Good news - a top-notch platformer is being readied for a Wii launch. Bad news - it’s a recycled Playstation game…

And an old PSOne game at that. Klonoa: Door to Phantomile graced Sony’s first-gen machine back in 1997, which should, by rights, make it a prime candidate for Virtual Console release. Namco Bandai are having none of that, though. Preferring instead to invest untold wads of cash to bring the 2.5D platformer bang up to date, with whizzier visuals, intuitive WiiMote/Nunchuk controls and new secrets to discover. They’ve even dropped the ‘Door to Phantomile’ bit.

All that aside, the basic gameplay seems to have survived translation intact. Players control Klonoa, a lop-eared dog-thing who wanders the many kingdoms of Phantomile in search of an unknown evil that’s besieging the land. Cue a cute and moderately lengthy trawl through increasingly tough fantasy environments, all of which can be overcome with the requisite platforming skills and a couple of neat tricks that Klonoa has up his furry sleeves.

Klonoa’s principal form of attack is to grab his enemies and hurl them at other bad guys or objects, potentially revealing hidden items into the bargain. A grabbed foe can also be used to effect a double jump. Neater still is Klonoa’s ring, inhabited by a friendly spirit called Hewpoe who fires ‘wind bullets’ that create minor whirlwinds and inflate enemies, with all the obvious advantages entailed therein.

It’s fun stuff in the main, and it’s great to see Klonoa revived on a current generation platform. In truth we’d have preferred it if Namco Bandai had resurrected the superior PS2 game, Lunatea’s Veil from 2001, instead. But maybe that’s a retro treat for a later day. In the meantime we have the original to look forward to, releasing later in 2009. Soon, hopefully.