Klonoa Chronicles - Part 12

Klonoa Chronicles is a series of tweets by Klonoa’s original creator, Hideo Yoshizawa, that give insights into the development of the games he had a hand in making. Below is a translation along with the original Japanese text.

クロノアクロニクル　第１２回！ 社内キャラコンペの応募作のひとつのイラストの「夢膨らませる」という注釈が気になったのでした。

Klonoa Chronicles #12! I was curious about the annotation “dreaming big” in the illustration of one of the company’s character competition entries.

その時ひとつの心残りを思い出したのです。 それはテクモで最後に創った「ラディア戦記」というファミコンのゲームでした。 これが発売される頃、すでに世の中はスーファミが主流になりつつあり、ファミコン最後の大作と銘打って発売したものの、３万本しか注文が集まらなかったのです。

It was then that I remembered one regret. It was my last game for the Famicom (NES) called Radia Senki. By the time this game was released, the SNES was already becoming the mainstream, and although it was billed as the last major Famicom game, we only received orders for 30,000 copies.

ダメな子ほどかわいいじゃないですけど、私にとって「ラディア戦記」はとても愛おしい作品でした。 それは記憶喪失の主人公の話。ネームエントリーで「ひとつのなまえが浮かんできた」とメッセージが出ます。 プレイヤーは頭に浮かんだ名前を入力するでしょう。 その名前で物語はずっと進みます。

The more troublesome the child is, the cuter he is, but for me, Radia Senki was very endearing. It’s about a main character with amnesia. The name entry will give you a message saying “One name came to mind”. The player would type in a name that came to mind. That name is the name that keeps the story going.

そしてラストボスの直前、敵の黒幕が現れて名前を名乗るのですが、それはプレイヤーが付けた名前そのものなのです。

And just before the last boss, the enemy mastermind appears and says his name, which is the very name the player has given him.

プレイヤーが自分で思い付いたと思っていた名前は、黒幕の男が自分の名前をプレイヤーの脳に送り込んだものだったのです。 そこから「記憶の書き換え」というアイデアが生まれました。 つづく

The name the player thought he had come up with was a name that the man behind the mastermind had sent his own name into the player’s brain. From this, the idea of “rewriting memories” was born. 

To be continued.

Some context: The story of Radia Senki and Klonoa: Door to Phantomile are pretty similar! Here’s the story of the game from the wikipedia article.

Radia Senki begins as the protagonist gains consciousness in a forest, suffering from amnesia. (Klonoa begins it’s story as he is wandering in the forest before finding the magic ring.) Rescued by Darus, a wandering mage, the hero and his ally witness the crash of a plane and find the unconscious Lefis. (Klonoa dreams about a ship crashing into a nearby hill which Lephise used to escape.) When she comes to, it is revealed that her stepbrother Gadiss seeks world domination and is currently looking for the keys to the sacred Radia Tower. (The villains name is very similar to Ghadius.) She also comments on the fact that the hero’s name (chosen by the player) means “Guardian of Light”. Meanwhile, Nova, a lackey of Gadiss and the leader of the country Samara, has begun to destroy forests. (Similar to Joka, being a lacky of Ghadius, going into Forlock to wither its trees.) During this time, Baru, a bandit, Haman, a knight of Lefis, and Saria, a mysterious woman from Samara, join the hero and Darus. (Baru the bandit has a name similar to Balue the stone mason.) Duke Necrude, the leader of the country Zenobia, was put under the control of Samara and kidnaps Lefis. When rescuing her, the heroes learn that Gadiss has finished building the Fitzcarraldo, a powerful airship. Aboard the ship, the party finds Lefis and she reveals that the hero really is the legendary guardian from Ark’s legend, but Nova appears and explains that Saria is his daughter and spy. Nova also suggests the hero is the key to opening the Tower, but the hero refuses to help.

Gadiss and Nova seek to open the Tower, which will give them the power to reshape the world, called Lemuria, as they see fit. (Similar to the legend of Phantomile: the world is shaped by the dreams of it’s people and Ghadius seeks to reshape the world with nightmares.) To open the Tower, they need to collect eight magical items, many of which they already possess. The heroes collect the rest, but the items are stolen by Nova and Saria. Nova opens the Tower and explains that it is only half of Radia. In order to get to the real Radia, both the Tower of the Moon and the Gate of the Sun must be opened. (A similar concept of the Moon Kingdom, Cress and Temple of the Sun, Coronia.) Nova almost kills the heroes, but Saria stops him and sends them to Elfas, the first town from the beginning of the adventure, where the people are descendants of Ark. At the Gate, the heroes defeat Gadiss and open Radia Tower, or Ark Castle. Outside, a person resembling the hero appears, claiming to be the Master of Dreams appears and kidnaps Lefis. (Another mention of dreams.) The heroes enter the Castle and confront the Master of Dreams, who explains that Lemuria is merely a dream that he has created. (Phantomile is a world of dreams and Huepow fabricated Klonoa’s memories of his life in it.) He created monsters in order to make the dream world into a nightmare, but the Nightmare Monster devours him and then attacks the party. (The Nightmare Monster is like Nahatomb and turning the dream world into a nightmare is Ghadius’s plan.) After the Nightmare is defeated, the hero remembers that he is from the real world and that this world is only a dream. Lefis, who has fallen in love with the hero, begs him to stay, but he is teleported out of Lemuria. (Basically, the ending of Klonoa sans a love interest.)