Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

The first of two games in the Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie remake, This is a fun, windy 2.5D platformer with light puzzle elements.

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So, what's Klonoa?

I'd frequently seen mention of the Klonoa games before, usually in context of it being a highly sought-after cult classic for playstation collectors. With the gamepass, it was on there in the form of a remake, so I figured I'd give it a shot! I'm glad I did, because what I got was a fun, short adventure with an interesting mechanic for dealing with enemies. You inflate them, and then can use them to throw as a projectile or use as a double jump. Much of the game's puzzles revolve around finding the right order to use enemies in, and for the most part they were fun and simple puzzles. The game is kind of collectathon-y, with two types of objects hidden in each level: 6 tokens and 150 gems. I didn't go for full completion but I did get almost all of the tokens. They were usually just a little extra challenge, I'm sure you're familiar. The game took me just a few hours to complete, short and sweet.

Things I liked

The enemies-as-tools gameplay was really cool, and I loved the way the paths in the game winded in and around on themselves. I was rarely confused, and I think the 2.5D really helped achieve the whimsical effect they were going for. For quality of life features, I'm very greatful for the easy mode (the game makes you reset the level if you lose all your lives. Honestly this is a waste of time and I simply didn't feel like doing that. It's an outdated kind of game design and I don't think I should have to replay levels over and over and over again due to an unforgiving system.) and for the button that lets you skip or fast-forward cutscenes.

Things I didn't like

There's a crazy difficulty spike in this game-that is, if you don't have unlimited lives. I think I would have been messing with the last two worlds for hooouuuurrrsss if I didn't enable unlimited lives. I do wish the difficulty was more adaptable because while I definitely DID need unlimited lives, I didn't really need the massive hp boost that made the game feel a little too easy.

Verdict

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon at all! If you get the chance I think you should play it, but I'm not sure if the 40 dollar asking price for the pair of games is worth it. Maybe the second one will be mindblowing, but for now I'd advise you to wait for a sale.

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