I remember first seeing Klonoa back on the original Playstation, and was struck by the gorgeous rendering of the world, and the interesting looking characters. Since then, I played Klonoa: Empire of Dreams on the GBA. Bandai has now brought their lovable long-eared hero to the Wii with the simply named "Klonoa".

While I still love the characters and the environments are very pretty, this iteration of Klonoa seems geared more for people who are new to platform games, and casual audiences, and I can see those people really enjoying the game. If you've been playing platformers since Super Mario Bros on the original NES, the original storyline may not have enough of a challenge to hold your interest.

The story, for those who require such a thing is your standard rescue the princess scenario. Lephise of the Moon Kingdom is able to sing the Song of Rebirth, and Ghadius: King of Darkness is trying to stop her from doing so. Our hero has to save the songstress and defeat the bad guy.

Klonoa is a very basic platformer. Klonoa moves at one speed, and jumps at one height. His weapon is the "Wind Bullet" which, when fired, inflates your enemies into a balloon, which you then hold over your head. At that point, you have the option to throw your inflated enemies at other bad guys (helping you defeat, say, large bosses), or jumping into the air, and throwing them downward for a boost - the game's version of a double jump. The controls are easy to pick up, and I appreciated the way that the game is playable with a Wii-Mote (sans Nunchuk), w/ Nunchuk, via Classic Controller, or even with a Gamecube controller, if you happen to have one around. I am all for letting players play the way they're comfortable with.

Klonoa is fun for all ages, particularly fans of the original PSOne game, new platformers, and younger players, and (oddly enough) comes with a coupon for a free fish taco from Wahoo's.