#klonoa moonlight museum

[tiffanyelectricity]

Klonoa In The Shadowed Museum Halls

Dreams of artists makes the moon glow.

I was inspired by one of the cutscenes in Klonoa: Moonlight Museum.

[meltyfrankie]

Decided to redraw the Cloud Palace Dreamstone illustration for Klonoa Day. It's 3 days late now but whatever. The extra time spent was worth it, because I'm generally quite pleased with how this came out.

[glassmarcus]

The Handheld Klonoa Games

*Played and Written in July 2022

Allow me to recount the great era of GBA platformers. I'm talking about the age when Rayman 3, Crash Bandicoot 2, Spyro 2 all came out...on the Game Boy Advance. Franchises wanted to take advantage of the portable market so they paired down their gameplay to make a few GBA games. They all have this certain flavor to them. Having pre-rendered "cut scenes", being somewhat of a soft remake of its corresponding console game, being questionably canon. As someone who spent that era without a Playstation, these games were my only window into some of these franchises. Crash Bandicoot is a 2D sidescroller first and a 3D platformer second to me. Spyro was a mid isometric collectethon to me for the longest time. Rayman was also a sidescroller...which isn’t weird at all given the history of that brand. I loved these games dearly growing up, but I had the misfortune of not even knowing Klonoa existed, so I never got to play the portable takes on the series framework.

After playing all 3 Portable Klonoa platformers, I can declare that they have the same vibes as the games I discussed before. While the portable Klonoa games can't interact with the foreground and background, they are more or less the same gameplay wise as the console games. The rest of its peers try to be similar to the games they are based off of, but are noticeably reeled back. Here, not much is lost in the translation, so not much is lost quality wise. Because the same philosophies of Klonoa 1 and 2 can be taken full advantage of, the three portable Klonoa Platformers end up being at the top of this sub genre.

Klonoa: Moonlight Museum is surprisingly great. I think dig it more than the first Klonoa game. It's less of a straight forward platformer you try to master and more of a puzzle platformer that uses Klonoa gameplay. The actual platforming aspect isn't that impressive, but these puzzles get pretty big brained eventually. The stages take advantage of the Wonder Swan’s screen and uses it to give levels verticality which allows for more space for the puzzles to stretch out. The levels start to feel like Zelda dungeons after a while, where you are required to have an intimate understanding of the stage’s structure. None of them are as complex as some of the better dungeons per say, but they are, at their worst, Breath of the Wild tier. There are no bosses and the story is told in a rather bland way so it is not as impactful or complete of an experience as the first game. But it's a more stimulating product moment to moment. You really have to get the hang the elements introduced in each world and how they interact with Klonoa’s abilities. It’s more thought out. It’s also somehow more considerate. I love how enemies don't just respawn without warning and how bomb enemies have a countdown. These are good quality of life additions that I didn't expect from a Wonder Swan game. All it really needs is a map and it's basically perfect in terms of delivering its content painlessly.

Klonoa: Empire of Dreams is incredibly consistent. I think the puzzles are a bit harder in the other two, but Empire of Dreams makes up for it by introducing more mechanics to interact with, having color to make out objects and enemies easier, and breaking up the puzzles with action stages. Moonlight Museum was 100% just levels with puzzles you can solve at your own pace. Empire changes the composition to allow auto scrolling levels to test your platforming abilities, Snowboard levels to test your reflexes, and Boss fights to cap off each distinct world. The levels are also designed in a way where it's not as easy to get lost. It's mostly a semi linear puzzle gauntlet aside from a psuedo Zelda dungeon where things are all over the place. It loops you around way better and cuts down on back tracking significantly. There’s not much else to say about this game other that. It’s good the whole way through with no baggage attached.

Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament sure has...ideas. The look around feature is welcome for sure. The edgy rival is pretty cool. Tournament arc story and level structure is novel. These are all good ideas, but only a fraction of the ideas present in Dream Champ Tournament. Having a ranking system that requires perfection is an idea. Having the surfing mini game be more similar to a Crash Bandicoot Boulder Level is an idea. Having the boss fights be timed levels is an idea. These aren't good ideas, but they are there. I don't think the good additions outweigh the bad ones, but I appreciate how much they tried for a game that, honestly, would be objectively better if the did the same thing the previous GBA title did. Also these puzzles are nightmares. They are true specters of the night. This might be the hardest puzzle game I've played in a while, sans the later levels in Mario’s Super Picross. But these puzzles aren’t hard because they are poorly crafted, I’m just stupid. And that’s why this game has my undying respect. While it may be my least favorite Klonoa Platformer, I will always feel mentally inadequate to it. And I value that a lot for some reason.

Overall, Empire of Dreams is the best one, but all three of these games are great and have cemented my identity as a Klonoa Shill.

[klonoa-at-blog]

5/20 - 25th anniversary of Klonoa: Moonlight Museum!

[kingbeeleth]

also, here's a list of writing scripts for the phantomilian language:

the script shown original dtp textures, art, and comics, and possibly in moonlight museum too (nobody knows anything about this one, and neither do i)

the script used in la-lakoosha and the terminus of tears (based on english alphabet)

the script used in joilant (based on english alphabet but also japanese romanisation; key was released in kprs digital artbook)

the script used in volk (based on english alphabet; key was also released in kprs digital artbook)

the script used in the wiimake (based on english alphabet; the ending credits cutscene has a key for it in the book)

WOOOOOOOO you’re so real!! thanks so much for bringing all of them up!!! ^_^ ill try to take a look at them later if i have the time and remember

i have seen the klonoa @ blog posts about at least one of the scripts already but i haven’t taken a close look at any of them. i should check out the art book at some point

i need to replay dtp + lunateas veil again at some point to re-familiarize myself with what everything looks like. the script used in joilant is the most memorable for me since it’s on all those signs (and also because the jungle slider intro cutscene will always be in the back of my brain)

[akaikura]

[stellato-17]

Let’s paint! 😄🎨🖌️🖼️

[thefreecheese]

I Want a WonderSwan

I really, really want a WonderSwan. It was first released in 1999, a spiritual successor to Gunpei Yokoi’s Game Boy. The creator left Nintendo after the Virtual Boy and worked with Bandai to create the WonderSwan using a lot of the same design principles that made the Game Boy successful ten years earlier. The WonderSwan has always stuck out to me in its look and form factor, and I think it’s…

[kurhl]

Klonoa roubando a atenção com seus puzzles.

