This game upsets me. I wasn’t expecting to like it, and I won’t pretend like that wasn’t the case. Even so, I still had hope that I would see value in it. I looked everywhere, and found almost nothing to appreciate. The game was everything I feared it would be; pointless, disrespectful, inconsistent, and soulless. There are a few bright spots that shine through the cracks, but on the whole this entire product comes across as a desperate cashgrab that banks off of the steadily growing cult audience around a fan-favorite series. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series exemplifies everything wrong with computer game remakes. Because of that, and the insulting pricing and technical issues I experienced, this is one of my most hated video games… ever. I hardly even know how to talk about it because of how baffling the whole experience was. Might as well start from the top...

For those not in the loop, this is a compilation remake of the two main Klonoa games, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, which are puzzle platformers released in 1997 for the PlayStation and 2001 for the PlayStation 2 respectively. The former had already received a full emake for the Wii in 2008, renamed to simply Klonoa outside of Japan. This new Phantasy Reverie Series’s iteration of Door to Phantomile is based off of the Wii version. New changes include new bloom lighting, likely made to address complaints of the Wii version being desaturated, new character models that attempt to more closely replicate that of the original PlayStation version, higher-resolution texturework, and the removal of the Wii version’s English voice acting in favor of the original voices. The rest of this review will be assuming that you are fairly familiar with these games already, though I will avoid full-on spoilers. I will only compare this new remake to the original versions, as they are the only ones that are relevant.

The complete overhaul of the visuals of Door to Phantomile from the original demonstrates a complete misunderstanding as to how the original was designed. It’s the developers thinking that “making it all super duper detailed 3D” means that the games look better. Video games’ inherent reliance on technology has resulted in the change from low-poly 3D to detailed HD graphics for remakes like this to be interpreted as an upgrade simply because it is, by definition, technically better. Of course, this doesn’t take into account that everything about the original was made to be displayed at a specific resolution for specific displays. But, it is technically “better.” Moviegoers seem to understand that a new movie with digital cameras isn’t overtly better than an old movie shot on film, because, believe it or not, that doesn’t actually matter. What’s important is what the artists are able to do with what they are designing for. I personally don’t think I should have to explain this, but video gamers don’t seem to understand this. Sorry to break it to you, the Shadow of the Colossus remake is no different than the Lion King remake. These aren’t passionate reinventions of classic games, they are cynical cashgrabs conceived by studios to capitalize off of existing fans. Of course, this would be absolutely fine if they were accurate representations of their original iterations. Unfortunately they aren’t. Oh well.

The geniuses behind this remake thought “the old game had sprites for characters so we need to change them to models because expensive modern games use 3D models. That will make the game better because this isn’t what the old version would do.” I would argue that this is a cynical ploy of making a game look more technically advanced and modern instead of accurately representing the original intention of the game, though a more charitable view would be that the developers of the remakes saw new creative opportunities that could be brought to fruition by implementing 3D models. Unfortunately, this remake fails to follow-up on the possibilities of this change. The game tries to recreate every scene and animation basically beat-for-beat with the models, and as such fails to accurately represent what the original was doing AND it fails to provide a substantially different interpretation. The artists’ thought that doing the same thing as the original but NEWER and SHINIER and MORE EXPENSIVE would work. It doesn’t. This is exemplary of every other decision made in the remaking process for both Door to Phantomile and Lunatea’s Veil; they try to update their original incarnations without understanding why the decisions that made those games what they are were made. Take the walk cycle, for example. Instead of using the one from Klonoa 2, the Door to Phantomile remake utilizes a new one that is more similar to the walk cycle in the original. It looks… wwrrrooonnnngggg. The developers thought that they could replicate what the original accomplished by simply implementing the original thing in a new context, which does not work. At all. A sprite can animate like that, a 3D model can’t. Everything in these remakes is like this. A pivotal scene at the end of Vision 4-2 in the first game was phenomenal in the original. This new version is just cheap and lame, and knowing that this is what some people will think the game was like in the first place is embarrassing.

