The Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series is a game bundle that contains remasters of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil, celebrating Klonoa's 25th anniversary. It was released on July 8th, 2022 on the Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.[1]
Details
Phantasy Reverie Series is built off of the same engine as 2008's Klonoa remake. As such, while the Door to Phantomile portion is essentially an updated port, the Lunatea's Veil portion is a fully-fledged remake.
Both games have seen substantial face-lifts to make them relatively more in-line with modern console standards. Additionally, Klonoa's design in the Door to Phantomile portion matches his design from the original release of that game.
Mechanically, the games are nearly identical to their original forms, barring some refinements that come with the decades gap between the original games and the remakes. Genuine changes include a new selectable difficulty, featuring a new Easy mode that reduces damage taken and grants the Wind Bullet additional range.
Additionally, the game contains a handful of customization options, including a Moo costume for Klonoa, and a Pixel Filter that attempts to make the game resemble the crunchier PlayStation visuals. In this vain, it was confirmed that the game would receive post-launch downloadable content (DLC), both free and paid. One such free update added an exclusive costume to each game that swaps out Klonoa's outfit for the one from the opposite game. A $20 paid DLC was released on July 7, 2022 entitled the "Special Bundle" which contained a digital soundtrack and art book, alongside 5 new costumes including:
- Joka Mask (Door to Phantomile-exclusive)
- Tat Mask (Lunatea's Veil-exclusive)
- Pac-Man Hat
- DON-Chan Mask
- Prince Hat
For platforms that support it, the games have been given full achievement support with a total of 24 unique achievements, and a 25th for obtaining all the rest. The Steam release also has support for Trading Cards, possessing twelve (six standard cards and six rare "foil" cards) that can be crafted into badges, emojis, and wallpapers to display on a player's profile.
List of Notable Changes
Changes from Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
- Most sprite-based graphical effects have been replaced with full 3D models. This includes most small characters and enemies, as well as collectibles. Most of these 3D models opt to recreate the aesthetic of the PlayStation game as faithfully as possible.
- All pre-rendered cutscenes have been recreated using in-engine graphics.
- Most of the audio in the game is of a higher fidelity than the original, most of which being taken from the Wii game.
- Dialogue now advances at a set rate as opposed to needing to be manually progressed through. In addition, a fast-forward function has been added to skip through text faster, as well as an option to simply skip the cutscene altogether.
Changes from Klonoa (Wii):
- All of the level geometry and texture work was ripped directly from the Wii game, but the colours have been made more saturated and vibrant and the textures have been artificially upscaled to appear sharper. Additionally, new environmental details, such as grass and other plants, have been added to make levels feel more lively.
- All of the redesigns from the Wii game have been reverted, with all characters now more closely resembling their original designs from the PlayStation original.
- The sole exception is Ghadius, whose body appears nearly identical to the Wii version, just with a new head that resembles the PlayStation version closer.
- The traditional voice acting options have been removed, and the Phantomile language utilizes the original PlayStation recordings as opposed to the newer Wii recordings. The in-game audio is pulled from the Wii version, however, voices included.
- Interestingly, the audio of Klonoa shrieking in grief after Grandpa's death uses a higher-quality sample than the rest of the cutscene dialogue. More perplexingly, it lacks the dramatic reverb that the original game had.
- Most of the game's bonus features have been removed, namely the Reverse Mode, Character Viewer, and alternate costumes present in the Wii version.
Changes from Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
- The in-game graphics have received a complete (albeit subtle) overhaul. Every entity and piece of scenery has seen an increase in polycount, unlike the Door to Phantomile portion, which repurposed levels from the Wii game. Additionally, all of the colors have had their saturation increased. This extends into the Scrapbook, which features updated recreations of the original images.
- The outlines featured in the PlayStation 2 game have been completely discarded thanks to the higher color contrast making them unnecessary. Instead, all of the characters have a subtle degree of cel shading applied to them to preserve the cartoony feel of the original.
- Leorina and Tat's faces are completely visible in the opening in this version, spoiling their reveal before the battle with Folgaran.
- The "Vision Start" graphic in the boss levels now integrates their location names from the world map, with the boss names now appearing as a subtitle beneath. Additionally, the boss health meters now bear the boss names as well, with the two Tat minibosses also following suit.
- Aside from its music player feature being renamed from the Hurdy-Gurdy to the Concert Hall, the Momett House now has a Movie Viewer allowing players to rewatch the majority of the game's cutscenes, including those that couldn't be replayed previously.
Gallery
- Main article: Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series/Gallery
Trailers
Trivia
- Bandai Namco’s US website page for the game erroneously labels the game as an Action RPG.
- The Phantasy Reverie Series marks the first time a Klonoa title has seen an official release on either Xbox or PC platforms.
- Phantasy Reverie Series marks the second time Door to Phantomile was remade for next generation consoles. The last time it happened was 2008's Klonoa on the Wii.
- Amusingly enough, Klonoa (Wii) was used as the basis for the Phantasy Reverie Series iteration, making it a remaster of a remake.
- Phantasy Reveries Series is the first time Lunatea's Veil has seen any form rerelease since its debut on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. For comparison, Door to Phantomile had been digitally redistributed on PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita as part of Sony's PSone Classics line-up, as well as receiving the aforementioned Wii remake.
- On July 7, 2022, the Steam servers went down as a result of high demand of the game from fans.
References
External Links
| Main Games |
| Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (Wii Remake) - Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil |
| Side Games |
| Klonoa: Moonlight Museum - Klonoa: Empire of Dreams - Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament Klonoa Beach Volleyball - Klonoa Heroes: Legendary Star Medal |
| Related Games |
| Namco x Capcom - MotoGP - Alpine Racer 3 - World Kicks - Family Tennis Advance - Smash Court Tennis 3 - Family Stadium 2003 - Pro Baseball: Famista DS - Pro Baseball: Famista 2011 - Famista Dream Match |
| Consoles |
| PlayStation - PlayStation 2 - WonderSwan - Game Boy Advance - Wii |
| Comics |
| Klonoa: Dream Traveller of Noctis Sol - Kaze no Klonoa 4Koma Manga Gekijou - Shippuu Tengoku Kaze no Klonoa - Namco X Capcom (manga) |