Re-release this: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

The first Klonoa is hard to find on two different systems, and the digital release is getting tougher to acquire, too.

This column is “Re-release this,” which will focus on games that aren’t easily available, or even available at all, but should be once again. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

I would like to begin this entry with a screenshot, that I hope gives you some insight into the discussion to come.

These are not a selection of the most expensive Klonoa: Door to Phantomile listings on Ebay. They are the first “Buy It Now” listings organized by relevance, and just two of them even have a copy of the game. There is also a $45 listing for just the back cover art, and $12 reproduction cases: there just aren’t very many copies of Door to Phantomile around to begin with, and the ones that are out there are ridiculously expensive.

Things are better, monetarily speaking, for the Wii remake of the game, as those copies are generally priced around $100 for a copy with the original case and cover art: that’s still more than three times its original, budget sale price on the system — Klonoa was all of $30 on the Wii when it released back in 2008. Just like with the Playstation version of the game it’s based on, however, it just didn’t sell particularly well — it performed so poorly, in fact, that Namco canceled the remake of its Playstation 2 sequel. So of course the few copies that are out there are selling for significantly more than they originally did, though, for nowhere near as much as the older edition, which also didn’t exactly set the world on fire despite critical acclaim.

Klonoa is not impossible to find, at least, but it does require a very specific setup for you to both play and acquire. It is still available on the Playstation 3 digital storefront, and for all of $5.99. The problem there is that you have to play it on the PS3, which not everyone necessarily has hooked up or even boxed up anymore, and if you were to buy it from that system, you need to load money to your Playstation wallet from your PS4 or PS5, or from the Playstation Network website, in order to make a purchase. If you want it for your Playstation Portable, you need a PS3 to make the purchase and download the install file, and then a USB 2.0 cable to make the transfer to your PSP, where you can finally install and then play it. Absolutely absurd that this is the best way to play it, outside of just pirating it and playing on your computer or a modded Playstation Classic or what have you.

A screenshot from the Wii remake of Door to Phantomile, featuring Klonoa (left) and Huepow. Image credit: Giant Bomb

So it goes with Klonoa, though, which Namco certainly respects in the sense that they put little Easter Eggs for the series in their other works, but as of yet haven’t done anything with since it faltered on the Wii nearly 14 years ago now. And with all of that out of the way, here’s why it not being around for you to play should matter for reasons outside of, “it is nice to have access to all of gaming’s past.”

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile is a 2.5D platformer, released at a time when anything that wasn’t a 3D platformer seemed to struggle either with potential gamers, critics, or both. Klonoa certainly didn’t have trouble with critics, as it scored an 87 out of 100 on the review aggregator of the day, GameRankings, but it just didn’t sell well in North America upon its release in 1998. It’s fair to wonder if it would have done more on the Nintendo 64 instead of the Playstation — yes, the install base for the N64 was basically one-third of what the first Playstation had to offer, but there were also far fewer games, and more of an opportunity to stand out or receive additional marketing backing from Nintendo in the process. That’s all conjecture, of course: what matters is that Door to Phantomile is a much better game than its sales and legacy suggest it is.

It’s a relatively straightforward affair, but it doesn’t necessarily happen in a straight line. There are environmental puzzles, backtracking to find keys to open the path forward, hidden items and item caches and the villagers you need to rescue — six per stage — in order to unlock the bonus challenge stage. There are six “Visions” in the main game, each with two levels a piece, the last of those concluding with a boss fight that utilizes both the foreground and the background in the way that the best 2.5D platformers always managed to.

The difficulty steadily rises: it’s never actually hard to complete the levels in Door to Phantomile, but it does become more complex and ask more of you, both in terms of puzzle solving and even in defeating foes, as you go. The titular Klonoa is able to grab enemies and then throw them, either in front or behind, or into the foreground or background. He can jump and then get a bonus jump off of the foe in his hands, too, propelling himself even higher, which will be required to grab certain items or reach certain platforms to keep pushing through the game — in addition, Klonoa’s long ears can be used to briefly, and slowly, float, giving you a couple more seconds for a last desperate chance at a platform or item. Sometimes you throw enemies into the background in order to reach some object you otherwise cannot, whether it contains an extra life or the gems you collect like coins in a Mario game (100 for an extra life), or maybe even one of the imprisoned villagers.

