Took me a while to check this game out. But I finally gave it a try. Not a very long try, but long enough to finish the game.

A remake for a forgotten PS1 game that, from what I had heard before, wasn’t too bad? Not a bad idea. My only experience with Klonoa before this was the GBA game, which was pretty good.

So yeah, this will be a short review for a short game.

Developer: Paon Corporation
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Date of Release: May 5 2009
Platform: Nintendo Wii

Genre: Platformer
Players: 1

Looks and Sounds
The game has a cartoony graphic style. The character design is incredibly simple. The normal characters range from fun-looking like Klonoa to creatures that look like him but older and fatter, to tiny weird looking guys with comedically small clothes/equipment, to weird mouthless guys living in trees with nothing but leaves around their waists. Nothing overly incredible but there is some variety. Enemies are mostly Kirby-like blobs, with different colors. There’s some exceptions, and the boss designs are mostly different as well. Enemy design could’ve done a bit better, but overall not too bad.
Level design is quite good here though. Sure, it gets repetitive relatively fast, but the inclusion of foreground and background elements that you can interact with is great, and sometimes the sheer amount of things going on on the screen is  huge, and despite the Wii’s “low” power there’s never any slowdown.

The sound design is basic stuff. The normal sounds like using wind bullets and throwing things are fine, and never become annoying. The music is a bit on the childish side but fits the tone of the game. The voice acting ranges from not too bad (Klonoa) to irritating (everyone else).

Story
I can’t REALLY talk about this much, because after about 3 cutscenes I stopped watching them. They’re boring, the story is completely uninteresting and the characters are boring.  The story is basic fare. Princess gets kidnapped. You must go to a floating fortress to save the princess… That’s it. And the ending is quite stupid as well. Nothing more to say here.

Gameplay
The controls are as basic as they come. You hold the Wiimote on its side. The 1 button jumps, the 2 button attacks and the d-pad makes you move. Holding the 1 button makes you glide for a really short while.
Klonoa’s attack method is rather unique, though it does share similarities to Kirby. Instead of being an actual attack, the Wind Bullet captures enemies, and then you can keep holding them and do what you want with them. You can throw them, in front of you or, more interestingly, in the foreground/background for puzzle solving or taking out enemies that are back there. Also, when holding an enemy, you can press the jump button in the air to do a sort of double jump(and this throws the enemy to the ground). What’s fun with this is that you can have as many extra jumps as you want, as long as you capture enemies(a bit tougher in midair, but after a little practivce it’s fine) you always have extra jumps. Also, some enemies can’t be captured, or require to get touched by the Wind Bullet in a certain direction to be captured. And some have armors protecting them which you have to destroy if you want to capture them. Finally, some enemies have special effects when they’re grabbed, such as propelling you vertically or getting a timer to explode.

Puzzle solving is a big part of the game. Each level has a gimmick of some sort, unless it’s just plain platforming. Some puzzles require interacting properly with the background and foreground. Sometimes switches are in the background, or big enemies need to be killed from afar. Sometimes switches need to be hit in order, or as fast as possible. There’s quite a bit of good puzzles, though they’re rarely hard to figure out.

Finally there’s boss battles. They’re all fought out in circular arenas(other than one boss). Basically, once you find a boss’ weak point, you’ll never get hit again and you’ll have no trouble fighting them. They DO have some changes in pattern, but they’re quite easy to figure out. Overall though the boss battles are entertaining, if not a bit too easy.

The gameplay here doesn’t break any set pieces of the platforming genre, but it does have some really interesting elements. I especially like the background/foreground element. It’s a bit lacking challenge-wise, and it’s a bit repetitive, but it’s still pretty fun.

Overall
This is a rental, at most. If you insist on buying it, check the Save Factor.

It’s not a bad game, but it took me 2 and a half hours to beat(by skipping all the cutscenes), and it was my first time playing it. There’s rarely much challenge… some stages do have some tough moments (and the extra wii-exclusive stage requires some very precise jumping), and one of the bosses starts a bit rough. But otherwise it’s quite easy.

If you’re a completist there’s a bit more in it for you, since the stages have branching paths to find collectibles and such, but it shouldn’t be very loong to complete either.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- Fun platforming
- Fun to pick up and play
-Interesting gameplay elements such as being able to interact with the foreground/background

Cons
- Lame Story
- Very Short(2 and a half hours to complete the game, though that included some cut-scene skipping)
- Almost no replayability

The Save Factor
With a starting price of $30, the Save Factor for Klonoa is:

$10

jobocan Console, Review, wii