 So I want to talk about Klanoha too. Some of you may have heard of the first one. A few of you probably know of this one, and I find it very unlikely that anyone has heard of all these spin-off games. Back when I was a wee lad and too small to reach some doorknobs, I played this game all the time, and because of this it became one of my favorites. Fortunately, it's good to see many years later that at the time it reviewed well across the board and got a ton of awards. And if I'm honest, it doesn't seem like it's aged that badly. On the flip side, it sold poorly. Extremely poorly. Like, less than a quarter million copies poorly. So what is it? It's a puzzle platformer with an anthropomorphic mascot on the PS2, so it's not surprising why it may have drowned in the sea of the things during the massive mascot platformer Downpour. Followed by the kart racer virus, followed by the zombie game trend that still peeks its head out to see if anyone hadn't made a zombie game in the last couple of months, followed by the modern military shooter and the MOBA and so on and so on. So it's not unreasonable to think that because of how over-saturated the PS2 was, that it may have been lost in the crowd. Gameplay-wise, it's very basic. You can jump and you can shoot, and that's about it. Where it gets interesting is that instead of shooting to kill like a more traditional platformer, Kono goes about defeating his enemies and obstacles very differently. That is to capture them and turn them into a bad deviant art drawing and then throwing them at their fellow kin. Kono's ring has a very short range, so you'll have to rely on this capturing and throwing mechanic in order to reach certain targets. Not only this, but by jumping twice with a captured enemy, you can break the laws of physics by throwing the enemy downwards to propel yourself higher. The devs actually do a really good job fleshing out this mechanic and create a huge variety of enemies and obstacles that push it much further than a simple gimmick. There are enemies that can slowly lift you up into the air, enemies that will start to tick like a time bomb before exploding, enemies that absorb other enemies to change colors and unlock doors with corresponding colors, enemies that let you turn into a goddamn lightning bolt and shoot through the air, wrecking anything in your path, only to leave a trail of destruction and death behind you as you move on to the next victims. And some fireflies too. That's pretty neat. You play as the titular Konoa, who is a cat scum-grabbit-thing. The game calls him a dream traveler, which is to say that he travels to different realms to bring balance in times of great peril. This was the case in the first game, where the actual protagonist summons him and tricks him into caring about the world by embedding false memories of them growing up together and being great friends. That actually sounds pretty manipulative now that I say it out loud. You what?! Before the end, where it's all ripped away because Konoa's job is done and he must be banished because he is not of that realm. It would be understandably traumatizing if you saw this as a kid. This whole dream traveler idea actually opens up a lot of possibilities for the Konoa games. It means the developers can explore a lot of wacky and weird ideas for settings and characters, while still making sense within the universe. In this one, a mysterious voice is calling out for help and Konoa, a drift in the PlayStation 2 startup menu, is summoned once again. Or at least what looks like being thrown into the sea like the ending of Titanic. He's almost abducted by a mysterious airship piloted by some dark figures, before being rescued by Popka, a dog, I think, and Lolo, a clumsy anime grill, isn't she quirky? They need him to help them ring a bell. I see what you did there. At the center of the series of islands, Konoa agrees to help, Lolo goes into the ring, okay, and thus tutorial level. After some good ol' video game training wheels, Konoa and friends ring the first bell, and go to see the great sage Baguji. But Baguji, Baguji, Baguji, Baguji, who must be high as a kite 24x7 because his music sounds like this. I just thought he was meant to be some sort of sage when I was a kid, but looking at this guy now, I know for sure he's on all the drugs. He explains that the four bells of Lunatea that each represent an emotion keep the world at peace. Unfortunately, a fifth bell will soon appear and its coming arrival is causing chaos everywhere. He asks for Konoa's help. Konoa says, yeah, sure, I'll save the world. And the adventure begins. First task, go see the High Priestess. So the plot's pretty straightforward. Ring some bells, stop the fifth bell, save the world. Not the most original or creative, but it's simple and to the point. This is great because now we have a goal and aren't mucking about trying to figure out what the main plot is. While the characters do a whole bunch of nothing that doesn't amount to anything because we still haven't established what they're supposed to be doing yet. They travel to the Kingdom of Tranquility, Lalakusha, which is very fun to say, and take a detour through the Temple of the Goddess Claire, where we get some minor world building of all things. At the Temple of the High Priestess, Lolo pledges to become a Priestess herself. Because you need permission to save the world, I guess. The Priestess