Later in the game, you’ll have to start chaining grabs and jumps while in mid-air in order to reach ever-higher items or platforms. And the enemies themselves will keep getting boosts that make dealing with them more of a problem than simply walking up to them and hitting the button to grab them. At first they’ll get shields that make it so you need to attack from behind. Then they’ll get full body armor that requires you throw another foe into them in order to knock the armor off. There are foes that are ticking time bombs once you grab them, ones who wield flails, ones who control fire in a sweeping circle, and enemies who are completely impervious to you while the power of the Moon is upon them for a time. Flying enemies, ghosts, larger enemies that are harder to avoid… it all comes to you a little bit at a time, giving you new challenges to solve in each progressive level you find yourself in.

The platforming itself is a little slow — there is no dash button in this game, for instance — but that’s because speed isn’t the emphasis. It’s methodical, where much of what you’re doing is grabbing enemies and figuring out what you need to do with them, and what order you should grab and attack in, and so on. It’s not as wild with its physics as another 2.5D platformer from the era with a grab mechanic, Mischief Makers, but still, the throwing into the foreground and background, and the accuracy required especially for the latter, means you’re doing more than just spamming throws in front of you.

Getting through the first four visions is mostly a breeze — not boring or overly simplistic, but simple enough to get through without much of a problem. Visions 5 and 6, however, are essentially enormous platforming puzzles you’ll make your way through a little bit at a time, utilizing everything you’ve learned to that point and a bit more in order to make it through. They still aren’t super tough, but it’s where the game’s challenge lives, and they’re very satisfying to both play and complete.

An upscaled image from the original Door to Phantomile, of Klonoa peering off into the background. Image credit: Medium

Klonoa isn’t as chatty as some of its peers like Banjo-Kazooie, but there still is some talking before levels begin and before boss fights, as well as the occasional mid-stage conversation. The voices sound like that cutesy kind of gibberish voice, but apparently that’s a made-up language that Namco worked on that Klonoa and company are speaking, so it only sounds like gibberish. Tolkien would be proud of the linguistic world building.

It’s a real shame Klonoa never took off, because Door to Phantomile is an enjoyable five hours or so, with some quality art direction, a soundtrack that does a great job of fitting the mood for a given level, and platforming that explored the 2.5D space in a way that remains worth your time to this day. It’s possible Namco is going to give the entire series another chance to flourish, or, at least, to satisfy the cult following the franchise has: they filed some trademarks relating to the series back in 2019, and then again in late-2021, which sure seems like an attempt to prepare the way for a Klonoa collection.

Considering the original Klonoa is essentially not for sale unless you have a PS3 and some patience, the Wii remake is only priced well in comparison to the Playstation version, and the Playstation 2 sequel is also a $100 game on the secondhand market without the benefit of a digital re-release like its predecessor, we’re way overdue for a remastered HD collection. The Game Boy Advance was the other home for Klonoa, so those should be part of any remastering effort, as well: give us all the Klonoa platformers, at least, in one package that costs considerably less than any of the secondhand listings of the individual games by themselves.

Klonoa isn’t the greatest platformer of the 90s, by any means, but it was widely applauded by critics for a reason at the time of its release. It’s a game that should have had more than a cult following, but didn’t, as happens sometimes. A re-release in the present, if nothing else, will give the people who already know about Klonoa a reason to grab these games again, and it might just convert a few new fans, too, in the way a game released on the Wii that wasn’t published by Nintendo or part of an already popular franchise just wasn’t seemingly capable of doing.

[Update, 7/8/2022: Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, and its sequel, Lunatea’s Veil, were both finally re-released. Door to Phantomile is actually an enhanced version of the Wii remake, rather than building off of the original Playstation release, while Lunatea’s Veil is built off of the original Playstation 2 edition, that until now had been the only version available. The compilation, Phantasy Reverie Series, is available digitally on Windows, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5, and Xbox One/Series S|X, though, a physical copy can be acquired through imports from Europe or Japan.]

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