Revised as of 15 June 2025
PREAMBLE
Modern remasters revitalizing older games for new generations are long sought after by many communities.
Phantasy Reverie Series was a dream come true (pun not intended) for the veteran and newcomer fans of the Klonoa community. A double pack containing remastered versions of the series' seminal first and second main entries, Door to Phantomile and Lunatea's Veil; a release especially welcome for the latter.
For the last twenty years until PRS came along, Lunatea's Veil had been a PlayStation 2 exclusive. While typically a non-issue as a majority of older games are fairly easy to emulate, provided you have a gaming PC to power them, until about five years ago, emulating LV or any PS2 game was not as glamorous.
The dream-traveling rabbit's second outing during this time had many issues with missing graphics and effects on emulation, most notoriously being the fire effect seen in Volk City, but another being the shadows shrouding Ow-Gows (the large, three-mandible worm monsters that dwell in the caves of La-Lakoosha and suck Klonoa in if he gets too close). Meaning for the last two decades, the best way to reliably experience the world of Lunatea as intended by the developers was on it's home platform, a financially nonviable prospect as both the physical game itself and a PS2 to play it on have for years had only become more prohibitively expensive.
CRITICISMS
Inconsistent Player Physics
In the original DtP and LV, when coming to a stop after running for a while, Klonoa would maintain some of that momentum and slide to a stop.
Back in 2008, Namco released a remake of Door to Phantomile (simply titled Klonoa outside of Japan with a new typeface). This first attempt at revitalizing NAMCO's world of dreams brought few changes with it to make the game more accessible to a younger audience, like increasing the available hearts from 3 to 5; with each heart worth 2HP in the first game, makes 10HP.
More importantly to this review however, one gameplay change they made for the Wii had to do with a mechanic of the eponymous player character's physics.
In both the original DtP and LV, Klonoa gains a small amount of momentum after running for a while and when he stops, he continues to slide forward a small amount. Small as it is, that little sliding stop can cause the unwary player to slip and fall to their death from narrow platforms.
This mechanic was removed from the Wii version, as previously written, to make the game a little bit easier.
As the PRS version of DtP is directly based off of the Wii remake, this change persists.
In a most confounding decision, however, the PRS version of Lunatea's Veil still has the momentum.
Post-process Effects
PRS gives DtP and LV a very colorful and crisp facelift. This is both a benefit and detriment. By themselves, the aesthetics are pleasing to the eye. However, they are, in spots, completely overpowered by the overtuned and frankly garish Bloom and HDR effects.
A non-issue for computer players, as these effects can be toggled in the game's graphics settings, but no such luck for those on consoles.
Redundant HUD Elements
PRS features a new HUD standardized across both games with dream stones (the 'coins') and extra lives on the top right, and health and the collectibles (rescued villagers in DtP, Mometsuto Doll Bells in LV) on the to left.
In addition to the static collectibles display, the games also feature the original collectible UI graphics lovingly recreated in lossless HD which pop up whenever you collect one of said collectibles. It doesn't make sense to have two displays serving the same purpose.
Bad Music Loops
Amongst many qualities of the series, one often lauded are the game's soundtracks.
Many of DtP's and LV's levels feature two (or sometimes more) variants of the same track that play in different parts of the level (like indoor and outdoor variants) and the originals seamlessly transition between them as needed; moreover, as streamed music goes, the Wii remake and original LV also loop these tracks so seamlessly that one would think they were sequenced.
PRS' audio system, in that regard, is not nearly as robust. As I have more experience with LV than DtP, the seam in the music between the end and start of the loop is distractingly noticeable.
Rigid/Missing Animation
Of all the things that could have used sprucing up in PRS, the game's animations, both in-game and during cutscenes, are in desperate need.
Many of the cutscenes - e.g. at the end of level 1-2 from DtP which introduces the game's two main antagonists, Ghadius and Joka - are still as rigid and unpolished as they were in the original Wiimake.
LV suffers significantly less, as it had a bigger budget than the DtP's wii remake, but there are still some moments where it is hard to ignore. e.g. the cutscene at the end of the Maze of Memories. There's a moment where Klonoa switches poses in a very inorganic and robotic way. As if only the foundational animating was done.
Some of the small detail animations from the original LV are completely absent in the PRS version, namely Klonoa's dynamic expressions during gameplay such as when he taunts, or flies out of a canon.
Compressed Audio
Specific to DtP, the game uses a mixed bag of voiced audio. During cutscenes, the original compressed PS1 audio is used whereas during gameplay, the rerecorded grunts and yells from the Wii remake are used. On one hand, it's almost a little charming that they kept the cutscene audio exactly as it was on the PS1, but on the other, it's kind of distracting. NAMCO almost certainly has the uncompressed audio somewhere, as over twenty years ago, exclusively to Japan, they release DtP's complete soundtrack on compact disc with a few bonus tracks thrown in for fun; one of which being an SFX track containing uncompressed pickup sounds, but more importantly contained uncompressed recordings of some in-game lines from actresses Kumiko Watanabe and Fujiko Takimoto, who respectively voice Klonoa and and his friend Huepow.
Lackluster Extras
The novel features included in PRS is extra costumes for the dream traveling lagomoprh and an additional download for a digital art book, and that's about it.
CONCLUSION
While overall the package - on paper - is a reliable means for newcomers to experience the first two major adventures of NAMCO's dreaming bunny, the demonstrable rushed quality and lackluster quality will be disappointing and off-putting to both long time and newcomer fans. Most, if not all of the above criticisms can and have been addressed in unofficial patches and mods from the very dedicated community, however those can only be done on the PC.
More to the point, the purpose of this review is to judge the game how it shipped, not how it's been reshaped by the community.
All in all, it's a 6.2.
An unpolished, content anemic repackage that's just serviceable enough that I would regrettably recommend purchasing only at a discount.
