Video Game / Klonoa

aka: Klonoa 2 Lunateas Veil

Onto adventures in the wind...

"Wahoo!"

— Klonoa

The Klonoa series by Bandai Namco Entertainment comprises several 2½D Platformers starring the eponymous... creature. Exactly who and what he is remain undefined throughout the series; the only explanation being that he is a 'Dream Traveler'. That is more of a job description; Klonoa's main goal in each of the games—in which he and his abilities to grab and carry enemies with his Ring of Power to throw or jump off of them and hover using his ears are virtually the only constant—is to solve the mysteries of the dream worlds he finds himself inhabiting.

A remake of the original, simply titled Klonoa, was released in Japan for the Nintendo Wii in December 2008, and overseas in May 2009.

Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series, a Compilation Re-release of high-definition remasters of both Door to Phantomile's Wii remake (with certain aesthetical and narrative aspects reverted to those of the original PS1 game) and Lunatea's Veil to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the series, was released on July 6, 2022 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.

Outside of his home series, Klonoa shows up as a secret playable character in the 2000 MotoGP, Alpine Racer 3 and Family Tennis Advance. He also appears in Namco Bandai's Massive Multiplayer Crossover Namco × Capcom in his Klonoa Heroes incarnation, while the character often winds up getting cameos in the Tales games (the most notable, from Tales of Symphonia, being a full costume for the Cute Bruiser, complete with deadpan "wahoo").

An official webcomic was also produced by ShiftyLook titled, Klonoa: Dream Traveller of Noctis Sol, which told an original story that acted as a continuation of the games. Unforunately, it was Cut Short due to ShiftyLook shutting down.

This series has a Character Sheet, currently under construction. Please keep character tropes there.

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Main Series Games

• Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (December 1997, PlayStation—remade in 2008 under the title Klonoa for the Wii)
• Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil (March 2001, PlayStation 2)

Spin-offs

• Klonoa: Moonlight Museum (May 1999, WonderSwan)
• Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (July 2001, Game Boy Advance)
• Klonoa Beach Volleyball (April 2002, PlayStation)
• Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament (August 2002, Game Boy Advance)
• Klonoa Heroes: The Legendary Star Medal (December 2002, Game Boy Advance)

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The series as a whole contains examples of the following tropes:

