Customer Reviews

Klonoa Empire of Dreams

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This game kills me. Not because of how bad it is, but because of how GOOD it COULD have been. The original Klonoa had that special something that made me want to play it over and over, even though the game took only a scant few hours to complete. Maybe it was the pseudo 3-D look of the levels, the addictive gameplay, the character.. whatever it was, it was addictive, and fun.
Klonoa: Empire of Dreams lacks a lot of these, as well as being a painfully short game. Don't let the '40+ levels' fool you. 5 of those levels are nothing more than a simple boss screen, and to get to the boss in each of the five worlds, you can skip 2 of the stages over in each world. They've messed with the simplicity of the original, which involved jumping and throwing in different patterns to take you to where you needed to go, with limited puzzle solving. It kept thing going at a nice clip. This game is nearly all puzzle solving, with a couple of 'action' stages which are so easy it's laughable.
This wouldn't even be so much of a complaint if there were just MORE of them. Didn't they think there would be a problem of people turning the game inside out in three hours tops?
I loved Klonoa, it's just a shame this game didn't live up to it. The graphics are nice, sound is okay, but who cares when it's over so fast? At least Mario had the multiplayer aspect.
Rent this one, spend the 35 bucks you have left to get Advance Wars, you'll be happier.

This is the first Klonoa game for Gameboy Advance, released in 2001. If you've played the more recently released sequal, you know what to expect from this game. For those that haven't, in my humble opinion, it truly is a hidden gem! It's a 2D platformer specializing in solving enviromental (the kind were certain things and items block your path and such, not tetris type) puzzles. The cool thing about this game is how much you can do with the simple amount of moves given to you, by the time you get to the 3rd of the 5 worlds you'll start to think there's not much more you can do with the moves, but there is! The moves include walk (of course), jump (but dont be trying to jump on badies, you'll only hurt yourself), hover, and attack with the ring. When you attack, instead of killing the enemies, you pick them up and then can throw them or do a double jump - the biggest part of solving puzzles. All the enemy's serve a purpose. In the normal stages (or "visons") you have to solve the puzzles to advance and collect the three stars that open the door out of the level. Also, aside from the normal puzzle/platform levels, there are also "action stages". The first type is snowboarding, which is defententaly a good change of pace, and the moving stages (where the screen moves and you have to keep up). Note for those who like to keep to the slower paced normal stages, the snowboarding and moving stages are optional. Unless your trying to "really" completet the game by getting all the blue and green gems called "dream stones" scattered in the levels. 30 per normal stage and 100 per snowboarding or moving stage. Collecting the gems adds to the reply value alot, and is not to hard - not to easy (alot harder in action stages). Succesfully acomplishing this nets you the EX stages - two of which are time attack stages and one that's just a really hard normal stage. Pretty good rewards. There are also boss stages (which are required and not optional), they are pretty basic, hit the boss three times to win. They are also very easy. This great game has two main flaws though: too easy (unless you aren't a good puzzle solver, the puzzles do get pretty hard), and too short. If you can overlook these though, this (and it's sequal) is defenetly one of the best games on the GBA. I sure enjoyed it anyway! I hadn't played or even heard of any of the Klonoa games when I saw this at the store, but I decided to buy it anyway - and I was so glad I did!

This was my second game for the GBA, and I loved it! I was merely only eight years old, but the game was absolutly wonderful! I am now a huge fan of the Klonoa series. They are the best games I have ever played in my life! I am using this review also as a compliment to the wonderful creators of this game, Namco. Please Namco do keep making more Klonoa games. Platform game buffs all over our United Nation are counting on you, and the rest of your great company.

Klonoa is a really good game.....for those who have no idea what it is about,read carefully. In the game, Klonoa is transported to a world that is devoid of dreams. Klonoa must defeat four mystical monsters to give back the ability to dream to the people of this world. Adventures of Klonoa will take him through a world where dreams are forbidden.This world includes four major towns, and Klonoa must vanquish four mystical monsters and restore the ability to dream to the sleep-deprived people of the world. The side-scrolling gameplay is a mix of action and puzzle elements--some levels are more action-oriented, while others require players to solve a wide array of puzzles. There will be a total of more than 40 levels in the game. Naturally, Klonoa's general moves, which are intrinsic to the series, will be available in Klonoa for the GBA.The graphics should be good also,and overall the game should be a huge hit!

The already famous cat like thing is about to have his game boy advance debut. In his PS and PS2 games, he has won many fans, and now it is GBA's turn. As Klonoa travels through the world where dreams are forbidden, he must save many towns and vanish mystical monsters. When he comes to the end of this game, the dreamless people of this world will finally get to sleep. Some of the levels in this game are full of action, while others are filled with puzzles and other problems. The total number of levels in this game are more than 40.

