And the gameplay is darn near perfect, when it comes right down to it.
Klonoa 2 is, quite simply, the best platformer I've played since . . . well,
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile. And trust me--I'm a fan of the genre. While I wish the game were a little longer, and I did have one (but only one) lockup as I played it,
Klonoa 2 matched and then surpassed my expectations for a sequel to one of the most brilliant platformers ever.
Klonoa starts off on another journey, this time to a world named Lunatea. There, four kingdoms control four bells that together keep the world running. Unfortunately, the fifth bell is due to appear, and the Chaos that comes afterwards is likely to destroy the world. This is where Klonoa steps in. Without Huepow inside of the ring, the honours of being Klonoa's weapon pass to Lolo, a priestess in training who we watch grow up as the game progresses. Lolo has a sidekick, Popka, that can be somewhat played with a second controller--it's intended to help younger players beat some of the harder sections of the game.
On the surface, Klonoa 2 seems even simpler than most platformers. There are two buttons: jump and shoot. When you shoot most enemies, you pick them up above your head. You can then throw them into other enemies, jump up and throw them down to get an added boost, and so on. If you hold down the jump button after you execute a jump, Klonoa will hover in the air for a second or two, which can often be a lifesaver on long jumps.
The real complexity of the game comes from the interactions between Klonoa and the world. While the puzzles start off easy--use the creature to boost yourself onto the ledge--by the end of the game you'll be trying to figure out just what order to activate the switches in, or how you need to throw the crystal enemies to set off the crystal blocking your way without dying. Indeed, puzzles play an even larger part in Klonoa 2 than they did in the original; stuff that you only saw in the last few levels of the first game you'll be seeing much earlier in this one.
One thing that you have to get used to in Klonoa 2 is the fact that it's a 2.5D platformer. Like Pandemonium! and Tomba, this means that while the world itself is fully 3D, you always follow a series of paths that wend their way through the 3D world. By simply pushing left and right, you can maneuver wherever you like. There are times that the path branches off and you get to choose which direction to go, and you have to press up to go into doors and the like, but for the most part the game runs on a linear track.
While the group of people used to games like Spyro the Dragon may find this 'rail' limiting, it ends up being one of the greatest strengths of the game. By staying on a linear path, Klonoa 2 lets you have much more control over your character. I can't imagine doing some of the 'jump and hold' puzzles in a fully 3D world; the angles that you have to make and the amount of information you'd need to successfully scale a cliff while using enemies would be boggling. So suffice it to say that the play style of Klonoa 2 is perfect for the game it's in.
However, the entire game isn't on rails. [Yes, I know I said that it was. Shush.] New in Klonoa 2 are a number of racing levels, done on a sort of hoverboard, where you'll find yourself zooming down a track that allows you to pull back, push foward, and even at times swing left and right. These levels are a lot of fun, although they're necessarily short, and the differing range of freedom makes for a nice change of pace from the rest of the game. It's not so much as to overwhelm you, but it's not so little as to make you think it's merely a gimmick.
In the grand tradition of platformers, Klonoa 2 has a number of big huge bosses. They range from the trivial to the diabolical, and each of them looks downright fantastic. While you may blast your way through the first few without any problems, be prepared to die a few times on the later bosses before you figure out their patterns and modes of attack.
The levels in Lunatea's Veil range from forests to caverns to factories and everywhere in between. There are a few levels that truly stand out as imaginative; the ship is very nice, with a high level of 'compactness', requiring you to backtrack and find new paths, and the aforementioned Memories level is without a doubt one of the most clever platformer levels ever pressed onto disc. Sure, a number of the gimmicks have been done before, but they've never been done this beautifully or entrancingly.
Indeed, the only flaw that I can find in Klonoa 2 is that it's over entirely too soon. There are sixteen core stages, plus the various boss fights, and while it's doubtful that you could beat all sixteen in one night, a heavy long weekend could definitely see you all the way through the game. Of course, like the original title, beating the game completely requires much more than just finishing every levels; you have to collect a number of 'stars' in each level to rescue some dolls which unlock secrets, and you have to get 150 or more gems in a level to gain a picture in the photo gallery. While the core game itself may be a little easy (other than a few difficult levels near the end), getting all 150 gems in each level is mind-numbingly difficult. This is the sort of replay value that games should have; Klonoa 2 stands on its own two feet without the added objectives, but they serve to enhance the experience.
