KLONOA Phantasy Reverie Series

First thing's first: The price is 100% unacceptable. It's way too high for 20+ year old games. I would purchase for around ~$15 tops given that emulation is free. There's no excuse to charge full sticker MSRP for digital copies of games this old. Anyone else remember the PSN store or Wii VIrtual Console Store where old titles could be scooped up for anywhere between $.49 and $2.99? We desperately need something like that on Steam. The closest thing we ever got to a retro digital storefront was the SEGA Genesis collection, but SEGA removed it from Steam for some strange reason. Anyway, that's enough ranting. If you're new to the Klonoa series, it's essentially an "on rail" 3D platformer with fun puzzles, movement, and boss battles. Very similar to Kirby and the Crystal Shard on the N64. I'm grateful to have older titles on Steam. 6/10 - Generally recommended. Better than average.

[h1] Amazing Games, but fairly generic visuals [/h1] As someone who loves this franchise to death. I think this collection is alright. It's not perfect but it's not terrible either. I'd say that if you were to play it, you'd be best getting it on sale (and it goes on sale for like 10 dollars pretty frequently). These are two games are genuinely great with a fairly developed cast as characters, simple gameplay mechanics that are used in a a lot of fun and creative ways, a great atmosphere, and two video game stories that have a surprising amount of depth that could resonate with a ton of people (I played these games for the first time as an adult and I admittedly got teary eyed at both of them). On top of this, the Phantasy Reverie remakes adds some stuff like difficulty settings, in-game tutorials (which can be turned off), a bunch of other minor QOL improvements. But the thing is though, I think these remakes pale in comparison to the originals visually I haven't played the original Klonoa 2, but I have played the original Klonoa 1 on PSX so I'll be focused on that. I think the Phantasy Reverie series is fairly lacking presentation wise in comparison to the original. I'm not a guy who tends to focus on graphics a lot when it comes to talking about a game's quality, but I think the art direction, animation, and visual storytelling are some of the most notable aspects of the original games. I don't think the models or enviorments look bad, but the characters are far less visually interesting. They're far less emotive, the characters expressions and movements aren't exaggerated as much so everything feels way more stilted (Stuff like Balue's face growing when he yells, and Klonoa lifting up his ear to eavesdrop are gone), and the original games FMVs are done in-engine. Everything just lacks the charm and impact that the original game, making it come off as far more generic. I think the visual identity of these games helped to make them memorable, so seeing them downgraded like this saddens me somewhat. If you have a legal way to play the originals, I'd say play those, but if you don't, this isn't a terrible way to play the games. Even with the visual downgrades, I'd say they're still great games worth playing, and the minor additions are cool too.

Underrated platformers with a fun mechanic that involves grabbing enemies and throwing them to attack, double jump, etc. The atmosphere and music in particular are really special, they nailed a really cool vibe with Klonoa. In particular I really like Klonoa 2 though that could also be a lot of nostalgia. I still remember the Christmas that I got the game for Playstation 2 and instantly fell in love with it. It's nice to have it on PC as an adult. Here's to hoping for Klonoa 3 some day.