What Dreams May Leave

I've been so derelict in my blog-updating duties! Shame on me!

This month and the upcoming one are so filled with awesome games and collections that I'm not sure how my wallet will survive it. Capcom Fighting Collection! Capcom Arcade Stadium 2nd! Klonoa Phantasy Reverie! TMNT Cowabunga Collection! Couple that with an enormous sale on Nintendo's eShop, and I suspect July is going to be one exciting, if financially exhausting, month for gamers like myself who like to kick it old school.

There's one collection in particular I'd like to talk about at length, and that's Klonoa Phantasy Reverie. Fans of the series know that years after its debut on the Playstation, there was a sequel on the Playstation 2, and a remake of the first one on the Nintendo Wii. That remake seemed like a good idea at the time... the first Klonoa was a little rough around the edges thanks to the limitations of the Playstation hardware, and the Wii version sanded off those pointy polygonal corners nicely, giving it that dream-like quality Namco couldn't fully express in the original.

Really, what the hell was this about?

However, watching footage of Klonoa Phantasy Reverie brings to light an issue with the Wii remake that I hadn't previously considered, a misstep that all the free fish taco coupons in the world can't make you forget. Instead of merely injecting more color and life into the game's surreal backgrounds, Namco also made the questionable decision to age up the lead character. Klonoa is taller and more slender in the remake, with a post-pubescent voice and a more flippant attitude than he had on the Playstation. One has to assume that Namco did this to appeal to fans of Sonic the Hedgehog, but for those of us who were quite happy with Klonoa as he was originally designed, it has the unfortunate side effect of derailing the game's narrative.

(Just a warning in case you don't already know... spoilers are coming.)

Kid, you are not going to like what happens next.
(image from Polygon)

There's a reason Klonoa takes place in the dream world, and it goes beyond giving the art team more creative freedom than it otherwise would have had in a more grounded, realistic setting. The dream represents a state of blissful, childlike innocence, and by the game's conclusion, all of that is torn away from the young hero. Klonoa first discovers that his grandfather, a man (cat... rabbit... thing) who provided love and comfort in the dream world, is dead in the waking world. After he defeats the final boss Nahatomb, Klonoa is told that once balance is restored to Phantomile, he cannot exist within it. A hungry vortex appears in the sky, and after an initial struggle, Klonoa is forcibly swept into it, never to return.

And it hurts. It hurt when I first watched it in my twenties, and it hurts now in my forties, leaving me with tears in my eyes and a heart so heavy, it feels like it's dropped three stories into my intestines. Watching this ending is difficult for the player, but it would be that much harder for a child who's not been through such hardship. Klonoa is probably eight in the original game, and these revelations would be devastating at that age. To a teenager who sees the world through a lens cracked and clouded by cynicism, perhaps not so much.

Fortunately, Namco saw the error of its ways and returned Klonoa to his smaller, cuter, squeakier design in Phantasy Reverie. He's older in the sequel; taller and tougher and with his hat rebelliously turned backward, but it makes more sense there. After all, it's been a few years since the events of Door to Phantomile. He's not a kid anymore... he's seen some stuff.

Keeping Up with the Carapace-ians

I am really, really far behind on this blog, aren't I? First I miss discussing the announcements from Microsoft and Bethesda earlier this month, and now I miss the launch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. Well, here's a quick update on that... it's available on pretty much all the major formats, and it's roughly as good as you've heard, full of fan bait for Gen-Xers who remember the 1987 cartoon series, and exciting beat 'em up action reminiscent of the Turtles arcade games from the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

This Shredder-themed shredder came up
while I was searching for images for this post.
Thanks, Amazon...?

It's important to stress that Shredder's Revenge is influenced by those Konami arcade titles, but not a carbon copy of them, with pronounced differences between the available fighters and a more diverse move set. You know how in the arcade games, you'd try to do a specific throw or jump kick, but weren't really sure that's what would happen? That's not a problem here... attacks are performed with deliberate joystick and button combinations, not vague proximity cues, so the move you want is the move you get. You can even counter incoming strikes a'la Double Dragon Advance, but good luck nailing the timing!

So yeah, Shredder's Revenge is worth it. You may not even have to buy it if you've got Game Pass, or pay much for it if you're willing to do some virtual territory hopping on the Switch. (Best hurry, you don't have much more time to get the discount.)

What was the other thing? Oh yes, Microsoft's big bundle of game announcements made earlier in the month. I wasn't paying close attention, but ZDNet was (wait, ZDNet is still a thing?), and they've got a list of highlights from the showcase. You've got Redfall, a squad-based first person shooter with vampires as the villains, you've got High on Life, a snarky futuristic first person shooter with living guns as your weapons, and you've got Starfield, which hopes to raise the watermark previously set by the galaxy-spanning adventure game No Man's Sky. No Man's Sky didn't reach its lofty aspirations at launch, requiring several updates before it reached its full potential, and I suspect that the overreaching Starfield will likewise stumble out of the starting gate when it hits stores in 2023.

I wish I could say I was excited about any of these titles, but that's what we're getting, and I'll just have to get used to it. There's also a more deliberate effort by Microsoft and third parties to leave the Xbox One behind and force adoption of the Xbox Series, and I'm really not down with that. What can I say? I've grown weary of coughing up another three hundred dollars every five years to keep pace with this industry. Cloud-based gaming and its lower cost of entry is starting to sound more and more tempting... or would, if my ponderously slow internet could keep up with that. It's less "damned if you do, damned if you don't" and "damned because I can't do, and can't don't."

My Oil Can Dinner with Andore

Someone's porting Final Fight to the Sega Genesis, and I'm unreasonably excited about it. Are there already a dozen ways to play Final Fight, typically on more powerful systems than the Sega Genesis? Yes. Didn't Streets of Rage 2 prove that the Genesis could already handle a game of this caliber? Probably. Nevertheless, there's a deep thrill from actually seeing it happen. 

This is one of those titles which was tantalizingly out of reach for Genesis owners, but now, we're seeing the big sprites and the gritty urban backdrops of Final Fight on a bare system, without CD-ROM expansions or the 32X or so much as a lock on cartridge. And unlike the later Genesis port of The Punisher, it looks and sounds like the CPS1 arcade game, without drastic compromises. For me, that's a pretty big deal. Look at what the Sega Genesis could have done in the right hands, with an enormous cartridge that wouldn't have been financially tenable back in the old days! I wish Mauro Xavier and his team the best of luck in finishing this noble project.

In related Sega Genesis news, there's an upcoming sequel to the fondly regarded Sega Genesis Mini, this time featuring both Genesis and Sega CD games. Final Fight CD is nearly guaranteed to be included in the final list of titles, but we know for a fact that Popful Mail, Sonic CD, and Silpheed will all be on this new machine. We also know that Sega has made the Japanese market a higher priority in its marketing than other territories, which is pants on head stupid considering that the Genesis was vastly more popular in the United States. In fact, there's no clear indication the system will be available in this country at all, but with any luck, Sega will see reason and include us in the fun.