Klonoa 2 isn’t a complete overhaul in the collection like the first game is, but it still makes many changes. Too many. Way too many. I don’t understand what was so wrong with the visuals in the original version that they had to change so much. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY would have complained if they simply updated the original texturework for modern displays, slightly edited the 2D elements for widescreen, and bob’s your uncle. Garish bloom lighting, baffling texture changes that don’t feel like they’re even based on the original, additional foliage and background details, etc. What confuses me the most about all of this is the thought process behind it, what it’s meant to achieve. Ultimately, the visual style is still trying to simply be the original, while disingenuously parading around as more technically advanced than the original was. Because of this, it meets an in-between that doesn’t satisfy those looking for a creative new take on the original, nor does it accurately represent the original. It is a failure. A complete failure.

The obvious response towards criticism of unfaithful remakes is that the original “will always exist” so it doesn’t matter anyway. First of all, that would mean that remakes can literally be whatever they want as long as they happen to share the name of the source material. More importantly though, the computer game industry just doesn’t work in a way that facilitates two versions of one game having the same amount of relevance at one time. This new version of Klonoa is now the default for all future releases. It is very unlikely that Bandai Namco will backpedal on the decision to release and market this as some “definitive” version by releasing the originals untouched. If this collection had the option to play the originals, this wouldn’t be the case at all. But, of course, they couldn’t have been bothered to include them. If they did, everyone would be happy. Sure that wouldn’t change what the new version does wrong, but I sure as hell wouldn’t care because I wouldn’t have to play it. Once the publisher decides to not include the original versions, they have effectively killed off the preservation of the original. If you’re reading this review then you are most likely a dedicated gamer who likes cult classic puzzle platforming games, so you can play the original releases in some form. Unfortunately, most consumers aren’t like you. Humans are inherently lazy, so we will naturally play the versions of these games that are the easiest to obtain. Eventually, Phantasy Reverie Series will be older than the original games are now. On top of that, every subsequent release of these games will most likely be based off of these ones. Games only truly exist for as long as they are relevant. In 100 years, a very small percentage of players will choose the PlayStation version of these games to play over the new versions, and they will have to go out of their way to do so. If the first releases of both of these games were included, this never would have been an issue. I’m not upset that the new versions exist, I’m upset that the originals get their future cut off.

So what do these new versions add? Non-intrusive features like unlockable bonus materials can add a lot to a collection for returning and new players. Well, there’s basically nothing to speak of here. By far the best inclusion is the new “Pixel Filter.” I thought that this would be some sort-of CRT filter, but instead it’s a weird lo-fi filter that distorts the colors a bit and makes the visuals more “retro.” It looks really cool, when I play with it I try to pretend that it’s some unrelated 32-bit throwback platform game with cute characters. It only goes so far, but still a cool addition. I like it because it is optional and it looks different than the original in a way that isn’t trying to just look more technically advanced and modern.

Difficulty selections have been added. They don’t take away anything, though I don’t think I can exactly “praise” them either. Because of their tacked-on nature, I can’t imagine a new player feeling incentivized to go up from them to the higher difficulties. Still, they’re harmless. Audio balance options have been added alongside fully customizable controls, which are always great to see. And… that’s it. That’s really it. These options are presented through a new menu that looks fine but the way it awkwardly pops up on the screen rubs me the wrong way, like a late-90s pop-up ad or something. The game selection screen is similarly amateurish with a misaligned logo and awkward scaling. The way the music just suddenly starts and stops is bad too. The game in general oozes a rushed, budget aura and feels consistently unpolished. I guess that leads me into my next big thing…

I was mostly expecting this game to be disrespectful and lazy, but what I wasn’t expecting was for it to be an absolute technical disaster. For full transparency, I played the Xbox version of Phantasy Reverie Series on an Xbox One S and on a technical level it was horrendous. I recognize that a very small portion of the audience for this game are on Xbox, so it likely got the short end of the stick, but that does not excuse it for being nearly unplayable at times. Of course, I haven’t been recording anything so you’ll have to take my word for it. I’ll run down the list of minor issues that I encountered in Door to Phantomile now:

• Consistent audio crackling throughout the game. Most of the time it wasn’t that bad, though 6-2 became literal earrape at two points.
• Klonoa’s shadow would sometimes disappear for seemingly no reason. Most noticeable in 4-2.
• There were two times that I was hit by an enemy that flew me way to far away, leading to me falling to my death.
• Sound effects would repeat and cut out. Happened most often with Klonoa’s “Wahoo!” double-jump sound. This happened during a pivotal scene.
• The audio mixing made it nearly impossible to hear certain sound effects. Of course, you could go into the options menu and turn the music down, but then the sound effects that aren’t messed up will destroy your ears.
• I’m not sure if the input lag is really bad or something else, but movement in general felt very delayed. I could press the jump button in the middle of Klonoa’s flutter and he would jump when he hit the floor. The delay made later sections far too difficult.
• Sometimes elements in the background would pop in. This is very minor, and most noticeable during 3-1.

