[Late to the Party] Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
SabreCat:
These reviews' tag line is doubly appropriate here, as not only is this a PS2 game from 2001, but I finished playing it in early November. It's a testament to the game's strengths that I still feel it's fresh enough in my mind to write about it!
Premise: Floppy-eared anthrocat Klonoa is the Dream Traveler, a hero who visits and aids troubled worlds in his dreams. This night's travels take him to Lunatea, a land whose several emotion-themed kingdoms are threatened by the rise of a monstrous Kingdom of Sorrow in the east. Klonoa works his way through a series of platforming and racing levels in "2.5D," i.e., two-dimensional motion through a 3D-rendered environment with puzzles that involve interaction with foreground and background elements. Along the way he teams up with a washed-up priestess in training, battles sky pirates, and more.
Presentation: The very first thing that comes to mind on Klonoa 2's presentation is, of all things, the voice acting. The Klonoa games feature a constructed language, referred to in this episode as "Lunatean." As opposed to the small set of canned nonsense phrases of the original Star Fox, or the procedurally generated phoneme soup of the later Star Fox Command, Klonoa 2's voice actors read a full script in this gibberish. You can tell there's at least an ad hoc syntax at work; for example, recognizable words such as character and place names surface in each sentence whose subtitles feature them. There's even a vocal music track sung entirely in Lunatean! It's delightfully cute.
The graphical side of the game's presentation displays similar quality and imagination. Character and environment designs are both cute and surreal, wholly appropriate for a dreamlike setting, rendered in smooth cel-shaded 3D that still looks good today. While you proceed through levels in a side-to-side motion, the camera follows and pans in 3D, including sections where Klonoa, fired from a cannon, flies over and through vast entangled structures that express the full scope of the Kingdoms. Bright colors and varied environments ensure that the graphics never grow dull.
Story: By and large, Klonoa 2's story is typical, abbreviated platformer fare, in place largely to justify the wandersome collection of magical doodads. But even here, the game's uniqueness shines through. You'll witness full character arcs for the principal members of the supporting cast, a couple of clever plot twists, and--get this--an ending that dares to be bittersweet rather than happily-ever-after. Even the worldbuilding feels fresh, with regions defined by emotions instead of the (heinously tired) classical elements. Yes, there's a level featuring fire and lava, but that's the foundry producing weapons for the unending civil war in Volk, land of Discord; yes, there's a mountain with snow and ice, but that's appropriate to the kingdom of Mira-Mira, whose xenophobic inhabitants maintain their distance by making the treacherous pass the only route in.
Gameplay: The only complaints I have about Klonoa 2 arise here. The platforming and puzzle-solving elements are very well constructed overall, with Klonoa's core abilities to jump, grab monsters, and throw them used to novel and satisfying effect throughout. However, you'll also run into several enormous difficulty spikes, where a long stretch of tame platforming will give way to an exacting chase sequence requiring constant Game Over trial-and-error for any but the most godlike of platforming players to pass. (I especially scratch my head at this, given the Klonoa games' reputation for being soft enough for young kids.) Moreover--though I can't count this too hard against it, given it's optional--the requirements to unlock bonus features like concept art are blisteringly difficult. You not only need to find every dreamstone (plentiful bonus items akin to Mario's coins) in a level to get your reward, but must do so in a single playthrough of the level, along with stringent time limits on the acquisition of certain stretches of them. Ouch!
The Verdict: While a few problems with uneven difficulty shouldn't be overlooked, I cannot do otherwise than to give Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil a 4/4 score, "Excellent" on the Backloggery. Anything inspiring enough to make me write fan fiction in the midst of the National Novel Writing Month deserves top billing in my ranks of great games, ha. It's imaginative, feel-good, smooth-playing fun I'd recommend to anyone who's ever hopped and bopped!
These reviews' tag line is doubly appropriate here, as not only is this a PS2 game from 2001, but I finished playing it in early November. It's a testament to the game's strengths that I still feel it's fresh enough in my mind to write about it!
Premise: Floppy-eared anthrocat Klonoa is the Dream Traveler, a hero who visits and aids troubled worlds in his dreams. This night's travels take him to Lunatea, a land whose several emotion-themed kingdoms are threatened by the rise of a monstrous Kingdom of Sorrow in the east. Klonoa works his way through a series of platforming and racing levels in "2.5D," i.e., two-dimensional motion through a 3D-rendered environment with puzzles that involve interaction with foreground and background elements. Along the way he teams up with a washed-up priestess in training, battles sky pirates, and more.
Presentation: The very first thing that comes to mind on Klonoa 2's presentation is, of all things, the voice acting. The Klonoa games feature a constructed language, referred to in this episode as "Lunatean." As opposed to the small set of canned nonsense phrases of the original Star Fox, or the procedurally generated phoneme soup of the later Star Fox Command, Klonoa 2's voice actors read a full script in this gibberish. You can tell there's at least an ad hoc syntax at work; for example, recognizable words such as character and place names surface in each sentence whose subtitles feature them. There's even a vocal music track sung entirely in Lunatean! It's delightfully cute.
The graphical side of the game's presentation displays similar quality and imagination. Character and environment designs are both cute and surreal, wholly appropriate for a dreamlike setting, rendered in smooth cel-shaded 3D that still looks good today. While you proceed through levels in a side-to-side motion, the camera follows and pans in 3D, including sections where Klonoa, fired from a cannon, flies over and through vast entangled structures that express the full scope of the Kingdoms. Bright colors and varied environments ensure that the graphics never grow dull.
Story: By and large, Klonoa 2's story is typical, abbreviated platformer fare, in place largely to justify the wandersome collection of magical doodads. But even here, the game's uniqueness shines through. You'll witness full character arcs for the principal members of the supporting cast, a couple of clever plot twists, and--get this--an ending that dares to be bittersweet rather than happily-ever-after. Even the worldbuilding feels fresh, with regions defined by emotions instead of the (heinously tired) classical elements. Yes, there's a level featuring fire and lava, but that's the foundry producing weapons for the unending civil war in Volk, land of Discord; yes, there's a mountain with snow and ice, but that's appropriate to the kingdom of Mira-Mira, whose xenophobic inhabitants maintain their distance by making the treacherous pass the only route in.
Gameplay: The only complaints I have about Klonoa 2 arise here. The platforming and puzzle-solving elements are very well constructed overall, with Klonoa's core abilities to jump, grab monsters, and throw them used to novel and satisfying effect throughout. However, you'll also run into several enormous difficulty spikes, where a long stretch of tame platforming will give way to an exacting chase sequence requiring constant Game Over trial-and-error for any but the most godlike of platforming players to pass. (I especially scratch my head at this, given the Klonoa games' reputation for being soft enough for young kids.) Moreover--though I can't count this too hard against it, given it's optional--the requirements to unlock bonus features like concept art are blisteringly difficult. You not only need to find every dreamstone (plentiful bonus items akin to Mario's coins) in a level to get your reward, but must do so in a single playthrough of the level, along with stringent time limits on the acquisition of certain stretches of them. Ouch!
The Verdict: While a few problems with uneven difficulty shouldn't be overlooked, I cannot do otherwise than to give Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil a 4/4 score, "Excellent" on the Backloggery. Anything inspiring enough to make me write fan fiction in the midst of the National Novel Writing Month deserves top billing in my ranks of great games, ha. It's imaginative, feel-good, smooth-playing fun I'd recommend to anyone who's ever hopped and bopped!