Video Game / Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil

There's a forgotten dream.
Was it a dream I can't remember?
Or a dream I won't remember?
Have I forgotten the dream?
Or has the dream forgotten me?
But surely there was a dream...

—The opening cutscene

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil is the second mainline entry in the Klonoa series, released on 2001 exclusively for the PlayStation 2.

Sometime after the events of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, Klonoa finds himself in a new dream world called Lunatea after being summoned there by a mysterious voice. Landing in the sea of tears upon arriving, he is soon rescued by a wannabe priestess named Lolo and a dog-like creature named Popka, who quickly become his allies.

Soon after, Klonoa, Lolo, and Popka meet with Baguji, a wise person who tasks Klonoa with a mission, that being to go to four kingdoms, The Kingdom of Tranquility, La-Lakoosha, The Kingdom of Joy, Joliant, The Kingdom of Discord, Volk, and The Kingdom of Indecision, Mira-Mira, to ring their respective bells to gather their elements to prevent a fifth bell, which threatens to doom Lunatea if it reappears. Klonoa, being the All-Loving Hero he is, agrees and begins a quest with his newfound allies to find the elements.

However, they are not the only ones setting off on the quest, as the trio faces off against a duo of sky pirates named Leorina and Tat, who are also motivated to get the elements for their reasons.

It is now up to Klonoa and co to find the elements before they do and save Lunatea from potential disaster, finding out that things might not be as they seem.

The gameplay is largely identical to the first game, being a 2½D platformer in which Klonoa must go and platform in several levels and defeat his enemies by inflating them, however, given the jump in technology, it plays a lot more with depth this time around, with worlds and characters being in full 3D as opposed to the polygon/sprite mix present in the original game and new gimmicks that play around with perspective, just as tornadoes that launch you in the air, cannons that send you to the background or foreground and snowboarding levels that often switch back and forth from 2D and full 3D, and plenty more.

Two decades later, the game would go on to receive a HD remaster on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Steam in 2022 as part of the Compilation Re-release, Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Series.

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil contains the following examples:

• Accidental Pervert: Klonoa and Popka accidentally groped Tat during a chase scene. Either that or the catgirl's evil side was just messing with their heads for the last time.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese and European box art had Klonoa smiling and relaxed, while the US box art has him scowling in a tensed-up Ass-Kicking Pose.
• Amusement Park of Doom: Joilant, a kingdom that looks and functions like a gigantic carnival, operating hours included. The "Doom" part comes from the loads of enemies that get in your way.
• And the Adventure Continues: The game ends with Klonoa, after saying goodbye to Lolo, leaving Lunatea and walking into a portal to an uncertain future.
• A Place Holds Memories: The Maze of Memories is a museum-like level where people's memories are depicted as moving, abstract pictures and sculptures.
• Art Course: The Maze of Memories is a level where people's memories are held and depicted as paintings and sculptures, much like a museum.
• Art Evolution: Klonoa gains a noticeable redesign between Door to Phantomile and this game, gaining a slightly older, more anime-esque look that makes him resemble a modern Sonic the Hedgehog character, as opposed to the cutesy look he had back in Door to Phantomile.
• Aside Glance: In the ghost house in Joilant, when Klonoa finds out that Lolo is afraid of ghosts, his reaction is to shrug at the camera.
• Bittersweet Ending: Just like the first game, the game ends on this note, albeit a bit more on the sweet side this time around. Lunatea is saved and the Kingdom of Sorrow is allowed to exist after being forgotten, with the King of Sorrow passing away peacefully. However, much like in the first game and due to his duty as a dream traveler, Klonoa has to leave Lunatea and go back to his world, which greatly displeases Lolo (even if she tries to hide it at first), who wants him to stay. Unfortunately, the two would separate, with Klonoa promising that they'll meet again someday.
• Blood Knight: Deconstructed. The citizens of Volk are in a Forever War against each other. When Leorina sets a reactor to destroy the city, Klonoa and friends take on a dangerous journey to the heart of the city to shut down the reactor, which only requires flipping a simple switch. Klonoa notes that anyone in the city could have done it, but they didn't because all they could think about was fighting each other.
• Break the Cutie: One last mirror in the Maze of Memories forces Lolo to confront a traumatic moment from her past. The memory displayed reveals that she had failed in obtaining Priestess status more than once before Klonoa arrived, and she was teased or tormented as a failure by her peers because of it. When they reunited, she breaks down and believes she had taken advantage of Klonoa's power to finally succeed, leading her to give up on her given quest (even outright refusing to help him in the first phase of the battle with Polonte). Thanks to Popka and Klonoa, she gets better but in the end, though they all saved the day, Lolo chooses to relinquish her title until she can earn it back on her own.
• Broken Bridge: A variation in the overworld map. Once the "Noxious La-Lakoosha" level is completed, the Claire the Ancient statue representing the "Sea of Tears" level is replaced by the Fifth Bell due to being destroyed in the prior level's ending cinematic, leading to the "Dark Sea of Tears" level. Once that level is cleared, the sea has disappeared on the map.
• Brutal Bonus Level: So you've found 8 Momett Dolls and unlocked a quaint "Chamber o' Fun," have you? This level doesn't seem so tough — and it isn't. Though finding the remaining 8 dolls unlocks the "Chamber o' Horrors", and hoo boy, it most certainly lives up to that name, having some of the toughest and most precise platforming in the entire series, many of which often requires pitch perfect timing or you'll fall to your death. Fortunately, you don't lose any lives in the level, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging.
• Central Theme: The ways we deal with sorrow compared to other emotions.
• Contrasting Sequel Setting: While Door to Phantomile took place in Phantomile, a world powered by dreams with kingdoms representing different elements, this game instead takes place in the eponymous Lunatea, a world powered by - with kingdoms appropriately representing one of four (though it's supposed to be five) - emotions.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: The game has the Tag-Along variant, in the form of the "Popka Jump". A second player can press Start to send Popka out; from there, pressing Square will have Popka toss Klonoa high in the air, functioning effectively as a free extra double-jump that can be used at any time, with a cooldown of only a few seconds. Besides allowing for shortcuts^note Almost every (if not every) puzzle can be more or less bypassed with this move, it can also be a life saver if you're about to fall into a bottomless pit. Do note, however, that while it does work in the bonus challenge levels, using it even once will invalidate your time for that attempt.
• "Double, Double" Title: Tat's Leitmotif, "Run! Run! Run!", has the triple variety.
• Dark Reprise:
  • A slower variation of Lolo's character theme is played during the ending cutscene for the Maze of Memories stage after she starts weeping over believing she isn't worth being a priestess and getting mocked by the priestesses. In the same game, The High Priestess' character theme titled "High Priestess" (alongside the level theme to La-Lakoosha) is later given a sadder version when Klonoa, Lolo, and Popka revisit the High Priestess when Lunatea is overcome by sorrow titled "The High Priestess of Sadness".
  • The track that plays in the Ruins of Sorrow, features slower, distorted versions of "Song of Rebirth", "Untamed Heart", "The Windmill Song" and "Grandpa's Chair" at a few points during it.
  • A darker variant of Leorina's already sinister-sounding theme is used in later parts of the game starting with Mobile Tank Biskarsh's first defeat.
