“Klonoa… It’s time for you to go home, back to your Phantomile.”

My first experience with Klonoa was just about 2 months ago, right at the end of January. I knew next to nothing about this little guy and the extremely niche series that he hailed from, but what sparked my interest in these games was the profound and impactful impression that they left on people when I stumbled across its review page on this platform. Luckily for me when I was checking out my local game store, a copy of the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie series was sitting on the shelf and I instantly purchased it.

What appears as a simple, colorful mascot platformer at first glance, turns out to be so much more. Halfway through the game, Klonoa experiences pure rage and sadness in a turn of events that completely threw me off guard. It was this moment that made me realize what everyone had been talking about and why this game was so special. Door to Phantomile isn’t just a cheerful game with a cute mascot catered to children, it hides a much darker and deeper meaning beneath its shallow facade of innocence. I continued onward and found myself becoming attached to Klonoa and Huepow, two characters that I had literally just been introduced to only a couple of hours prior, and in no time I had defeated the final boss. I felt satisfied and glad to have witnessed Klonoa and Huepow’s teamwork and friendship triumph over Ghadius’ vile intentions to enshroud the world in an endless nightmare. Everything was wrapping up happily and was very wholesome… until the final scene of the game played out.

Even after experiencing Door to Phantomile twice (initial Phantasy Reverie playthrough, and a replay of the original PS1 version), I still find it hard to put into words how the ending makes me feel. One thing is for certain, it’s genuinely one of the saddest video game endings I’ve ever experienced.
No punches are pulled when the truth of Klonoa’s existence comes out from who he assumes is his long time best friend. A revelation so shocking and yet so heartbreaking all thanks to the masterful use of music, phantomilian voices/dialogue, and of course the expressive sprite work. The conclusion of Door to Phantomile stunned me, and I couldn’t shake the emotions I had towards its ending for days… and weeks… and at this point a month had passed, a time frame in which I usually would have moved on to the next game in my backlog and forgotten about the previous games I had played.

But Klonoa isn’t just the “usual” game. I was constantly listening to the soundtrack, reading how it impacted other people’s lives, and thinking about it all the time. I would get lost in thought over this game to the point that I would ponder my own life, dreams, and purpose. It sounds silly, but I had to experience this game again. So fast forward two months from my initial completion of Door to Phantomile’s Phantasy Reverie remaster, I bit the bullet and secured myself a copy of the original game for the PS1.

The original version of Door to Phantomile is undeniably the best way to play the game. Graphically, it is absolutely beautiful, delivering a presentation of vibrant 3D environments, with characters and enemies appearing as 2D prerendered sprites. This style works so well with the game and completely outclasses the all 3D look that the remaster has. Not only does the gameplay look better, but the FMV cutscenes throughout the game are gorgeous and show so much more emotion and drama than what is shown in the remaster.

The childlike whimsy and dreamy aesthetic of Door to Phantomile oozes with so much charm, I truly can’t get enough. The theme of dreams and where they go once you wake up is delivered even better when you realize that as the game goes on, the environments and music begin to change, reflecting the atmosphere and tension of what is occurring during Klonoa and Huepow’s adventure. The opening stage throws the player right into a breezy and uplifting windmill village stage, the accompanying music consisting of woodwinds, acoustics, and stringed instruments. But during the last stages of the game, the music has completely transformed from natural melodies to something far more artificial, electronic, and otherworldly.

I could talk about how absolutely brilliant the soundtrack is for this game, but I want to move on to the gameplay aspects. Klonoa is a 2.5D platformer that, while mostly linear, does have branching paths and optional areas to explore in every level. The main gameplay gimmick is that Klonoa can use his wind ring to grab enemies a short distance from him, inflate them like a ball, and use them as a projectile or jump off of them for a second mid-air jump. This mechanic paired with the 3D environments leads to some pretty creative puzzles, such as throwing an enemy into the foreground or background to obtain a collectible, or inflate and jump off of multiple mid-air enemies to gain a ton of height whether it be to reach a high ledge, or to avoid falling into an endless abyss or pit of lava. For a game that only uses four buttons (left, right, jump, and shoot), Klonoa somehow manages to only get more interesting and ramp up the difficulty with super fun level designs and a large variety of enemy types. While most of the enemies are mindless drones that can easily be inflated, some of them can be very annoying to deal with in those late game levels.

Where the gameplay of Klonoa really shines however is in its boss fights. Every single one progressively gets more challenging, the music absolutely slaps, and they feel completely unique despite the objective always being to grab and throw enemies at the boss’s weak point. The late game bosses in particular can be pretty difficult and they have multiple phases in which different strategies need to be utilized. Overall the difficulty curve is pretty steady and goes from being a super easy platformer to a test of mastery and precision of the game’s mechanics.

What makes Klonoa standout amongst its competitors and the droves of other mascot platformers however, is its story. Door to Phantomile tells a tale deeply personal to so many people, including myself. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that this would be the game that touched my heart and reminded me that it’s okay to cry, even when it’s something as simple as a videogame about a little rabbit cat creature jumping around inflating his foes. For a 3-4 hour long experience, I was fully immersed into this world and its characters to the same degree that I would be with a 40+ hour long videogame. Door to Phantomile expertly combines music, dialogue, and sprite work to express emotion in a way that few games can even hope to achieve, and I genuinely consider this game to be a masterpiece. It tackles the idea of dreams in a manner that is freakishly relatable to experiences I have had with them, such as the perfect reality or absolute bliss, only for it all to be stripped away because you’re waking up. It’s a concept so beautiful and yet so harsh, realizing that when you do wake up, you can barely even remember what it was you dreamt. Imagine the friends you made, the memories you shared, and your life as you knew it all being a fabricated lie. It is with this dread that Klonoa’s tale comes to a close.

