Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Underappreciated"

Platform Action games are one of my favorate sub-generes in video games but have unfortunately became a bit of a lot practice for a long while, but thank to the power of this system along with our online sites, this sub-genere has been making a comeback. And this remake to a criminally overlooked franchise is one of the steps.

There isn't too much for me to say about it so I'll keep it short. This I think is a really good game that I feel has potential to become another great platform action franchise if built on.
The story is good not great (or memorable by my standards) it's a typical task of saving the fantasy land from an evil force, but hey that what always gets the main protagonist going. Like in most platform action games it's not so much the story that matters but more what you do and what you go though that make the game memorable.

The graphics are great, the update has really given the game a polish it deserved. But most of all I love the combination of 2-D and 3-D, it truely is a beautiful combination and was able to convey the colorful, sureal fantasy world but also able to apply use of both for and background, which really adds amazing layer of dimention to the game making it not feel shallow. The designs of the levels are great, they based off of elements of nature but how all the platforms are in a spiral position and alined, it's remonicent and slightly inspired by the surrealist paintings of M.C. Essher. And even the character animation is great mostly Klonoa whom is just such a cute rabbit cat that does show a bit of emotion to make him a bit memorable.

Gameplay is simple which makes it's great and fits just right, most games at times have an overabundance of functions which is fine, but most of the time I like keeping things simple and less complicated, and that is part of the dictum this game abides by less is more. Your character is armed with the basic jump and the grab and throw function. However the grab and throw function is truely unique in this game because it has more than one use making it not shallow. You can not just throw one bad guy at another, but can use that guy to execute a double jump, throw to clear obsticale, or even to turn levers on.

I really have no problems with the game but two things about this game kinda hold it back for me to give it more. My first complaint is no supprise but the game I thought was kinda short and easy by my standards, I tore though the game in less than 2 or 3 days. It could just be me on that matter since I've played platform games for so long but mainly I just felt the game could've gone a little longer, after playing I wanted more I would've loved at least 3 may'be 5 more levels but like I said it's probably just me.

I really wouldn't mind if they remade the second game, if they did the franchise may have new life breathed into it and will get a third game and more. I really do want this to be the next big franchise, we really could use one it's been long enough in the platform action subgenere.

Overall Klonoa is a solid platform action game that like the gems Klonoa collects is one worth discovering.