Klonoa made the leap from Sony to Nintendo through the GBA, enter their first effort: Empire of Dreams. This is a puzzle-platform game that has you solving puzzles, by using and abusing enemies, and collecting gems in order to clear various stages.
The plot is a bit wonkers, basically Klonoa is having a dream which soon turns into a nightmare as he is whisked away to the Empire of Dreams, a place where no one dreams anymore, and Klonoa is forced to take down four bullies in order to prove... something. It doesn't make much sense, but plot isn't the reason you'll be playing this game. As for the setup, the game is made up of five world, 5 puzzle-platform levels, 2 bonus levels and a boss each. There're also 3 bonus unlockable stages if you clear the game and fulfill certain conditions.
Klonoa has only two abilities: Jump and shoot. Jump is self explanatory, but his other ability will be your main means of solving puzzles, shooting 'wind bullets'. A wind bullet is a colored orb that travels a short range in front of Klonoa. If you hit an enemy, he will become capture by Klonoa, who will now carry it over his head. You can use this enemy as a projectile or as a platform to perform a double jump upon. But this isn't an action game, enemies respawn indefinitely, so very rarely will you be using enemies to defeat other enemies, save for bosses.
The objective on each stage is to collect three gold stars and reach the exit. In order to do so you will have to clear various puzzles. Initially, these are very easy. Maybe jump from enemy to enemy by using the wind bullet. Later you might have to shoot an enemy towards a switch, in order to activate something. Then blocks get introduced, objects you can carry and don't break after being used as a bullet or a platform. Then water gets introduced, which Klonoa can't touch, so you'll have to use objects as shields to walk below waterfalls.... The game gets progressively more complex at a very nice pace, so there aren't any nasty difficulty spikes.
While the game doesn't get too hard, I felt the repetitive nature of the game, searching for stars and reaching an exit, grew a bit dull, something that might not have happened had it been a straight and simple platform game. A few stages feature what I would consider badly designed puzzles, as it's possible to screw yourself out of an exit, which would reset the room. This was common on rooms featuring fans. Luckily, you can simply press start and choose 'retry' in order to restart from the room's entrance. The game is quite lenient in that regard, turn the game off at any moment and you'll restart from the entrance to the last room you visited.
Getting down to brass tacks, Klonoa Empire of Dreams is pretty dope. It's a fun platformer, with neat commodities that makes it a great game to have on a handheld. Me, myself, would've preferred a simple platform game, without any fuss and stars, I still had a good time with it.
8.0 out of 10
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