“It's strange... Sometimes I can't remember my dreams, though I'm sure I saw them. Where do these dreams go? But I remember this one dream, as clearly as if it were reflected in a mirror...”

I think it's pretty obvious the writers of this game were inspired by the Persona stories. And while I dont think it comes close to those... for what it is I did like the story and characters for the most part... There were characters I hated for most of the game like Asahi and Toki but then there were the best boys Gaston and Hallelujah. The character development could have used more screen time however they probably didnt want too many cutscenes as SMT tends to be more gameplay focused over Persona. Overall I liked the cast and how varied they were in their backgrounds and personalities but it could've been better. Hearing Asahi and Toki fight to simp over the main character was just so cringe, I dont really like how Toki went from a badass child assassin to... whatever she ended up becoming. I loved Dadga, he's really cool and I love the philosophy he holds in contrast with the "power of friendship" theme the group cast had. I also think all the background lore and how it's expanded from 4 is really sick even if I didnt understand all of it. The story was definitely mixed at times but it had enough stand out moments for me to consider it better than most game stories. And I really did love the ending, it felt satisfying after the climax of fighting Yhvh with Flynn and the original cast from SMT 4. It wrapped everything up perfectly and it was just so sweet seeing a happy ending. Gameplay was about as good as 4 it's just a bit easier, but smirking feels less random and the addition of proper partners that feels like a proper mechanic you have to account for and not just a random annoyance like in 4 certainly makes the battle system to me better. The only problem with the gameplay is the final 2 dungeons which drag on for way too long... other than that though it was great.

Finally dusted off my Wii U to play this. Wanted to finish the last Xenoblade game I've yet to play. And overall, I had a pretty great time. It has its issues, the side quests are as bad as always with not much meaningful or interesting story content to be gleamed with annoying dialogue I always skip. And the game does a poor job encouraging trying other characters due to lack of XP share and small gains with class XP for your main character. But the base combat system is awesome, overdrive is amazing once you master it. Just play as Elma the entire game and you are in for a fun time. The open world is great, the probes encourage wide exploration and the 5 unique zones feel pretty dense and varied. Story was a tad forgettable but not bad, it had characters I liked like Elma and the ending was certainly intriguing. I hope it gets a followup and a rerelease on Switch.

This update has a lot of people heated but honestly I enjoyed it a ton. For the most part I loved how hard it was, after years of easy as piss Sonic games I finally had the challenge I've been missing since Sonic Unleashed's DLC stages. The playable characters were super fun and unique besides Knuckles. He was alright but his gliding was sucky. He got his 06 moveset back lol. But I loved Amy and Tails, especially Amy who I might prefer playing over Sonic honestly. The story didnt blow my mind or anything until the final boss. When that cutscene played I felt like I was a kid again playing the Unleashed final boss for the first time, that shit was magical. While it has a lot of jank at times and sometimes didnt even feel playtested, this was some of the most fun I've had all year. I really hope they patch this so more people can enjoy it as much as me.

The good: Story, cast, gunplay, worlds, space combat, immense sense of freedom

The bad: Space feels like a glorified level select screen, no flying from planet to planet, no spacewalks, no taking off from planet to space, npcs are dumb

Great game overall can’t wait for the dlc next year and future titles in this franchise. I expect many of my issues to be inevitably fixed in a sequel. Would recommend to anybody who is subscribed to gamepass!

Despite being an inconsistent experience from start to finish it is an experience worth playing and has gameplay systems that are both innovative and genre defining. I just wish the the Sky Islands, Depths and Caves were actually good along with the temples. And I wished they fixed the healing system. This was definetly not worth the wait at all, as it didnt change enough along with having compromises that shouldnt exist for a wait this long, but I still had a load of fun and I dont regret playing this at all. The abilities and shrines are peak, the physics system is fun to mess around with and exploit. It was a blast overall! Especially the final boss. Thats how you do a final boss Nintendo.

This game was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, especially since I really enjoyed SMRPG and thus I held Paper Mario to high expectations.

The partner system was a neat feature that differentiates the game from SMRPG in a great way, and it’s loads of fun swapping between the different party members you meet along the way to help solve puzzles in the world or utilize properly in battles. I was very glad to see the button timing mechanics brought back as well which generally makes battles far more enjoyable than standard pick your move and watch the character perform it.

The story was charming and the style of everything was cute but I was expecting a bit more “paper” to be prevalent in the game (Super Paper Mario does a good job at this with being able to flip the camera around). Aside from the stylistic choice of making all the character models flat, there aren’t really any creative liberties I noticed that took advantage of the paper aesthetic aside from some character/enemy animations. Either way the game still looked and played great, and it’s proof that simplicity in a game works.

While I still think SMRPG is the slightly better game, Paper Mario is a wonderful successor that pleased me once again with Mario’s dive into the RPG genre.