Name:
Klonoa:
Empire of
Dreams ('
Kaze No Klonoa' in
Japan)
Developer:
Namco
Publisher:
Namco (
Japan,
US),
Infogrames (
UK,
Europe)
Year:
2001/
2002 (Japan:
July 19, 2001, US:
August 22, 2001, UK:
March 26, 2002)
Platform:
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Genre:
Platformer
Players: One Player
Rarity: Recently released
(although it was a pain in the arse to find)
Cartridge Size:
32MBit
"Where did I come from?
Where the blue winds blow...
Where am I going?
Where the white clouds flow...
So if I dream,
I'm sure to wake..."
Released in
2001, K:EoD keeps all the great
platforming action of the
original, and sticks it into a pretty
2D graphics engine. In this game,
Klonoa and
Huepow are
arrested for dreaming, by an
emperor known as
Jillius, who is suffering at the hands of a
curse that prevents him from
sleeping. As part of their
punishment, Jillius orders Klonoa and his friend to destroy five
monsters that are crushing the emperor's country. There are forty
levels in total, across five
lands. The stages are split into
Puzzle,
Action and
Boss types.
Puzzle Stages
These levels (or
Visions, as they are called) are similar to those in
Klonoa: Door To Phantomile, which involves you collecting
Dream Stones and trying to find the exit. Where the levels in K:DoP are linear, Empire of Dreams' allow you to travel back and forth between screens, giving you the capability to
back-track if necessary. This has allowed
Namco to harness a few new game mechanics in this version of the
Klonoa series.
Your main purpose in the Puzzle Stages is to collect three
Stars. Once you have collected these three Stars, the
Moon Door will open, which allows you to exit the Vision. As well as the Stars, there are a certain number of
Dream Stones in each
Vision. Although it's not required to collect them all to finish the level, or the game, you will get a
special surprise if you
collect them all.
Action Stages
There are two types of Action Stage in Empire of Dreams. One is the
Hover Board stage, in which Klonoa rides on a
self-propelled hoverboard, to collect as many Dream Stones and
Extra Lives as possible, while avoiding or using
enemies to your advantage.
The other Action Stage is the
Athletic Challenge, in which you have overcome obstacles and get to the end of the level. These stages
scroll constantly from one side of the screen to the other, so you have to be careful not to get
trapped, or
fall.
Boss Stages
On these stages you come up against various
Boss characters who you have to
defeat to move onto the next land in the game. It's the usual '
attack the weakspot' method usually found in most games.
This game features
pretty, albeit
simple,
2D graphics, which don't really show the
Game Boy Advance's power, but don't put it to shame either. It features a rotating,
sprite scaling world map, similar to
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island's. It also has the typical
cutesy music you'd expect not only from a Klonoa game, but from this particular genre too.
There are a lot of similarities between K:EoD, and the
WonderSwan Klonoa game,
Kaze No Klonoa: Moonlight Musuem, both games including the same
items,
enemies and
obstacles.
Similar
Game Boy Advance titles include
Super Mario Advance,
Sonic Advance and
Spyro: Season of Ice.
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