberish voice lines haven't been touched at all. The core gameplay of Door to Phantomile also feels basically just like I remebered it, which is to say that it's good. Nothing remarkable to be honest and the game does play basically the same from the first stage to the last, though the difficulty curve feels does amp up at a good pace and the game's short enough that its fairly few gameplay ideas never really grow stale. The 2.5D also still looks great, which does suddenly make me wonder why basically no platformer released after Klonoa tried a similar approach with it's stages that wrap themselves?
Anyway, it's a fine platformer, though there are certainly better playing ones with more interesting mechanics than just jumping around and throwing inflated enemies. Surprisingly, the biggest strength of Door to Phantomile lies in its writing. It's deceptively simple and starts out like the most generic platformer you could ever imagine, but gets progressively more interesting throughout the game, and manages to have some surprisingly though provoking moments and dialogue that will stick with me for quite som time, plus the unbelievably sad ending that I had somehow not spoiled myself on before playing the game. I didn't cry over it or anything, but it certainly made me feel some type of emotion, and isn't that all we want from our games, truly?