says we must collect the elements of each bell in order to prevent Armageddon. The crew heads towards the bell of Tranquility and surprise, there's a monster there. Which isn't really blocking the way. I mean really, you had to turn around to see him. You can just keep going and ring the bell. It's revealed that the suspicious figures at the beginning of the game were Leona, the Sky Pirate, and her sidekick, Tat. Don't you forget it. And you know she's got style from the first moment you meet her. She has all the makings of cool, edgy villain. One, long flowing trench coat. Two, scoff at everything. And three, harpsichord theme song. She wants Klanoha's ring. Lolo says, No! And you jump into the first boss encounter. This is going to be a reoccurring thing throughout the game. Nearly every major area finishes with a two-stage boss fight in a circular arena, where the devs really put the .5 extra dimension in 2.5D to good use. In fact, they put the extra dimension to good use a lot of times in the rest of the game. Like here, where you have to hit a pendulum in the center, so that the momentum pushes it to break apart the debris on the other side, clearing the way for you. First boss isn't particularly difficult. Hit the weak spot, avoid the extremities. Leona escapes, or at least I think that's what's assumed. Her ship just kind of hangs there in the cutscene. And Klanoha rings the bell. The bell? We call it an element for short. Uh, what? Short for... that's not... they're not the same word. You know, when something's short for... you know what? Whatever. Klanoha hears the same voice from the beginning, asking for help again, and everyone looks at him like he's crazy. Back at Baguji. Baguji. Baguji. We learn that the ring Klanoha uses requires a priestess to power it, which is why Lolo has to get sucked into it all magical girl weapon style. So even if Leona were to steal it, she couldn't use it. In your face, Leona. Additionally, the crew's next target is the Kingdom of Joylent. One big amusement park. I think this is a good place to point out that Klanoha's levels are very out there. In a good way. You have much more than your traditional grass level, desert level, water level, alien spaceship level. Wait, what? You've got an amusement park, giant airship labyrinths, broken ruins, empty coral seas, some weird MC Esher house of mirrors. I don't even know. They're just so creative and memorable. I mean, look at this! Anyway, on the way in, Tat steals the element, and before Popka can stop her, she splits in two and Klanoha has to catch the one that has it. It doesn't matter which one you pick, it's always the last one. One of them hides in the water park, but Klanoha can't swim because he was a video game character made before 2010. Fortunately, Popka rented a surfboard, and here is where the game introduces its other main mechanic, and what makes up about 10% of the levels. Surfing. The game cuts between basically a high-speed auto-scrolling 2D section and a full-on 3D. It's a nice change of pace from all the platforming. Things are more hectic, getting collectibles is more challenging since you can't go back as easily, and surfing around at high speeds just makes you feel like the kind of radical kids in commercials that would have been airing around the time this game came out. You catch Tat after racing her in what's essentially a big circle, and unfortunately this one doesn't have the element. And so the team heads to the main amusement park. And boy, what an amusement park it is. And it's here that I'll mention one of my nitpicks with this game, the tutorial interruptions. Tat, for some reason, tells Klanoha how to reach her by using a special enemy. Weird thing is, the player could have figured this out on their own without explanation. It's the only thing here, and there were other enemies in the past that didn't require tutorial. So did the devs not have enough faith that the players would figure it out, that they felt like they had to use one of their villains to do something so dumb as to explain to their enemy how to reach them so that the player wouldn't be lost? I mean, Tat's trying to steal the element for Leona. Why would she want to help Klanoha? Sure, she gives a little tongue-in-cheek, well, maybe I like you, Baka. But I don't think you could reach any further if you had a grabby T-Rex head. The silver lining is that you can skip it, but I feel like it was a waste in a lot of ways. Continuing, Klanoha goes through a Spoo-Moo-Kee haunted house, and Lolo pees herself. So quirky! You catch the second tat and take the element from her. After that, you fight another boss. Leona says some stuff about being evil, Klanoha rings the second bell, and gets the element of joy. Oh, quirky! You also unlock a boss rush mode and extra challenge stages here. So neat! The next place is Volk, the Kingdom of Discord, where the people are always at war. Like, to an unhealthy degree, bombs are dropping literally all the time. It's here that the gang learned that the last fight Klanoha had, Leona was able to gather enough data to create a copy of his ring, and is willing to blow up the kingdom's reactors to do so. We go through the factory in the city proper to shut them down. We fight another Leona's bosses, and plot twist! The reactors were decoys, and it's the last bit of data Leona needed to complete the ring. She rings the bell, gains the