Okay boys and girls, I'd like to start this one off by explaining that this is my first attempt at a game review. Well at least it's my first attempt at a written game review, so I hope you enjoy it and find it both informative and fun!










That being said, Klonoa Door to Phantomile is an interesting play to say the least! Certainly one of the better games developed by namco in the Playstation one era. Now the first thing I'm going to talk about is the sound quality of this game, because well, it's the first thing that I noticed myself. The soundtrack is catchy and fun, upbeat with a rhythmic tune that will send you into an almost nostalgic sense of childlike youth. It makes you feel happy and ready for whatever adventure awaits you in this wonderful looking game. Now I won't pretend that the quality itself is the best, it could definitely be done better, but given the time of the game's debut, I'd say it's pretty good, I'd give it a 7 out of 10 over all.








Next we'll talk about the graphics, Now I have to say, right from the start when you load the game up on your Playstation system (Or Playstation 2 in my case), you're rather impressed by the level of details in the graphics. Again that's with a fair amount of consideration to the time in which this game was released. Of course it's nothing like say, God of War, or the need for speed franchise, or heck, even the spider-man franchise, but considering the over style of the graphics and the genre of the game itself the opening video or FMV looks pretty sweet, in that regard I would rate the graphics about an 8.5 for flare. However that as it turns out is limited to the cut scenes and the cut scenes alone. When it come to actual game play, the graphics quality is severely crippled in comparison. This of course is not uncommon to a degree, but when I say crippled in comparison, I MEAN crippled. The details in the character are severely reduced, the environment and the structures around you are very... pixelated, in a noticeable way, like almost super Mario world quality stuff, only on a Playstation, which is capable of far more. So in that regard, I'd rate the graphics maybe 4.5 out of 10. Now some fans might strongly disagree and that is their right, but all the same I'd recommend taking a look for yourself. Either way, my final score for the graphics is gonna be a nice middle ground of 6.5 out of 10, or at least it would be if Vizzed had half points as an option for rating. So I'm gonna have to go with 6 of 10 because honestly I lean more lower then higher, but you guys know how I really feel!








So I guess I should talk about difficulty next right? Wrong! I can't talk about about difficulty because it's really not difficult at all. The general feel of the game is very lax. It's a lot like playing puzzles and dragons on your smart phone. No not literally, like comparatively in regards specifically to the ease and simplicity of the game. It's very laid back, like to the point where the only instruction you even receive really is what button makes you jump and what button makes you attack, which in all honesty really isn't even necessary, because lets face it, just about any of us could figure that much out in about 2 seconds. Basically it's like playing a classic 80's Nintendo style platformer on a Playstation system only there are more buttons that do the same thing.I was however slightly disappointed in the facts that the game doesn't use both the analog stick and the directional buttons for movement, which would be about the only thing they could have done to make it more relaxed then it already is. Now that it isn't to say the game has NO challenges to it, it's just a largely simple game. To be fair, how challenging you want the game to be is widely up to how bad you want to say get every diamond or other reward available. If you chase EVERY little point you can get, naturally the game can get a little more tricky, but over all, the game play here is very simple and easy to survive with little or no loss of life. Certainly not within the first hour or so of game play, unless you simply make a mistake (which can happen at certain points.), but that's not usually going to be an issue. Over all I'd rate the simplicity, or difficulty if you prefer to call it that, of Klonoa Door to Phantomile a 2 out of 10 (please do remember lower is easier on this metric.), so if you're looking for a challenge, you should definitely look elsewhere, but if you just want to relax, kick up your feet and have some good old fashioned fun, I would definitely say Klonoa could be your kind of game!








So onto depth, or as I prefer to call it, duration! In all honesty the game is pretty short, depending of course on how you play it. I would say the average gamer will take between four and a half hours to five and a half hours to play this game from to back. It can be done in as little as three though if you want. If you're a completionist as they say it will likely take between six and half hours and eight and a half hours depending on your skill level and how quickly you get the hang of each boss level and figure out where everything in the level, or "vision" is located. One good thing about this game is that while it pretty easy and short, it does have a fair amount of extra and unnecessary stuff for you to find if you feel like going that extra step for some fireworks or what have you. Over all I would rate the duration (depth) about 3.5 of 10, but again since we can't use half points here, I'm gonna go with 3 of 10. Sorry for those who disagree, but I'm fairly confident that most gamers will agree this really is a short game, even more so if you loved it I imagine.