• 2½D: One of the many games from the 90s to utilize walking a set, winding path in a 3D world. The back cover for the North American release of Door to Phantomile called this “Guided 3-D”.
• Accent Adaptation: Klonoa Beach Volleyball features the very first time Klonoa and company speaking real-life languages like Japanese and English instead of "Phantomilian". Perhaps as a side effect of only releasing in Europe and Japan, the English dub notably features the entire cast speaking with British accents.
• Action Bomb: Boomie, a pig-bomb of sorts, becomes a time bomb after the wind bullet is used on them. Throw them at the right time to solve puzzles.
• Adorable Evil Minions: The Moos. It really becomes strange when someone like, say, Ghadius starts summoning those cute things to stop you.
• All Just a Dream: The ending of Empire of Dreams... Or Was It a Dream?
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Played for Laughs at the end of Klonoa Beach Volleyball; if Tat wins the tournament, she'll make her partner Leorina wear a suit (and even face makeup and body paint!) that imitates the former's black-and-white Duality Motif pattern. She looks so ridiculous that her victims burst into laughter when she later resumes her criminal activities.
• Art Course: The entirety of Moonlight Museum takes place within different works of art, including canvas paintings and comics.
• The Artifact: To clear most of the visions in Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament, the player needs to collect 3 Moon Pieces to unlock the vision's exit... even though said pieces aren't really relevant to the plot. This is actually a borrowed gameplay element from the Japan-exclusive Moonlight Museum (the gameplay of which EOD and DCT borrow heavily from), where this element is a part of the story; you're collecting said pieces to restore the moon to the sky.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament feature these as the 6th vision of each world.
• Backtracking: Sometimes you'll do this straight, and other times the branching paths act as Doors to Before.
• Big Bad: Ghadius in Door to Phantomile, The King of Sorrow in Lunatea's Veil, Bagoo in Empire of Dreams, and Garlen in Klonoa Beach Volleyball and Dream Champ Tournament.
• Blessed with Suck: As a "dream traveller", Klonoa gets the chance to visit incredible fantasy worlds, getting up to all kinds of adventures and making friends along the way... unfortunately, he has no license to stay in or revisit any of these worlds once he has dealt with whatever discord that threatens to unravel them. All goodbyes are final (or at least that was the case until the webcomic mercifully gave him a way to see his old friends again, if only rarely and for a short time), and so Klonoa lives a rather forlorn life where he can't get too attached to anyone. Poor little guy.
• Bottomless Pits: This series features many of them - especially in Vision 6-1 and 6-2 of Door to Phantomile. In the latter level, they usually had to be crossed by jumping on incredibly tiny floating platforms.
• The Cameo: Heroes has a few NPCs who hail from other Namco games, like Ki.
• Canon Immigrant: The invincible Spiker enemy originated from Wagan Paradise, another Namco game made by the same dev team as Door to Phantomile's.
• Catchphrase: Klonoa has "Wahoo!" while executing an air jump and "Rupurudu!"^note "Let's Go!" (written as "Loopuludoo" in Empire of Dreams) when starting a level.
• Central Theme: Dreams for the majority of the series.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: The early game is a kind of easygoing, simple platformer with a few little wrinkles and hidden areas. The late game in both Door To Phantomile and Lunatea's Veil is much heavier on tricky combo jumps and timed puzzles than the early game, to the point where they play very differently over the course of their runtime. Commendable, considering the whole control scheme is essentially two buttons. And this isn't even bringing up the hidden bonus level, where you spend more time with your feet off the ground than on it.
• Checkpoint: In the form of floating clocks in bubbles that the player must burst to activate.
• Continuity Snarl: The inter-game continuity gets rather ridiculous.
  • In Door to Phantomile, Huepow is revealed to be the prince of the Moon Kingdom using the Ring Spirit form as a disguise, and is tragically separated from Klonoa at the end of the game, both of which are ignored when he reappears in later games.
  • Not only does Joka have a different personality in every game he appears in, but he already knows Klonoa in half of them, and is killed in the other half.
  • Chipple, a random human-like villager from Empire of Dreams, showed up in Dream Champ Tournament, where he had become Klonoa's close friend... and a kangaroo.
• Creepy Circus Music:
  • Facade & Blade, Joka's battle theme from Klonoa: Door To Phantomile, starts out with this type of music, but quickly switches to dark, techno-ish music. This is symbolic of Joka going from being incompetent and buffoonish to being a full-fledged Monster Clown.
  • The boss theme for Leptio the Flower Clown from Lunatea's Veil also qualifies.
  • "There's the Monster!" from Empire of Dreams, an "Entry of the Gladiators"-esque piece that plays in the cutscene before each boss battle, except for the Final Boss.