Alright, as for the major issues, I’ll start with the less damaging one: the load times are pretty bad. Loading a stage takes too long, loading in the world map took like 30 seconds one time, and load points during a stage are absurd at times. Loading in the room where Klonoa meets Balue in the first stage took over 20 seconds to load. That’s awful. I even copied the game over to my internal hard drive in the hopes of fixing this and it was still awful.

The big issue is stuttering and strange frame… skipping? I don’t even know what it is, but I swear sometimes the game will straight up not render frames which causes me to fall to my death. The frame rate itself is mostly consistent I think, it isn’t all that bad. The stuttering, however, is painful. It is horrible. The game will stutter like every five seconds if not more and no matter what I never got used to it. It makes the game hurt to play. I played the game in one sitting, but I had to pause the game often just to save my eyes from the stutters. I can’t even adequately explain this in words, it is horrendous. This is simply unacceptable, and the fact that Bandai Namco and Monkeycraft released this and aren’t getting ANY criticism for it is extremely disheartening.

Klonoa 2, by contrast, was significantly more polished. I didn’t notice audio or visual issues, there was no stuttering and the load times were very quick. It still isn’t quite at the place it should be, there are quite a few performance drops and the game still feels a bit unstable and janky, though I can’t exactly describe that with examples, it just felt that way. This gives me the impression that this is simply a rushed and sloppy product squirted out to fill up a release schedule and bank off of the critical acclaim of a beloved franchise. There are some signs that the developers cared about this project, such as the completely remade scrapbook images for Klonoa 2, but the project on the whole lacks care and feels unfinished and unpolished. It’s especially unfortunate because these games were technical marvels on PlayStation and PlayStation 2, with very brief load times and a locked 60fps.

Phantasy Reverie Series exudes cheapness, so of course, of COURSE it is retailing for $40. This is downright inexcusable considering how little content is on offer here. I am and have never been one to judge games based on their price. I recognize that the corporate bigwigs are ones who make the price and that doesn’t necessarily reflect the artistic integrity of the game, nor do I think that a short game should have a low price because it is short. Those arguments are absurd and anyone who makes them without some other justification needs to shut up. The problem here is that this game has no artistic integrity in the first place because it is a corporate product manufactured in a lab that is riding on the acclaim of the original games. And no, “it’ll go on sale” is not an excuse. First of all, it says a lot about the product itself that you would justify its existence by saying that it’ll be super cheap eventually, but we should also always judge a product based on the price that it was designed around in the first place, not the price that it might have a year down the line. This is a cheap collection with barely any content that is retailing for significantly more than most other comparable releases.

For comparison, the Mega Man Zero Legacy Collection contains 6 games and retailed for $30 at launch. That collection certainly isn’t perfect and is not the ideal version of those games if you like proper scaling but it is a good value and is much more polished than this. On top of the games themselves in that collection, they also feature a jukebox to listen to the music, tons of visual options (even if there’s no integer scale for the DS games), and loads of extras that fans can get a real kick out of.

Phantasy Reverie Series doesn’t feature any of this. Well, kind-of. See, this rerelease of 20 year old games has a DLC Digital Deluxe Edition variant that contains, you guessed it, an artbook and music player. You know, features that are supposed to be in a collection like this in the first place. This is insulting. This is extremely greedy. This is awful. And this costs $70. The fact that Bandai Namco released this for $70 is… I… I can’t even comprehend why this hasn’t stirred much of any controversy. Does nobody even know about this? This is one of the most transparently greedy things I’ve ever seen in a package like this. Features like this are SUPPOSED TO BE A PART OF THE COLLECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE! Even with these features, the collection would still be pushing it in price, but at least it would be… something. Instead, us who saved the money, us worthless cheapskates who bought the standard version which is already overpriced, we don’t get anything. Relative to the amount of games in the collection, this is just as much of a value as Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which stirred tons of controversy. Hell, even THAT collection had digital soundtracks. This has nothing. Nothing!

