Okay game considering the price tag but the original was so much better... seriously, what did they think?
Klonoa, Klonoa... easily one of the games I've played the most back on PlayStation. I loved that game - original, joyful and entertaining from start to finish. I've been longing for a remake for a very long time - now, I'm starting to understand why some people say "Don't touch classics." What they did to this game is unforgivable.
GRAPHICS
They're the reason I picked up the game and why I was in awe before the trailer. What you get are high-def textures, constant bloom, water ripples/reflections and high clipping distance. There's something similar in every sidescrolling games - since your view is locked, the developers can put a lot more efforts on backgrounds' visual quality with close to frame rate drop at all, since it's all textures and particle effects without collision, physics and anything that draws processing from the CPU. What you get is almost a perpetual cutscene that flows 100% fluid.
However, Klonoa on Wii's graphics do not differ from the old one only in better rendering methods but also in design (and, honestly, it's the main difference anyone who played the original first notices). The first few levels aren't really different - not that room for it anyway since it's all mountains and grass fields - but the last ones are very different. For example : where there used to be a huge crystal, there's now a wall full of them. Most of the changes are for the better, except for ONE : the very last level takes place in space and they decided to change the skybox. On PlayStation we had a bunch of nebulae's, galaxies, a lot of stars and flying chunks of rocks that looked like meteorites about to fall on Phantomile. That looked totally awesome and fitting for the last level. Now they changed it with a mainly black sky with a few stars here and there... it's almost depressing.
Finally, they removed the rendered cutscenes, what you get now instead are imitations rendered by the game's engine. I don't get the idea, I mean, these specific parts of the game looked so freaking better as an animated movie, now they completely fail compared to them because of hardware limits and just bad animation.
GAMEPLAY
Okay, now that's where Klonoa starts going downhill. You know of Huepow, right? That blue little dude Klonoa shoots at enemies to grab them? Well, on the PSX, when you shot it, it wouldn't go back right back at Klonoa like a magnet - it would stay there for a couple of seconds, independent of how you moved. After a few seconds, it would make the trip back to Klonoa. That allowed for MUCH better gameplay ; you could jump right in front of an enemy, shoot Huepow at almost the same time - Klonoa would keep going up form the jump's momentum and pick up the enemy at the peak of it. And keep going on and on. It was just plain fun and challenging. Now instead of that, you get a fully-dependent Huepow with a much smaller hitbox. To grab an enemy, you can't just shoot Huepow at it and keep running ahead - you gotta stop in front of it, grab it and build up again Klonoa's speed. And there's no way you can grab a ground-based enemy either without Klonoa being on the very same level either because Huepow's hitbox is so dammed small, you often shoot it right through the enemies. What you get in the end is frustrating experience that leaves close to no place at all for imaginative reflex-based moves. And also sluggish gameplay since you always have to stop running in order to grab an enemy, unless it's airborn.
However, I'm thankful that they didn't "casualize" the game like most other Wii games. The way the enemies are placed, the various hazards - almost everything is left untouched. It starts up easy and ends with a good deal of challenging platforms and cunning enemies. I still have a slight complain - they nerfed the bosses. They aren't challenging as they used to be.
Oh yeah, one last thing about gameplay. The level select screen. Whenever you choose a stage, Klonoa ALWAYS have to do that awkward animation from Lunatea's Veil and the freaking game waits for him to completely finish it before slowly, very slowly, fading to black. Then, only then, it starts loading. I'm sure the Wii would have the time to load the whole map during all that time.
SOUND
The first thing that made me approach the game with apprehension. This game's soundtrack was incredible and I DID NOT WANT IT TO CHANGE. But they changed it... in a good way. They took the same music and enhanced it with better instruments, clearer sound and even added a few notes here and there that makes it even more magical. Win. Nothing much to say about the sound effects though, apart from the fact that I still like the way characters talk... make sure you choose Phantomile though, the English voice actors aren't very great. Especially Klonoa's.
REPLAY VALUE/MISC. STUFF
Once you're done completing the game (a 10~15hours affair... quite short), you can go backto try and collect every crystals for that famed 100% note. However, apart from an awesome bonus stage, it's not really worth it. Originally you only had a sound test but they added unlockable costumes that looks almost the same as the default one and a rather useless cutscene viewer. These don't really add to the replay value whatsoever.
In the end, what you get is a game without any pretensions, it doesn't try to be anything in particular - it's just Klonoa, a linear and slightly challenging platformer with a childish storyline. If you enjoy this kind of game or already enjoyed Klonoa Wii, then I URGE YOU to grab the original one and give it a try. It's a lot better.
I give it a 5/10.