• Death Equals Redemption: The King of Sorrow and Emperor Jillius pull a Heel–Face Turn immediately after their boss battles, but the latter's death was All Just a Dream, and he hurried to correct his wrongs.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Grandpa in Door to Phamtomile, the King of Sorrow in Lunatea's Veil, and Emperor Jillius in Empire of Dreams all die in Klonoa's arms after delivering their Last Words to him. Though, in Jillius' case, it was All Just a Dream.
• Does Not Like Spam: Klonoa shows in Empire of Dreams that he hates carrots. He gets more upset about it than truly angry, though. Granted, he was hoping for a hamburger...
• Dolled-Up Installment: Namco's first Sgt. Frog game for the Nintendo DS, which is based on the fourth movie, is essentially a quite good Klonoa clone with more characters. Namco followed it up with Keroro RPG, a Tales of Hearts-esque RPG which is good in its own right. Amusingly enough, Kumiko Watanabe provided the voice of both Klonoa and Keroro in Japan.
• Dramatic Choir Number: "Facade and Blade," Joka's battle theme in Door to Phantomile and the remake, is a Freaky Electronic Music theme with strings, but there is a Variable Mix that adds a choir when Joka goes One-Winged Angel.
• Dreams vs. Nightmares: The titular Klonoa is a creature who travels around dream worlds to save them from various villains, some of which are stated to be nightmares. For example, the evil Ghadius in Door to Phantomile plots to destroy Phantomile by summoning Nahatomb, an Eldritch Abomination literally made from nightmares.
  Ghadius: Hear this, strange dream! The world is finished! And this is the beginning of the perfect nightmare!^{Remake version}Hear me, strange dream! This world is coming to an end! And the perfect nightmare is about to begin!
• Ears as Hair: Klonoa's ears wave like hair when running.
• Ear Wings: Klonoa's long, flappy ears allow him to hover in the air for a few seconds.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Moon Queen, the High Priestess, and the King of Sorrow are never called by name, just by their titles.
• Expy: Garlen, host of the eponymous Dream Champ Tournament, is very close to human-like in a world of mostly non-human creatures, is decidedly oval-shaped, wears a military-looking uniform with a colored top and black bottom, has one hand replaced with a claw, is building a mechanical empire, supports said empire by turning people into (literal) cogs for his machine, and fights in a Humongous Mecha. Does that sound familiar?
• Final Boss: Nahatomb in Door to Phantomile, the King of Sorrow in Lunatea's Veil, Bagoo in Empire of Dreams.
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Inverted for Klonoa Beach Volleyball, which omitted the "Strongest Team Playoff!" subtitle outside of Japan.
  • Also inverted when the first game's Wiimake was localized. While the Japanese and Korean releases kept the PlayStation version's subtitle of Door to Phantomile, this subtitle was omitted from the North American and PAL releases.
• Foul Flower: Klonoa has faced two flower bosses in his games, both of which are also Monster Clowns:
  • Lunatea's Veil features a boss called Leptio the Flower Clown, a flower-themed Monster Clown who hides inside a thorny wheel to try and run over Klonoa.
  • In Klonoa Heroes, Klonoa and his friends battle Joka — or so it seems. In the last phase of the battle, Joka turns out to be just a clone, who transforms into a floating, fireball-shooting beast called Flower Joka.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Klonoa's Beach Volleyball puts many of the series' heroes and villains (even Nahatomb!) happily playing beach volleyball for a prize in cash.
• Guns Akimbo:
  • The shelled Glibz is usually seen dual wielding cannons. Sometimes its quad cannons!
  • Guntz also qualifies, as he primarily attacks with dual-wielding pistols, but can also carry multiple other firearms.
• Handshake Substitute: When Klonoa enters Ghazzaland, the boxing land of the Empire of Dreams, the residents greet him by punching him in the face.
• Heel–Face Turn: Leorina and Tat in Lunatea's Veil. Emperor Jillius in Empire of Dreams.
• 100% Completion: What is unlocked for each task varies upon game, but generally the tasks themselves don't differ; get all the dolls, collect 150 gems or more per stage, and beat the bonus stages. Rewards range from the aforementioned bonus stages to being able to listen to the game's soundtrack.
• Hyperspace Arsenal:
  • In the RPG especially. In addition to the Wind Ring (which can already become a sword and a shield), Klonoa is somehow able to carry around a hammer, a boomerang, and a pair of arm cannons. All of which are bigger than his head.
    • Lunatea's Veil contains a possible explanation: in one cutscene, Popka is briefly shown going inside of the ring to retrieve a hoverboard they obtained in Joilant, which was presumably stashed there over the course of several levels, implying that the Ring can function as a Bag of Holding for inanimate objects as well.
  • There's also Guntz, who has way more firearms than should be possible for him to carry. There's his twin handguns that he typically uses, and a giant revolver that he has to hold over his shoulder. Not only that, but he later gains access to a flamethrower, a bazooka, a missile launcher, and some kind of beam weapon. Lastly, there's his father's rifle, which he has to get back from Janga.
