With the announcement of Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series, fans of the longrunning if often overlooked
series are excited to revisit both Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and its sequel Klonoa 2:
Lunatea’s Veil, on modern games platforms.
Despite enjoying a cult following, the Klonoa series has never been as commercially successful
as other, more widely recognisable cartoon mascots.
Publisher Namco has periodically shelved the series, and yet, Klonoa always seems to find
a way to return.
Perhaps part of the reason why Klonoa has had such a turbulent past is the fact that
the series was deliberately designed to be out of step with popular industry trends of
the time.
The prevailing wisdom among original PlayStation developers was that games should either be
gritty, dark, and aimed at teenagers, or cutesy, colourful, and aimed at younger children.
Klonoa was designed with the intention of doing both.
Said director Hideo Yoshizawa: “The honest truth is that I simply wanted
to make an action game.
When I sat down to think seriously about how to do that, and I looked at the Playstation
market, there weren’t a lot of games that were playable for both children and adults
at the same time.
I wanted to make something that would fill that void.”
He continued: “I think really young children are probably
still playing their Super Famicom or Game Boy.
And the people interested in the Playstation are probably at that age where they’re consciously
trying to act more mature and adult, right?
So we didn’t think it would be a good idea to make Klonoa into something overly childish.
“I also think children aren’t really into things that are too kiddy, or too directly
aimed at children.
We wanted a story that wasn’t consciously ‘aimed at kids’, but would rather be something
that could raise kids up to its level, if that makes sense.”
This, then, led to a game which appears, on the surface, to be colourful and light and
fun – but which has such a bittersweet, melancholy undercurrent.
This wasn’t the only way that the game fought against popular conventions of the time.
With its 2D level design, Klonoa harkened back to an era of game making that most PlayStation
developers were trying to push away from.
Said Yoshizawa: “There were a lot of Playstation games with
3D fields you could freely walk around in, and those games tended to be confusing; players
often don’t know what they’re supposed to do.
That’s why we decided to retain 2D controls, but with a 3D-ish feel.”
By using the PlayStation’s advanced processing power to create lush 3D backdrops to the 2D
action, the developers were able to give Klonoa a unique and engaging feel, even while keeping
the controls simple and familiar.
This was all part of the goal of making the game accessible to children while also aiming
to appeal to older players.
Much of this was done before the Klonoa himself had even been designed.
As such, a competition was held among Namco staff to design the game’s player character,
mimicking the process by which Sega had designed Sonic the Hedgehog almost a decade earlier.
Yoshizawa said: “We invited people from within our development
department for character designs that fit the game’s nature and chose Klonoa.
When our sales team saw the character they asked if he could fly by flapping his overly
large ears.
At first, the development team was opposed to the idea because the game would become
imbalanced.
However, we wanted to respect the opinion of our sales team and compromised by letting
Klonoa float for a few seconds by holding down the jump button.
“ Thus, Klonoa was born, and his first game
proved enjoyable and popular enough to warrant a sequel on the PlayStation 2, as well as
a tennis spin-off and a series of Gameboy Advance titles.
Then, a lull.
From 2002 to 2008, there were no new Klonoa games.
The mascot platformer seemed to have finally died out as a genre.
Then, Klonoa returned again, with a Nintendo Wii remake of Door to Phantomile, his first
game.
According to Yoshizawa, this was intended as a way of testing the water, to see whether
the world was ready for more Klonoa.
It also came about primarily because of the merger between Bandai and Namco.
Said Yoshizawa: “Klonoa is a product that is loved and supported
by many enthusiastic fans.
I still receive many fan letters today.
One of these fans happens to be Mr. Onozawa, vice president of NAMCO BANDAI Games.
He came from Bandai after the two companies merged in 2006 and expressed a desire to bring
back Klonoa.
That was the start of the new project.”
Had things gone differently, this might have been the birth of a new era of Klonoa games.
Unfortunately, by all accounts, this remake sold very poorly, and any plans for follow-up
games were scrapped.
The world still wasn’t quite ready for more Klonoa.
Now, though, after a fourteen year absence (not including Klonoa’s cameos in other
games), the franchise is returning from obscurity once more.
Now, the mascot platformer genre is definitely back in vogue, and this is the perfect moment
for a Klonoa revival.
If Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series sells well, who knows?
We may finally get some new games in the cult favourite series.
The moral of the story is that sometimes it takes time to be fully appreciated.
For all of the developers’ best efforts to buck industry trends, Klonoa was always
just a little too far out of sync with what the gaming public were looking for.
The games felt a little dated and old-fashioned when they were brand new.
Those who enjoyed these games, though, have never forgotten about them.
It’s only now, after several decades of hindsight, that the Klonoa games can be truly
appreciated for their satisfying game design and colourful yet nuanced storytelling.