element, and the reactors go haywire. And if Klanoha and crew don't stop them, they could destroy the entire kingdom. Obviously, you do so. A-O-D-A-L-E-L-E-L-E. Team Furry's next stop is Mira-Mira, the Kingdom of Indecision. Thing is, the place is very xenophobic and isn't very open to outsiders. In fact, all of the kingdoms are pretty secluded from each other it seems. And the only way to reach it is by reactivating an old arc that used to help people travel all over the world. And man, is the arc massive and beautiful. This is probably one of my favorite environments in the game. And I don't know how to segue individuals, so I'll cram that into here too, why not? The game is pretty, and it still holds up two decades later, in my humble opinion. There are certainly some gnarly textures every now and then, and the lack of detail kinda pulls you out of it at some points, but its overall style is very simple. It gets the job done, especially with how expressive the characters are. Anyway, you activate the arc's three engines and off to the land of indecision you go. You surf to some kind of rock-pop track with Klanowa singing... Wow, no wonder people thought this game was Sonic RIP off, and find the maze of memories where the occupants have something of a really sad existence. They bask in mirrors that reflect their past experiences and see no reason to ever go outside. Why leave if you can keep reliving bygone days? You know, this game gets into some pretty heavy subject matter. The kingdoms are isolated, any signs of happiness, the people of the land seem to have come from ignorance of current events. Even Volk is too busy fighting itself to find a solution to the ever encroaching fifth bell. Ignorance is bliss, and it seems the citizens of Lunatea have no problems just bathing in it. Speaking of depressing, one of the mirrors reflects a traumatic memory of Lolo's, showing how she was picked on and no one ever believed she could become a priestess, that she can't do anything on her own, that she's nothing but a failure, an embarrassment. Even Baguji emphasizes that Klanowa is the one that will save the world. Uh, now I kinda feel bad about ironically calling her quirky. She feels undeserving of the title of priestess and she didn't earn it. It's not a stretch to believe that having the legendary dream traveler with you might have influenced your boss to promote you. Uh, yeah, hey boss, could I have a raise, maybe? I mean, I'm trying to save the world. You think that maybe could warrant a higher salary? Oh, I don't know. You'll need to prove yourself some way. Well, I brought the dream traveler with me. Oh damn, okay, well, I can guess. All right, sure. You could be priestess whatever. Hey, dream traveler, how would you like to save the world? But that was supposed to be my job. They finally make their way to the bell of indecision. But the Great Teiku Tree says NOOOO! and drops a boss in front of them. Klanowa asks for Lolo's help. She gets all emo. So he goes, da screw it, I'll do it myself. Lolo watches from the sidelines and gets all nihilistic. What's the point of fighting if you're not good enough? Popka slaps some sense into her by insulting Klanowa. Damn, Popka. That's kind of mean. Now's a good time to talk about how this game uses music, I think. Because what you've been hearing right now is Lolo's theme. It's used several times in the game. Like here, it's whimsical. And here, it's sad. It's her light motif, something that sideways, one of my favorite musical channels, can tell you all about. Check him out. He does cool stuff about music theory. Anyway, it's not just her. Klanowa has a theme of his own as well. It can be heard here, and here, but also a musical instrument associated with him. As I've said before, Leona has the harpsichord, Lolo is strings and or bells, Tat is a xylophone, and Klanowa is some kind of woodwind. My guess is a pan flute, but I could be wrong. And the composer makes sure to sprinkle these light motifs and signature instruments everywhere. It's a good way to get the audience to associate things with certain characters, just by putting these little themes in. It's a nice touch. And it helps that the game's original soundtrack is pretty good in its own right. Lalakusha is soft and graceful like a lullaby. Volk is just bumpin' with a rhythm and swing. The arc is otherworldly and majestic. Just all the music in this game is so good and so memorable. On a semi-related note, most of the stages have two versions of its own associated track, which are interchanged depending if the player is in an indoor or outdoor part of the level. Here, let me show you an example. It's a small touch, but it's a very cool touch nonetheless, and it's one of the many things that shows the dev team really put their heart and soul into this game. Anyway, the team defeats the boss and impresses the not-Deku tree and acquire the last element and head back to Baguji. And it's at this point that I will put up a spoiler warning in case any of you want to play this for themselves. I do highly recommend it, but, understandably, it is an old game that may be hard to come by nowadays. I mean, seriously, look at this. That's insane! I feel kind of lucky that I still have the physical disc. Lolo hands Baguji the element and surprise! Leona disguised herself while Baguji was out running errands, which is really funny imagery. Can you imagine this