Now originally I thought I would save the story for last, but frankly I think addictiveness is second only to the over all rating so I'm gonna go ahead and hit you with the story rating now. So the game starts off pretty captivating, they basically show you that this game is all about Klonoa and his dreams which seem to be seeping into reality. Or at least that's what it seemed to me was happening once you start playing the story out. Now the over all story isn't the best story out there by any means, but if you ask me, it's definitely the best part of this game, so I don't want to give away too much. The general outline is what I'm gonna try to give you, without telling you the important details. So starting off there is a crash up on the mountain and Klonoa (the main character of the story as well as the character you play as) goes off to investigate. As the story progresses you begin getting bits and pieces of information that start to depict the damsel in distress, the villain, and the tidbits that make up their backgrounds. Ultimately it's just like any other storyline. There's a big bad evil dude who has a number of goons or henchmen what ever you prefer to call them and he wants to take over the world. For some reason that tends to always involve putting a damsel in distress and forcing you (the hero of the story) to unravel the mysteries, and histories of the villain ad his plot and seek out and rescue said damsel. As usual there's lots of boss battles and fun challenges leading your way through the story. The story itself, while typical in theory is very strange and creative in nature. You have evil kings, and "diva's", magic and traps, strange creatures and down right weird methods of attack. I kind of wish there was a combat specific category here, just so I could go into the vast details of the various and bizarre enemies and dangers of this game. All the same though, the creativity of this story is almost a kin to something out of Tim bur tons head crossed over or perhaps simply collaborated with something out of Walt Disney's making for an interesting story that will keep you guessing just a little bit. So for creativity and uniqueness I'm gonna give the story a deserving 8 of 10, I'd give it more, but in all fairness, it's not even really the story itself that is worth that number, but the strangeness of the story.








Finally we get to addictiveness! Being the fairly simple and laid back game that it is, it can be very addictive if you are in the right mood, the downside to that, is that when it ends in just a few short hours, you're left feeling rather let down. On the other hand though, if you're just trying to kill a few simple hours it can be your best friend. I don't know that I would call jumping over obstacles and throwing stuff at often moving targets while collecting various rewards such as diamonds, hearts, extra lives and clocks addictive... but I sure wouldn't say it's not addictive. Personally I find it's enjoyable, but not quite to the level of addiction. I can't see myself wasting hours on end just playing this game, beyond what I did to beat it initially, which to be honest took some effort and a bit of procrastination and several long winded breaks to accomplish, namely because I got bored with it by the time I made it to the second boss fight. The only thing that kept me going, besides the obvious desire to complete the game and be done with it, was the intrigue of the storyline. It was quite fun and I'll still pop it in every once in awhile just to kill some time while pleasantly chucking one enemy at another and laughing at the strangeness of the game, but I was never near the level of "addictive" but then, I also never got into people obsession with collecting badges, achievements and bonus materials on any of the many games we all play so very addictively these days. So it could just be that I'm a bit off. Either way, I'm giving it a 3.5 of 10 for addictive which means for once, I'm gonna round it on up to 4 of 10, namely because I suspect most other gamers might find it a bit more addictive than I do. 








So that just about wraps it up for this review, in conclusion, I've given it 6 of 10 for graphics, 7 of 10 for sound, 4 of 10 for addictiveness, 8 of 10 for story, 3 of 10 for depth and 2 of 10 for difficulty. Over all I would recommend this game to anybody, It was fun, creative and enjoyably simple, great for all ages and definitely kid friendly for all those moms who are worried about all the blood and violence of modern gaming. It's far from the best game on the market, but for the simple fact that anyone can enjoy it, I can't not give it my support and recommendation, even if I also can't give it my highest honours and rate it a 10. Over all I would have to rate Klonoa Door to Phantomile a 6 of 10!








And that's my review guys, I hope you enjoyed it and found it to be informative, but more then that I hope I made just confusing and useless enough that you'll go and try it for yourself and tell me off on every point you disagree with me on! 


Also if anyone has any feedback or suggestions on how I might improve my next review, or if you have a request for a game to be reviewed, please feel free to private message me or something and let me know! Don't forget to rate this review too, even if you don't have any other feedback, if nothing else my reviews rating will give me some idea how I'm doing! Thanks for reading guys and game on!








Tag Gamer out!

Wow, that is an excellent first attempt! Your paragraphs are clearly identified, your opinion is clear and you put the game into context to show its lagging in quality. However - if ever you have control over that - try condensing your reviews a little. There is so much space between the paragraphs that it makes the reading a little tedious. Can't wait for your next review!

For a first review, this quite spectacular.

But, I do not agree with the 2/10 difficulty. The begininng is very easy, the first hour, but I'm 16 years old some of those levels were quite a challenge, getting quite a few vision overs (game overs), and I still havent beat the final vision (stage).

But still, the review quality was great.