[transmorolians]

klonoir du vent: musée au clair de lune

[manicyoar]

My largest embroidery project by far, based on a picture from Klonoa: Moonlight Museum. 23,040 stitches, 10 months on-and-off work, rendered in DMC Etoilé. What a journey 💙💜💖🧡💛

[autisticlio]

I am the rare gamer whose first Klonoa game was Moonlight Museum.

[arcadenonsense]

Klonoa has his art film moment. 🎭🎬 (Border from Klonoa: Moonlight Museum on Wonderswan)

This was made for Running Shine | Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil Review. You can see the illustration pop up at this time stamp (5:28): https://youtu.be/bg1E7sFLB4A?t=328

[aquamarine-oceanfront]

For those who don't know: between 2017 and 2019, Hideo Yoshizawa (creator of Klonoa) made a series of Twitter threads he named Klonoa Chronicle(s). These detailed the development history of the original game (with a few more afterward devoted to his involvement in Moonlight Museum and Empire of Dreams). The ever-helpful Klonoa @ Blog has archived all of them here - it's probably the most convenient way to read all of them.

The 15th thread has a part where he discusses one line near the end of the game that worried him during development. He wanted Klonoa to be the player's "alter ego,"* and it was very important to him that nothing would unintentionally separate the two.

In a response to what I believe is a now-deleted reply to the thread, he went on to mention an interesting and relevant tidbit about the Wii remake:

そうですねぇ、Wii版はプロデューサーの意向で日本語音声を入れることになったので、そうなるとさらにプレイヤーとの分離が気になってセリフを減らしてしまったので、結構叩かれました（笑）。

Very roughly translated, this means:

Well, the Wii remake's producer wanted to include Japanese voice acting, and that made me worried that the player would get even more detached [from Klonoa]. That's why I decreased the number of lines he had, but I caught quite a bit of flack for that (lol).

* The Japanese word he used, 分身, could also be translated as "avatar," "embodiment," or even "doppelganger."

[klonoa-at-blog]

Klonoa: Moonlight Museum "Present Box” that came with a copy of the game and a skeleton blue WonderSwan unit.

[morkitten]

what's your favorite thing about klonoa? ^^

the character or the games??? you know what, i'll answer both: and i can't list just a single thing about both so i'm just going to list all the things i most love about them THE CHARACTER:

- Extremely cute character design, I love the big ears, I love the pac-man hat, and i love how they work together, the shapes just aren't as appealing otherwise (which is why I'm a bit lukewarm on the Klonoa 2 design - but put his hat forward like it should be and then it's instantly a good design again). Besides that I like his goofy and cute expressions and fangy teeth. I also love the yellow sclera, I used to be much more protective of it and upset that they changed that, but the white sclera works too - I like how in Moonlight Museum it blends with the white muzzle so it gives Klonoa that really cute old Mickey Mouse cartoon sort of look to his face where you can't tell where the eyes or white fur begin or end.

- Cute noises. Klonoa's voice actress is great and his gibberish is really cute. the double jump "WA-HOO!" just doesn't work with another delivery or with a less cute voice. I like the new lines that Klonoa 2 gives him for consecutive double-jumps which makes them feel even more satisfying to perform. THE GAMES:

- Each kingdom in Door to Phantomile feels like a totally different culture from each other, and the 2.5D helps sell this feeling that all these levels are sprawling lively places that you're going all over and throughout instead of feeling like you're stuck in a tiny stretch of land in one lane on a much larger and richer environment, like how other 2.5D games tend to feel like. The levels are designed pretty cleverly to not give you that impression, like you're never going "come ON just go AROUND this guy" or "why can't I go over there?" I love how barely anything in the levels' environments are "just" in the background in DtP. Every polygon is precious and is used efficiently. You see that windmill in the distance? You can climb it later in the level. That's right, Klonoa is Skyrim. The best Klonoa levels feel like an entire journey happening in a capital P Place. - The music in Klonoa 1 and 2 are both out of this world amazing. there are songs in both games that sometimes moves me to tears. That era of Namco was them at the top of their game when it comes to music. - BOUKEN!! I love games that feel like an adventure. Door to Phantomile especially feels like an adventure that keeps escalating and going bigger in scope. I love Rocket Knight Adventures for the same reason. Klonoa has great voice-acted cutscenes full of character (and characters!!) to help with this too. Klonoa 2 has a nice story too by the end, but it misses on this BOUKEN aspect, for most of it, it ends up feeling like you're a little chore boy running a somewhat repetitive errand. - These games are really simple and approachable!! Hideo Yoshizawa came up with the idea for it trying to craft a 3D game that had the straightforwardness and ease of pick-up-and-play of a 2D game, and that intent shines through very clearly. So for anyone reading this who hasn't touched them, please give them a try!! At least the first one, it emulates really nicely on Duckstation! Klonoa 2 I recommend the Phantasy Reverie version, but with the first game you *gotta* play the original and not the remakes. And you gotta play them in order!