  • Pango isn't as extreme as the above examples, given his size, but he still counts. His arsenal consists of a variety of explosives, namely cartoon bombs that are usually close to wrecking balls in size, and some of which are spiked. He also carries some smaller explosives such as grenades. Seriously, how is all this stuff supposed to fit in these guys' pants?!
• Image Song: "Stepping Wind/Wahoo Stomp," the stage BGM for Mts. of Mira-Mira ~ Alpine Wonderland ~ in Lunatea's Veil. Kumiko Watanabe even goes the extra mile and sings the song in Phantomilian (the guidebook for the game by Enterbrain features a Japanese translation of the lyrics). The song would appear again in Namco × Capcom as the theme for Klonoa and Guntz/Gantz, mostly sans vocals (the "Wahoo!"s are still present).
  • "Sign of a Hero", the main theme of Klonoa Heroes; also performed by Kumiko Watanabe (in Japanese this time).
• Inconsistent Dub: The recurring yellow, flying bug-like creatures are called "Ngapokos" in Door to Phantomile, Lunatea's Veil, and their remakes, but called "Nagapokos" in Dream Champ Tournament.
• Informed Ability: Lolo in Dream Champ Tournament assures Klonoa that her training has made her a viable competitor just like everyone else, though it is never shown exactly how she fights.
• Interspecies Romance: Klonoa and Lolo, which also counts as "Inter-realities Romance." Played for laughs in Namco × Capcom, as Klonoa bonds with Felicia from Darkstalkers, who is twice his age and size but shares his same cheerful attitude.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Spiker is a small black creature that is immune to all attacks.
• Kaizo Trap: The third phase of the Garlen boss fight in Dream Champ Tournament involves using an electric Erbil-powered double-jump to hit Garlen's Mecha 3 times; all the while, you're above a bottomless pit and have to grab onto floating Goomis to stay aloft. So don't get too excited when you finally defeat him... or you'll fall in and have to start over.
• Level Ate: Jiobob, the food land of the Empire of Dreams, features levels seemingly designed to resemble vegetable gardens.
• Lighter and Softer: A mild example, as most of the handheld spin-offs, along with Klonoa Beach Volleyball, have a somewhat lighter tone than the main console games.
  • Moonlight Museum has a more simplistic story than Door to Phantomile (you're travelling through art worlds in a museum to restore the moon to the sky), and doesn't feature any boss battles.
  • Empire of Dreams almost reaches the tone of the console games, what with Emperor Jillius' advisor, Bagoo, wanting to turn the eponymous Empire into his very own nightmare kingdom by stealing his subjects' dreams and turning them into monsters, and the game ends with Jillius dying in Klonoa's arms after his Heel Realization. The only thing that keeps the game from reaching that tone completely is that it was All Just a Dream that Jillius had on his throne.
  • The only real threat the main villains of Klonoa Beach Volleyball pose is taking over every sports resort in the world if they win the beach volleyball tournament.
  • While Dream Champ Tournament does have the dark element of the losers of said tournament being turned into gears and forced to power a mechanical empire, it’s still not as dark as, say, the Big Bad trying to summon an Eldritch Abomination to commit a Class X-4 Apocalypse How.
• Magical Clown:
  • Joka is a clownlike Cartoon Creature who has a wide range of abilities including, but not limited to, shapeshifting, teleporting, and summoning giant monsters at will.
  • One interesting encounter with Joka occurs in Klonoa Heroes. Klonoa and his friends think they're about to fight Joka, but it turns out that it's not really Joka, it's actually a clone named Flower Joka. The heroes do battle with Flower Joka, who attacks them by Playing with Fire.
  • Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil gives us the boss Leptio the Flower Clown, whose abilities include summoning a giant spiked wheel to run over Klonoa, and Me's a Crowd.
• Mascot Mook: The ridiculously adorable Moos.
• Mirror Match: It's possible in Klonoa Beach Volleyball for both teams to have the same characters (i.e. both teams having a Garlen on their side).
• Mook Maker: The Moos, along with any other casual enemy in the game, will regenerate by hopping onto the field from off-screen. Though, instead of being for annoyance, the regeneration is so that if you mess up and accidentally kill one you needed to jump with or something, you won't be stuck in the level.
• Nostalgic Musicbox: Used frequently throughout the series. Fitting, considering the games' theme of dreams:
  • Door to Phantomile and the Video Game Remake:
    • The main menu music is a relaxing tune played on what sounds like a cross between a music box and bells.
    • "Grandpa's Chair", the Leitmotif of Klonoa's kindly grandfather, is a very calming, yet sad, music box song. It plays again, only this time, slower, when Grandpa is dying after Joka's ambush.
    • A music box is also used for many short jingles, such as when Klonoa and Huepow first discover the magical Moon Pendant.
  • Empire of Dreams:
    • A slow, whimsical tune is played for the main menu music.
    • A much more tear-jerking music box is played during Emperor Jillius' Disney Death.
• Numbered Sequels: Interestingly, there are two games designated as Klonoa 2 outside of Japan: Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil and Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament. The latter game was originally numbered "G2" in Japan.