This game should turn some heads with graphics and sound, but what is great is the nonstop action of Klonoa games. It is also made by Namco, the company that creates Pacman and other puzzle games. It should be a hit for GBA as soon as it hits the shelves.

For some reason I put aside the original Klonoa on PlayStation a few years back, but what I remember is a decent platform game that felt far above average due to its cinematic look, which arguably put it above a certain game series starring a bandicoot which tended to have flat levels. Klonoa's world was large, with cliffs to race around, mazelike paths Klonoa automatically ran through (your only choices were to go left or right) and a real sense of height. There was a bit of a puzzle element even in the early stages I played, but the jumps and general madness kept it feeling like an action game.

Well, anybody who thinks that's what a Klonoa title ought to be will find themselves wondering why this handheld game doesn't feel quite right. Klonoa still can hover for a short time (with a last burst of height right before he drops), still can snatch enemies with a Wind Bullet and turn into big balls (I wonder if Namco's developers had just finished watching Live and Let Die?), still needs to use said enemies (or boxes, or items) to double-jump, and there's still gems to gather (though, throughout the early portion of the game collecting them hasn't been given any importance - I've just been doing it for the sake of completeness). You can only progress out of the level once you've found a set number of Sun Stone trinkets. The 3D worlds are completely gone, replaced by the usual layered backgrounds of a 16-bit era console sidescroller - but it doesn't play like those either. Here, the game world is built out of blocks, essentially, and that alone hurts the visual presentation. Sure, some blocks look like tall pillars, or blades of grass, and there are occasionally details that break out. For the most part, though, everything is obviously part of a room puzzle that must be beaten to pass - a bit like the NES game Fire and Ice if that's any help.

Basically, instead of making death-defying jumps, now Klonoa is more likely to be seen throwing Moo Boxes onto air vents to keep from being blown into a ceiling and past an item or exit. Klonoa cannot fall out of the level, and again there's a visible ceiling in most every area. There is dangerous water and spikes to liven things up but that's about it. It'd be unfair to expect the game to play like the original PlayStation title; this re-imagining was done to work with the GBA's comparatively limited hardware, but it loses the feeling of a great adventure, and feels overly safe.

The good news is that the puzzles are all well-designed. Even the early, less mind-bending ones forced some appreciation of how well put together they were. The puzzle aspect of the gameplay is also - as cliche as it sounds and as much as I hate what it's done to handheld gaming - a fit for the short gameplay sessions Namco's designers expected players would have time for. I haven't seen it, but apparently on at least some stages there's even a provision to start from the same room you turned off the console in.

In each of the worlds (you see five spots on the map to begin with) there's the usual stages - more puzzle-oriented now - with 30 gems to collect each; a boss stage, and also two other types of stage - a "snowboarding" type stage where you have to time your jumps, double-jumps, and grabs precisely in order to collect all the gems. You can only restart these stages from the beginning, despite coming in three level portions. Having to collect all the junk in one go is annoying, and harms what is otherwise a good change - these levels are great fun otherwise. The other type of stage is a forced scrolling stage, which feels a bit more like what I remember of the PlayStation Klonoa's stages, except that you have to hurry or else you'll end up caught behind a pillar (you're dead) or without enough room to jump (this is the only stage where Klonoa can lose a life by falling). The toughest spots in the game, reflexes-wise, are probably in these stages since you have to make some complicated maneuvers - more so than the snowboarding stages. One spot had three of the bird critters to jump between to get an item - well, you can do it with only two, but that was still one of the most difficult portions of the game. Thankfully, you can restart the automatically scrolling stages from the current section, so you should make sure you have 33 or 34 gems before moving past the first section, 66 or 67 for the second.

Bosses so far have been useless and just there to illustrate the foolish plot. It's a shame because the game actually started out looking like it might have some vaguely interesting characters and so on, but then it started telegraphing the punches far too early.

In terms of visuals - some 3D rendered backgrounds don't really add or detract much from the look. It's Klonoa, but the palette plus the flat look means it's uniformly bright, cheery, and consistent almost to the point of staring at a neon sign - it stops making an impression after a while. Granted the second world is a nice change of pace (an "opera world" themed place with purples and slightly darker colors) but again it stops being interesting visually after a while. More variation in tiles in a stage would have been good. Of course, the visual effect from jumping into a low ceiling while holding a ballooned enemy (they compress) never gets old. Sound didn't make much of an impression either. Appropriate to the stages. Klonoa's sound was the only bright spot, being clear voice samples from the game.

So: Do you like action games? There's probably better choices. Do you like puzzle games?

That's a harder choice. If you can find it cheaply it might be worth a shot. For what it's worth, I'm not regretting having paid $10 for a like-new used copy, but I'm not sure I'll be interested long enough to slog through to a 100% clear (which requires all those gems to unlock some later stages) like the previous owner, either.