Kaze no Klonoa, or "Klonoa of the Wind" is a little-heard of series of 2-dimensional platformer games. "Door to Phantomile" introduces us to our hero and the first of his adventures. Klonoa is a long-earred cat (yes, Namco has confirmed that he is a cat) living in the wind village of Phantomile, Breezegale. One day, he sees something fall from the sky and goes to investigate. He finds a rather large ring with a green stone on it. A little, blue, round ball with eyes and a face pops out of the ring and introduces himself as Huepow. Klonoa and Huepow quickly become friends.
While investigating other disturbances, Klonoa and Huepow discover a plot to prevent the diva, Lephise, from singing the Song of Rebirth. Without Lephise or the song, the world of Phantomile will collapse, so Klonoa sets off with Huepow to save her. The villains, Ghadius and Joka, will stop at nothing to find the Moon Pendant, which Lephise hid and Klonoa, rather accidently, found.
Leaving the pendant with Grandpa, Klonoa and Huepow set out to learn more about the Moon Kindom, the pendant, Lephise, and the Song of Rebirth. They find the old woman with the information being harrassed by Joka, and the two friends are quick to get rid of him. The old woman tells them what they want to know, but unfortunately Joka has overheard the whole thing and races toward Klonoa's house. Klonoa and Huepow hurry home to watch in horror as Joka blows the house up and steals the pendant. In one of the most heart-breaking scenes of the game, Grandpa speaks a few encouraging words to Klonoa before dying in his grandson's arms. Infuriated, Klonoa goes after Ghadius and Joka, who have now unlocked the Sun Temple leading to the Moon Kingdom.
"Lunatea's Veil," the second game of the series, literally tosses Klonoa into a whole other adventure. This time, he is transported to the world of Lunatea, a land of 4 kingdoms, but with a dark secret sealed away. In this adventure, Huepow oddly is nowhere to be seen, but Klonoa instead befriends a shy young priestess named Lolo and her smart-mouthed puppy-doll, Popka.
Lolo identifies Klonoa as the Dream Traveler of prophesy who would come to save Lunatea in its hour of need. The sky pirate, Leorina, and her saucy feline sidekick, Tat, are on a mission to unseal the mysterious fifth kingdom of Lunatea for their own purposes. To do this, they must gather the power of the other 4 kindoms by ringing the Harmony Bell in each of them. As Klonoa and the others race to ring the bells first, Leorina sends Tat to steal the "elements" from them. Disguising herself as Baguji the Wiseman, Leorina steals the elements from Klonoa.
The elements power up the legendary flying ark, a vessel that can transport its passengers to the fifth kingdom. Leorina reaches the fifth kindom and rings the bell. The power of the sealed kingdom, the Kingdom of Sorrow, gives Leorina the power she desires, but turns her into a hideous monster, which Klonoa must defeat to return her to her true form.
As it turns out, the fifth kindom was sealed away because no one wanted to face their sorrows. Fearing that the power of fifth kingdom could devastate the rest of Lunatea, Klonoa confronts the King of Sorrow, a sad, sea-green fellow not much different in appearance from Klonoa. In an all-too-hasty move, Klonoa and the King engage in the final battle of the game. After Klonoa defeats him, the King explains that all he ever wanted was a friend and fades away. (The double meaning, one of many throughout the Klonoa games, is that no one wants to be a friend to sorrow, but must face it sooner or later.) It would seem that the King of Sorrow is dead... but is he? Moments later, the High Priestess of Sorrow is seen carrying a child in her arms. One important thing to notice about the infant is that it is the King of Sorrow reborn---and he's smiling!
The third and last Klonoa game to come State-side to date is "Empire of Dreams." In this adventure, Klonoa awakens in 'his' house to the sound of guards barging through his door. His is arrested and set before Emperor Jillius and his minister, Bagoo (Baku in the original Japanese version, a folkloric pun that will be explained.). Klonoa is charged with the crime of dreaming, an offense punishable by death. Emperor Jillius is under a curse that prevents him from sleeping and, therefore, dreaming. Because of this, he has forbidden anyone in his empire to dream.
Bagoo wants Klonoa punished, but the Emperor decides to give Klonoa a chance to prove himself. If Klonoa can defeat the monsters terrorizing the four kingdoms (the fifth is the royal castle and a real pain in the butt), then the charges against him will be dropped.
Despite his absense in "Lunatea's Veil," Huepow is back to join Klonoa in "Empire of Dreams." As it turns out, each of the monsters is just an ordinary person who had dared to dream. When they described their dreams to Klonoa, they each saw something that provided an important clue to our hero. Three of them saw mists; one of red, one of blue, and one of yellow. When the fourth dreamer mentions seeing 'twin moons,' Klonoa and Hupow realize that those are the colors and markings on the empire flag and quickly head to the castle.
Reaching the throne room, it seems as though Emperor Jillius is the culprit. He attacks Klonoa with these floating eyeball creatures, but Klonoa defeats him easily. Defeated, Jillius thanks Klonoa for ridding him of the force controlling him. While our hero is puzzling over the Emperor's words, Bagoo appears.
Baku, as Bagoo was called in the original Japanese version, is a folkloric creature resembling a tapir that eats dreams. In "Empire of Dreams," he reveals himself to be the King of Despair who rules over the World of Stolen Dreams. He is the cause of the Emperor's curse and seeks to steal everyone's dreams for his own unspecified purposes. If you thought that the rest of the castle was difficult to get through, you're gonna hate this. Bagoo turns himself into this gray thing that looks like a plucked chicken with a mask of changing colors and throws everything he's got at Klonoa.
After defeating Bagoo, Klonoa and Huepow rush to the Emperor's side to comfort him as he weakens. Jillius apologizes for the wrongs that he has done to both Klonoa and his people, and that even if he couldn't dream, he would be willing to help others achieve theirs. That said, Jillius passes on......... or does he?
Jillius suddenly awakens on his throne.... the entire ordeal was a dream! He approaches the balcony where his people are gathered below. He apologizes to them and tells them what he told Klonoa about helping them with their dreams. The crowd cheers (we see the 4 dreamers in the crowd), and gazing up at the sky, Jillius silently thanks Klonoa for his heroism.
Other Klonoa games, which unfortunately have not come State-side, include "Moonlight Museum" for the WonderSwan handheld console, "Klonoa Beach Volleyball" for the Playstation 2 (I think, might be for the PS1), "Klonoa Dream Champ Tournament", and most recently "Klonoa Heroes: Densetsu no Star Medal" for the Gameboy Advance.
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The game play is simple enough. Though you can only move left or right through the levels, or 'visions' as they are called, in the first two games, one can throw opponents into the background to hit and collect items. This brings us to our hero's main abilities. The two commands Klonoa can do are jump and 'wind bullet,' which is using the big ring to capture enemies. It sounds simple enough, but it's more than that. When Klonoa catches an enemy (such as those cute, rabbit-like Moos), he can either throw it or use it to double-jump over and onto otherwise-inaccessible platforms.
Sometimes Klonoa needs to jump across to a platform a little beyond his jumping distance; this is where those humoungous ears of his come in handy. For a short time, Klonoa can hover in the air using his ears like Dumbo. It is as funny to watch as it is helpful to win the games.
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