cloaked weirdo with a super tall banana hat in the grocery store? She combines the elements and almost seems possessed as we hear the mysterious voice once again. She plans to save the world herself, which doesn't actually sound that bad, but I guess she's evil, so we have to stop her. With Baguji gone, the team heads back to the high priestess in Lalakusha, where the chaos of the fifth bell has started to get a little unmanageable. The sky has darkened, the monsters are more dangerous, and the air inside the ruins is poisonous. You have to reach designated statues to catch your breath before you run out, or else start to die very, very quickly. A very cool remix of the original level and a stark contrast to the old Lalakusha with the nice blue skies and pleasant music. We see the priestess, and it's revealed that Leorna was once also a priestess in training, but she was impatient and unhappy with how slow her progress and power was. I don't know why, but this character art sounds somewhat familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Leorna destroys the island where the first level took place, revealing the fifth bell. We try to stop her, but it's too late, and Leorna does the unthinkable. Oh crap, she's filled the ocean with lemonade. We're screwed! This also reveals a second arc, one that will bridge the four kingdoms with the fifth one. From this point, the overworld gets pretty messed up. The lemonade, turns out, has drained the sea of its water, revealing a portal to the fifth kingdom. Klenua hops on to his trusty stolen surfboard and heads to the ark with my favorite track in the game. That's some good 5-4 time signature. We make it to the ark, and Leorna seems to have gone crazy with power of the elements, when suddenly this boss, the build-up of Leorna as a villain, the music which is my other favorite track of the game, the design, the mechanics. Ugh, I love this boss. Just the spectacle of it all is awesome. And I don't have any more reasonable ways to describe how awesome this boss is, aside from, Holy crap, this is so frickin' cool. Did you see that? Holy shit, this is so awesome. How she fights is awesome. How you fight her is awesome. Everything about this boss fight is awesome. Except maybe that little ball that doesn't really get explained. That thing's pretty lame. After defeating her, Leorna returns to her original form, albeit wounded and extremely weak. And she reveals that she just wanted to prove herself. Much like Lolo, she just wanted to save the world. But now, because of her, it's falling apart. And it breaks her. She gives the team her blessing to stop the arc, and thus, Klenow and friends attempt to turn off the engines. And how do we do that? Well, we blow them up. This level is definitely one of the more spectacular. You travel a remixed arc level with the occasional on-rails platforming on top of Leorna's ship, and the intense music to this stage really puts forth the dire nature of the situation. With the arc taken down, the team takes the path it opened to the Aponia, the Kingdom of Sorrow. And so, Klenow begins the last part of his journey. And this place is weird. The architecture doesn't make sense. The placement of everything is seemingly random. Even the music that plays seems to have spontaneous bits of stuff in it. It's alien, as you would imagine the Kingdom from Another World would be. The surfing stage is equally as trippy. Designs worked all over the place, destroyed, all the mysterious voice continues to beg for help. This stage really did a number on me when I was a dumb kid, because one, I was a dumb kid, and two, there are no 2D sections and no rails. That's right. It's 3D all day, all the time. Which means a whole lot of falling. Nowadays, though, it poses a nice challenge. In fact, the whole game has been ramping up difficulty at a nice pace, but more on that later. After that, we make it to the throne, where we meet the King of Sorrow himself, who looks somewhat similar in design to Klonoha, which I'm certain is on purpose. He says that he's not the cause of the Fifth Bell's appearance, and that it was always there, only that the people of Lunataire refused to accept it. No one ever wanted Sorrow in their life, so they tried to suppress it, distract themselves with other feelings, not ever wanting to be sad. Hmm, something about that sounds so familiar, I just can't put my finger on it. In all seriousness, this is quite the subject matter to tackle for young kids, which this game has obviously aimed at. Not only that, it's kind of a dark subject as well to somewhat touch on the fear of being forgotten, that no one wants you, and that people are willing to ignore the things that are hard to accept, because it's easier, even if they're lying to themselves in doing so. The King reveals that he created Baguji, summoned Klonoha, and more or less, fabricated their whole adventure so that they could lift Lunataire's veil of ignorance. I see what you did there. Thus the King attacks Klonoha W-wh-what? Where-where? What? What is this? What am I doing? What is this, boss? Okay, another nitpick. And sort of a big one this time. But this first boss, I think is pretty lame and unnecessary. I think the developers wanted to pad out the game and put in one last surfing boss since they had one, one and also maybe tat if you stretch what a boss fight is in this game. But this is just kinda dumb. What