The Anatomy of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile series was originally posted on the Return of Talking Time message board and is inspired by the Anatomy of Games series by Jeremy Parish. If you enjoy this series, please check out Jeremy’s website for more analyses of your favorite games or consider purchasing the book compilations for sale at Blurb.com.
As per tradition during the PS1 era, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile opens with a CG full motion video. Rather than immediately dumping us into the game world, however, it opens with a video of an as of yet introduced ring falling in front of the camera, while an unknown narrator asks the player (via on screen text) a question about dreams: where do they go once we’re awake? The game’s director, Hideo Yoshizawa, has stated in interviews it was this question that inspired the main story of Klonoa.
Fair then that the first time we see the titular Klonoa that he’s chasing a butterfly, a long-standing symbol about the nature of dreams in Eastern philosophy, through the woods. Eventually he stumbles upon the ring from the initial intro, deeply embedded into the ground, a consequence of its interstellar drop. Klonoa tugs hard at the ring, eventually getting it out (but not without falling on his rump from the force first). It’s then that Klonoa – and the player, by extension – is introduced to Huepow, a water droplet looking creature that emerges from the gem in the ring. The two then frolic through the fields toward Klonoa’s house. Smash cut to a mountain in the distance; a light from the heavens crashes into the mountain as storm clouds roll over the horizon. The sky darkens. Klonoa screams. Smash cut again to Klonoa awaking in his bed, startled. He looks over to the side where Huepow is watching him. He smiles; it was just a dream.
The FMV sequence ends there, but before the first official level kicks off, there is one more cutscene, this time in-game. An unknown space object crashes into Bell Hill, a cliffside viewable from outside Klonoa’s house in his hometown of Breezegale. After a brief discussion where Klonoa says the events mirror a dream he had, they agree to investigate the incident, Klonoa bounds out the front door of his house, puts Huepow back in his magic ring, and the two set off for adventure.
What strikes me the most about this intro is just how disjointed it is. The continuity between these moments feels murky; how long has it been since Klonoa and Huepow met? Was their meeting in the FMV a flashback, or was Klonoa’s memory jammed into his dream? By lacking any real transition, the events feel deliberately obscured and incohesive much like fragmented memories of a dream that are left over after waking up. It’s a small detail that both helps add to the intrigue of the setup as well as feeds into the central dream motif that Yoshizawa was going for.
Ludic Symposium 