• Opening Narration: The opening narrations of the games were basically poems written by Klonoa himself.
• Orphaned Series: Due to the poor sales the Wii remake had, the series never had any new games until Phantasy Reverie.
• Replay Mode: Both Klonoa Heroes and Klonoa (Wii) feature the option to replay the cutscenes seen in the main campaign. Additionally, Lunatea's Veil, Heroes and Klonoa (Wii) all feature the ability to fight bosses you've already beaten to see if you can beat your best time.
• Respawning Enemies: Enemies respawn endlessly from portals when using them is required to solve Double Jump puzzles.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Everything, including the enemies, is adorable in its own right, though especially Klonoa. The character designs in these games could give Kirby a run for its money.
• Same Content, Different Rating: Both Door to Phantomile and Lunatea's Veil were rated E upon original release in 1997 and 2001, respectively. However, the former game's Wiimake and the Phantasy Reverie Series bumped the rating up to E10+ (which was introduced in 2005).
  • In Door to Phantomile's case, the ESRB website said the bump was due to Grandpa being seen smoking a pipe, as well as Grandpa's death scene.
  • As for Lunatea's Veil, the same website notes the bump was due to Tat calling Klonoa a pervert at one point and Leorina muttering "Damn it..." after Klonoa beats the curse out of her.
• Shout-Out: Klonoa has a pin of Pac-Man, Namco's mascot character, on his hats.
• Sound Test: Door to Phantomile, Lunatea's Veil, Klonoa Heroes, and Klonoa (Wii) feature a music player that's unlocked after fulfilling certain conditions (i.e. clearing the Brutal Bonus Level),
• Space Zone: The last 3 worlds of Klonoa Heroes are set on the moon.
• Speaking Simlish: Did it before The Sims, actually. Everyone speaks "Phantomilian" in the games (even when they don't take place in Phantomile, oddly enough), with text boxes translating the dialogue into the player's language. The theme song of Lunatea's Veil is even sung entirely in the language.
  • One could easily assume that the games are using stock gibberish clips for each character, were it not for the fact that the voiced lines include recognizable proper nouns (albeit heavily accented in the Klonoa-ese; for example, the text "Klonoa" usually gets voiced as "Klo~oa"). The Wii remake offers this and a proper language track.
  • Averted in Klonoa Heroes, as from what little we hear of the characters' voices, they're speaking Japanese in-universe.
  • Also averted in Klonoa Beach Volleyball, as the character's voices are in the player's language (Japanese for the Japan release, for example).
  • The Namco X Capcom crossover game has both Klonoa and Guntz given actual speaking lines and audio.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • In the North American version of Dream Champ Tournament, Guntz was renamed "Gantz."
    • This example was discussed in ShiftyLook's Bravoman webcomic, where during a talk show, Brave Man asks Klonoa which of the two pronunciations is correct... even though they apparently agreed not to bring it up, and Klonoa could get in trouble for picking a side.
      Klonoa: Err... well... the correct pronunciation is... is... ガンツ!^note "Gantsu"
      Brave Man: Ah... touché, bunny-cat-dog.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Springboards are foundthroughout the game, helping Klonoa to reach higher locations.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: Gems found in the game can be larger than Klonoa's head.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: The handheld platformers feature levels where you have to hit switches that move brown blocks from the background into the foreground (and vice versa for the ones initially placed in the foreground), allowing you to walk on them (or, depending on the case, pass through an area obstructed by one). One such instance is Vision 4-5 in Empire of Dreams.
• Tournament Arc: Dream Champ Tournament has Klonoa and friends competing in a race/obstacle course tournament hosted by Garlen for the title of Greatest Hero. However, it turns out that Garlen is only holding the tournament to turn the competitors into gears for his Mechanical Empire.
• Turns Red:
  • Gelg Bolm in the first game does this, as do several of the bosses from the second game.
  • Every boss in Lunatea's Veil has two phases. They generally turn red again when their second phase's life bar gets low.
• Under the Sea: The Southern Resort in Dream Champ Tournament features 3 of these levels (one of which is also an Auto-Scrolling Level), and since Klonoa can't swim, he's loaned a mechanized diving suit that lets him traverse them. While he can jump higher and farther underwater, he can't run as fast.
• Wind Is Green: Klonoa's Wind Bullet-firing ring has a green gem.
• Womb Level: In Dream Champ Tournament, one of the levels appears to be taking place inside a whale's stomach.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Chipple's ending in Klonoa Beach Volleyball is a variant on this. Surprised after winning the tournament, Chipple believes Klonoa just let him win and calls for a rematch... where he wins again, much to his further surprise. This cycle repeats well into the evening, driving Klonoa and Heart Moo to exhaustion.
  Chipple: It's all wrong!
  Klonoa: Go easy on us...

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