is this guy even supposed to be? Like some kind of clockwork beholder eye thing? What are we surfing on? Dream juice? Dream lube? Not to mention the music is repetitive and grating. It loops after like 10 seconds. I honestly think they could have removed this fight and it would have not have affected the game or story at all. Nothing gets explained. In fact, every time I reach this part I wish I could skip it. The only saving grace is that it doesn't last long as you defeat whatever the heck this thing is and fight the King of Sorrow himself. But not before Liorna gives us the power of the four elements so that we can show the King of Sorrow the emotions of the four kingdoms. Very anime. Now, Klenoa's ring is... This means we can shoot rainbows now. Happy Pride Month everybody. With the King defeated, it's revealed that he was the one who was calling for help all this time. Klenoa complies with his wishes and rings the bell of sorrow. With the King in his arms, Klenoa promises they won't forget about sorrow. Finally at peace, the King transforms into the fifth and final element. So core- Back in Lunatea, Liorna is leading the charge to help rebuild the Kingdom of Sorrow. Klenoa and Lolo look over the horizon where we see that Lolo's given up her title of Priestess as she wishes to work hard to re-obtain it on her own. She's a strong independent anime animal thing and she don't need no dream traveler to achieve her goals. After short exchange, Klenoa starts to walk away. He isn't a part of Lunatea and has just finished his mission. It's time for him to leave. Thus, Anime Grill, noticing her good friend of which she's bonded on this long and arduous journey, says her goodbye in an elegant, graceful manner. Now as a youngin at about age eight or nine, I would be balling at this. However, I am now a grown adult, and though this attempt is admirable, I am unaffected by its feeble efforts to jerk tears out of my eyeballs. But good try. Okay, it's probably chalked up to nostalgia or the fact that I've also had to give this kind of goodbye to a very good friend before, but damn if this doesn't hit me like a truck. Even knowing that it was coming, I still wasn't ready for it when I replayed this more than a decade after the last time I did. When it's someone you have a deep love for, it's never easy to say goodbye. Klenoa says one last thanks to Lolo and heads off to his next adventure. Credits roll and we see the recovery of the five kingdoms now at peace and no longer isolated from each other. Accepting the other emotions, including Saro. The monsters have left Lalakusha, Volk is no longer building weapons and instead in the process of repair, Miramira isn't so exclusive anymore, and Joylent, well Joylent hasn't really changed. And that was Klenoa too. So I sung a lot of praise for this game, and aside from the nitpicks I pointed out, it sounds like it's flawless, right? And you already know where I'm going with this. Although I did say the game ramps up, it is exceedingly easy. Even as a child being inexperienced at this game, I still remember easily dodging most of the enemies and finishing the stages without a single death. The puzzles in this game aren't the hugest of head-scratchers either, aside from a few instances in The Maze of Memories. Even towards the end of the game, they're pretty straightforward, which is a shame, because I think they totally could have pulled off Maze of Memories' crazy kind of puzzles in Huponia to make it a very challenging, last traditional level that ties back and incorporates everything you learn throughout the game. Instead, it consists of disappearing wireframe blocks. And that feels super lazy. These are like platformer challenge 101, and it's in the penultimate level of the game. Also, most of the characters, aside from Leona and Lolo, are pretty shallow. Klenoa is your typical daft anime protagonist who has no idea what's going on, so he just asks a whole bunch of questions, and believes in his friends and never gives up. Popka walks a fine line between charming jerk and annoying sidekick. Tat is just straight up annoying, and only seems to exist so that Popka has someone to oppose. The dynamic and parallels between Leona and Lolo are really interesting. It's just a little sad that that's not spread to the other characters. But otherwise, it's a solid game, with an interesting story and a deep message. Unfortunately, we never got a proper sequel. Sure, plenty of spin-off games and the like, but never fully fledged Klenoa 3, with the dream traveler going to another world in need of his assistance. As I mentioned, the game tanked. And it tanked really, really hard. It's name lost in obscurity, a drift in the forgotten ties of the oversaturated PS2 market. And I don't anticipate a sequel anytime soon either, as much as I'd like one. Klenoa is not a name people recognize. It has no franchise power. It's not really considered a classic, and it only barely has a cult following. The original got a remaster on the Wii sometime in 2008, but that also sold poorly, hammering the last nail in the coffin. So Namco abandoned it. Makes sense. Well, I keep making what people won't buy. But I at least hope that by talking about this game, I could share my appreciation. I know that realistically, Klenoa is to be left behind with the sixth generation of consoles, and most likely won't make a return. But hey, one can always dream.