You know, I’d be perfectly fine with a $40 price tag if they had done more with this. Instead of allocating resources to nonsense like adding garish, disgusting bloom lighting that overpowers the image, or changing the character models in Klonoa 2 even though there is no reason to do so, they could have spent that time and money on throwing together a GBA emulator and including the Klonoa games for GBA. Or even better, they could have released the first officially localized version of Klonoa: Moonlight Museum for the Wonderswan. Or maybe they could have gone even further than a simple art gallery and instead made an interactive room that the player can explore to observe the art and other bonus material like dev materials for the games, akin to the Insomniac Museum in the Ratchet & Clank games. That’d be awesome!

But, no. None of this. There are additional costumes, at least… oh wait those are locked behind the Deluxe Edition too. Wait a minute… the first remake on Wii had unlockable costumes. And THOSE were in the game at no additional cost. They were harmless extras that were unlocked as a reward for players who finish the game. That means that Bandai Namco took previously made content and sold it for extra as DLC. Why, WHY is nobody on their case for this? Why??? This is horrible! Jesus Christ, this is a scam! A scam! They are selling even the base version of Phantasy Reverie Series as definitive iterations of these games, meanwhile they are literally TAKING CONTENT AWAY AND SELLING THEM AS DLC! I don’t like the Wii version at all, most of my criticisms for the fundamental design approach to these new versions also apply to that game, but it doesn’t pull a fast one like this.

So this is the part where I beg you not to buy this, and where I say that if you buy this, you will get more products like this. Unfortunately, it’s probably a lost cause. If you are interested in reading this in the first place, there’s a high likelihood that you’ve already purchased this. It is #3 on Trending on Steam right now, and the user reviews are “Very Positive.” So you more than likely don’t care about how this is disingenuous, or lazy, or a ripoff because you’ve already bought it. Even if you haven’t but are planning to, I doubt this lackluster review from a pretentious dickhead is going to convince you otherwise. So, you speak with your wallet and tell Bandai Namco that you want more of this, because clearly lots of other people do too. Of course, it is possible that I’ve swayed you, or that you never planned on getting this in the first place, and in that case I’d like you to walk away knowing that this is nothing more than simply another entry in the long list of cheap cashgrabs banking off the success (this time mostly critical success) of an acclaimed work. Hopefully, if we manage to get the word out that we don’t want more of these, we’ll stop getting them.

In my ideal future, every game ever will be available on all relevant platforms. In that future, we will be able to buy the original version of this game right alongside the new version. Most signs point to that not being the case, which I’ve come to accept. As for now though, I’ll just ask for you to play the originals instead. The PlayStation version of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is currently available on PSN for PS3 and Vita, at least in America. It is my understanding that it was taken down from the store alongside many other Namco classics. It is $6 and well worth that price. Get it as soon as you can if you are interested because it is only so long before the shop goes down. If you can’t get this, emulate it. If after playing the game you want more, buy Klonoa 2. You’ll want to import a PAL copy if you live in North America since the game is expensive over here. It supports PAL60, so you should be good. If the price is still too steep, you can always emulate it or use an application like OpenPS2Loader to play it. On OPL 0.9.3 it plays perfectly with the right modes turned on. Load times are long with USB (about 15 seconds to load a stage, thankfully no in-stage loading and the levels are lengthy to boot) but plays fine otherwise and that’s obviously not a problem with SMB and HDD loading.

So in conclusion, how screwed is Klonoa now? Well, this seems to be selling well if the Steam Trending page is anything to go by. Plenty of people are talking about it. It upsets me but there’s nothing I can do about it. Bandai Namco has stated that this may lead to future collections down the road, and considering the quality of this one, I highly advise not buying them. I sure as hell aren’t. If there is a “Klonoa 3” of some kind, I’m not sure if I’m even going to buy and play it. A part of me is repulsed by the idea. Hopefully, my cries for something better are heard, and the next time Bandai Namco releases these games they’ll actually include the original versions alongside the new ones, but considering how game rereleases usually go that is very unlikely. Oh well. Goodbye Klonoa. Goodbye...