• The Dragon: Leorina herself serves as an unknowing and unwilling dragon for The King of Sorrow, along with Tat.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Implied with the five kingdoms and their bells. The bells of Tranquility and Discord naturally oppose each other, as do the bells of Joy and Sorrow; the bell of Indecision falls neatly in the middle.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Spectacularly inverted, as Klonoa and Lolo discover that instead of trying to doom the world, The King of Sorrow just wanted to restore Lunatea's natural balance, and the dreaded fifth bell of Sorrow always had been a vital part of Lunatea. Then it gets played tragically straight when the King of Sorrow loses what little sanity he had left and goes Ax-Crazy.
• Escape Sequence: The Remixed Level in Volk City has you run away from the Biscarsh bot boss (which turns out to still be alive) when not underground.
• Falling into the Plot: The game begins with Klonoa falling out of the sky and into the Sea of Tears.
• Forever War: Volk, the kingdom of Discord, is said to be locked in an ongoing war. It's unknown who is fighting, or why they are at war in the first place.
• Happy Circus Music: Appropriately, Joilant Fun Park has its own cheerful brass band music.
• Inconsistent Dub: The English translation of the Phantasy Reverie Series remake changes every instance of "discord" to "anger" at first, but reverts to calling it "discord" halfway through.
• Lovable Lizard: The Amusement Park Joilant has its own mascot in the form of a goofy-looking Cartoon Creature resembling a lizard or dinosaur. In the Joilant Fun Park level, he can be seen numerous times in the background, entertaining the guests.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Leorina disguises herself as Baguji and tricks Klonoa into handing over the three remaining Elements.
• Man-Eating Plant: Ow-Gows are giant, toothy plants that lunge out of the walls in La-Lakoosha at regular intervals. The only way to pass is to feed them a Moo.
• Monochrome Past: A flashback showing Leorina's Start of Darkness is presented in sepia.
• One-Winged Angel: Upon getting all the elements, Leorina unwillingly ends up turning into Cursed Leorina, a hulking four legged monster with no resemblance to her.
• Outrun the Fireball: While trying to destroy the Ark's engines, Klonoa triggers a massive explosion where he has to run for dear life.
  Klonoa: RUN FOR IT!!!!
• Orbital Shot: The last cutscene in the game, the one with Lolo giving Klonoa a tearful hug good-bye, orbits around the characters when it happens.
• Pain-Powered Leap: In one of the circus tents of Joilant Fun Park, hitting the mascot with an enemy will cause him to bounce up in pain before landing on one of the circus balls.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Popka also delivers one to Lolo... and it was supposed to cheer her up. It did.
• Remilitarized Zone: The Volk Kingdom is in a constant state of civil war. It also harbors an Eternal Engine in the form of a large underground weapons factory.
• Remixed Level: The game has four over the course of the story. The titular character returns to Volk City, La-Lakoosha, Sea of Tears, and Ishras Ark as Volkan Inferno, Noxious La-Lakoosha, Dark Sea of Tears, and The Ark Revisited, respectively, with each level having an additional hazard added to it (escaping from Biskarsh in the surface sections of Volkan Inferno, the cave sections of Noxious La-Lakoosha having an "air timer" which needs to be refilled by passing statues, Dark Sea of Tears having a new hazard that will attack Klonoa after a certain amount of time if he can't keep the light around him sustained and destroying the engines of Ishras Ark and then escaping from each before they explode in The Ark Revisited). The Ark Revisited has something of a reversal of the classic level change; Ishras Ark when Klonoa first visits is run-down and nearly inoperable, but it's in pristine condition and running smoothly when he comes back. Granted, it isn't technically the same ark, but rather a newly-created copy of it that can fly.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of the game, Popka and Lolo state that Klonoa, while holding the dying King of Sorrow in his arms, reminds them of Lunatea's ancient Goddess Claire, potentially hinting at a connection between the two.
• Shout-Out: A very odd one to Full Metal Jacket of all things. That text you see on the wall in the King of Sorrow's throne room? When translated, it reads, "Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC."
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • Leorina delivers an amazingly epic one to the King of Sorrow. The King of Sorrow is going on about how the world has ignored him and his kingdom for a very long time, and she (despite being heavily injured), gives him one hell of a burn, about how he chose to isolate himself drowning on his own self-pity instead of facing life and doing something productive. It's pretty impressive.
• Title Drop: By the King of Sorrow before the final battle:
  King of Sorrow: When people encounter sorrow, they try to forget it and pretend it never existed at all. So I used the ark to lift Lunatea's Veil. All so that you could save the Kingdom of Sorrow. So that Lunatea can once again remember...
• Triumphant Reprise: While Lolo's theme is sweet and humorous, a triumphant yet bittersweet version is heard during the game's ending when she gives Klonoa a hug as she begins crying into his arms.
• Video Game 3D Leap: The game is a presentation upgrade, as it is still primarily a 2½D platformer. Unlike the original game, which had pre-rendered sprites juxtaposed against 3D settings, everything is now fully rendered in 3D.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In one area of the "Joilant Fun Park" level, the amusement park's mascot is seen balancing on one of two circus balls. You can hit him with an enemy, causing him to jump up in pain before landing on the other ball. You can do this as much as you want with no consequences.
• Zipperiffic: Klonoa wears a T-shirt with a giant zipper pull on the front. This doesn't appear to be attached to a zipper at all — the front of his shirt doesn't open.

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