This is not a review of Knuckles Chaotix. I’ve never played that game and most likely never will. I’m using this page to talk about a game tangentially related to the 32x classic, but not deemed relevant enough to have a page on IGDB, and therefore here. A game that, even if on a subconscious level, ever since my younger years, shaped my feelings for video games and cemented them as an integral part of my life. I’m talking about Chaotix Universe, made in Macromedia Fusion 1.2, and released by Alexandre Martins or “lex” around 2002.

After many, many years, maybe two decades, I’ve reconnected with this game through an archive.org download, and immediately after that went searching for whatever information about it that I could find. The most I could get is that lex was a relatively prolific Sonic fangame creator in the early aughts, creating titles such as Sonic Universe 1 & 2 and Neo Sonic Universe, as well as the relatively more well-known Open Sonic as far back as 2009, and recently released the also open-source Open Surge, featuring his original character Surge the Rabbit. And among those was Chaotix Universe. Even in the fangame community, this is a pretty forgotten game, it’s absolutely no Before/After the Sequel or Robo Blast 2, and even in the flash game scene of the time there are games still frequently remembered fondly such as Ultimate Flash Sonic and the Final Fantasy Sonic X games.

The reason why I’m spending time running my fingers through my keyboard is to just put it out there how much this game, and non-profit fangames as a whole mean to me and countless others who frequently played games on theirs on their family’s personal computers. If I ever were to do one of those “formative games” lists people seem to be doing around here, i wouldn’t be able to include this one, and that doesn’t seem right. Playing through this game again, though, after 20 years and hundreds of games of experience behind me, I can see it’s obviously very rough around the edges; the movement and jump physics are weird, the stage designs are all over the place and can mostly be skipped by abusing Knuckles’ wall climb and glitching through platforms to the end. Even for a fangame, it’s absolutely nothing remarkable, I’m sure lex has other more polished titles under his belt for being in the game for so many years, but this is the one that came to me on a Digerati disc bought on a newsstand when I was still learning to read (so it was redistributed for profit after all, sorry lex).

The thing is that, besides the amateurish design, this blew my little mind back then. When you’re a kid and have absolutely no biases, muscle memory or knowledge associated with video games, why would you care if the jumps aren’t intuitive, or if the animations aren’t quite right, or if the levels are all basically sets of floors of flying platforms? What really matters are the beautiful, colorful sprites, the cool character designs in team Chaotix and the enemies, the incredible songs that all remained in my head 20 years later, the overall feel of adventure from the stage variety, all ripped from various Sonic games into one package. When it came to it, even if at the time there were more polished adventures for me to play, such as DKC on my sister’s SNES or later PS1 games when my aunt got me one, what drove me to this is a little magical thing called passion.

That sort of unadulterated passion is why stuff like the fangames, romhacks, mods, itch.io, gamejolt and newgrounds scenes were, and still are so exciting. It’s gaming at its most expressive; taking this game for example, through every choice made in it, shines pure admiration for the Sonic franchise and platformers as a whole, a purity only truer when doing it as a sole labor of love, without any pretensions aside from making something cool with the characters and world you enjoy and sharing it to the world. Meaning, those choices quietly reveal a little bit of the creator’s thought process and personality to the world. I guess that reminding myself of this game made me realize how much, at the end of the day, putting out something you care about and made with love is all it takes to touch someone out there. That sort of passion is, and always will be captivating for people of all ages. In my case, it led me to play hundreds of other games thereafter and even considering taking it on to create some myself. We’ll see what the future holds!

they gave Klonoa a hoverboard, don't try to convince me that this game isn't epic

Klonoa 1 always had this nostalgia feeling to me even though I didn't actually play it until last night, the sequel on the other hand was pretty much unknown to me, good thing I decided to change that

compared to the first game, Klonoa 2 has a more traditional "save the kingdom" plot this time around. Klonoa's been summoned to Lunatea to retrieve the Elements from each of Lunatea's four kingdoms and is assisted by Lolo, a priestess in training that powers his Wind Ring, and Popka, some goofy dog thing that tags around and lends the two assistance. along the way, they're up against Leorina the sky pirate and Tat, who are also after the Elements so they can save the kingdoms on their own terms. like with the first game, the lighthearted tone becomes more serious as the story nears its end, though it's a little bit more toned down compared to Door of Phantomile. Klonoa in particular is a bit older and more confident this time around as he's already gone through his character development after the first game so now he's the one keeping everyone's spirits high. Klonoa 2 once again delivers a wonderful story that will probably stick with you.

the gameplay's very identical to the previous game, it's more Klonoa! pick up enemies, toss them at things, get a jumping boost with them, and you can still toss them right at the screen, they remembered the most important feature! a new additional however is the hoverboard levels which you'll have to do ever once in a while, one of which has its own boss battle. the developers knew what they were doing since the hoverboard levels are actually fun to play. you might die a few times on the later ones but they never go into full frustration mode, Mega Man X developers you better take notes. the sidescrolling levels also introduce some new enemies such as Boomies that can explode certain blocks, Likuries that absorb enemies and destroy crystal barricades, Erbils that give Klonoa a long electrified jump, and Kitons that let Klonoa fly briefly, all of these new additions bring new challenges to overcome in these puzzle solving levels. the game gets more challenging later on, sooner than the first game did, and with the much longer levels here you'll probably lose lives a bit along the way, but the game isn't afraid to give up pity lives when you start sucking a little too much so it's your choice to grab them if you choose to do so.

Klonoa 1's spritework was kino, but Klonoa 2 looks excellent as well, it's very impressive for an early PS2 game. now I'm not going to say that the Phantasy Reverie style looks bad, but it just doesn't do the original art style justice. the thick outlines are gone, everything's really bright including the darker levels, the text boxes and fonts are more simplified and generic, the remake looks too squeaky clean and has dare I say, a 3D mobile game aesthetic. something about those original PS2 visuals just hit the perfect spot, they give off the dreamlike atmosphere the series is going for much more accurately. the soundtrack is just as good as the first game, and maybe even better, I mean there's an entire music track that's just Klonoa singing gibberish. it's not even during the final boss like Sonic Adventure or Super Mario Odyssey, the song's in some random hoverboard level, it comes out of nowhere and I love it. go listen to Klonoa music if you want to have a chill time.

last time I asked for a higher difficulty and more things to do with the gameplay and Klonoa 2 delivers, another WAHOO out of 10! interestingly though, I still kinda prefer Klonoa 1 even after all that, only very slightly though as I kinda have a bias for Klonoa 1's 2.5D style and endgame. as a game Klonoa 2 is a better version of Klonoa 1 and I'd highly recommend people to play these two games. the originals, via Phantasy Reverie, it doesn't matter, just play them please. Klonoa may be a dream traveler, but don't let him disappear like a forgotten dream.

peak music btw