Retro Wrap-Up: Klonoa Edition

One of the more underrated and underappreciated series when it comes to retro games is Namco’s Klonoa. The first game, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, is widely considered to be the first attempt at a platformer with 2-D gameplay and a 3-D rendered background. The style would later come to be known as 2.5-D, but it was rare to see it in a time when the industry was pushing for more and more realism in games.

The first game was remade for the Wii, and while it had some cool extra features, I just wasn’t a fan of the voice acting. I much preferred the cutesy pseudo-language spoken by Klonoa and friends in the original games. I’m probably in the minority in that regard.

So, in celebration of this classic series, the oprainfall Retro Commercial Research Team–in other words, me–has dug up some interesting TV spots for the little… uh, what kind of animal is Klonoa supposed to be, anyway? While many of the ads are from Japan, I did find one in English. Enjoy!

This weekend, PAX Prime is happening in Seattle. We’re covering the event so make sure to stay tuned to see all the impressions and interviews we’ve got in store. Here’s what we’ve got so far:

PAX Prime 2015

Here are the highlights from the past week:

REVIEWS & PREVIEWS

ORIGINAL CONTENT

NEWS

Also, don’t forget to check out Operation Recap on our YouTube channel for an alternate take on this week’s news.

And, as always, if you have any ideas or suggestions for retro commercials, let us know either through Facebook, Twitter, or just leave a good old-fashioned comment below.