Topic: Ace Combat Advance & Klonoa 2 Ship

[SS4Gogita]

Two new exclusive games from Namco arrive on the Game Boy Advance today.

ACE COMBAT ADVANCE AND KLONOA® 2: DREAM CHAMP TOURNAMENT NOW AVAILABLE

Highly Anticipated Game Boy® Advance Titles Now Shipping To Stores

Santa Clara, Ca., (Feb. 22, 2005) ­ Leading video games publisher and developer Namco Hometek Inc. announced today that Ace Combat Advance and Klonoa®2 Dream Champ Tournament have shipped to retail outlets nationwide exclusively for the Game Boy® Advance.  The titles are the first Game Boy Advance games released by the company¹s newly created internal handheld games division.

  ³Whether it¹s fast-paced air combat or mind-bending puzzle and adventure, Ace Combat Advance and Klonoa 2 Dream Champ Tournament deliver gamers¹ favorite franchises on-the-go,² said Jeff Lujan, Business Director at Namco Hometek Inc.  ³We designed the games specifically for the Game Boy Advance, and we¹re sure fans will enjoy them.²

  Offering 12 brand-new missions with a choice of 10 combat planes, Ace Combat Advance showcases some of the best graphics available on Game Boy Advance and allows players to improve their skill levels from Novice to Ace Pilot. Casting players in the role of a new recruit of the United Air Defense out to destroy the Air Strike Force and bring General Resources Ltd. -- an evil worldwide economic superpower -- to its knees; Ace Combat Advance features a graphically-detailed overhead perspective.  Players are set in the midst of intense high-action air combat and fly air-to-air and air-to-ground missions while advancing their skills and unlocking new planes and weapons as their reward. Ace Combat Advance is rated ³E² for everyone.

  Five new puzzle-packed worlds await fans of floppy-eared hero Klonoa in Klonoa 2 Dream Champ Tournament, another fast-paced, colorful side-scrolling adventure.  In his latest challenge, Klonoa must race against time and other dream travelers in the Dream Champ Tournament to collect stars, sun and moon fragments to become the ultimate Dream Champion.   Combining platform, puzzle and adventure elements, Klonoa 2 Dream Champ Tournament offers fiendishly-designed puzzles which players must solve using boxes, bomb boxes, switches, goomies, springs and scales in their quest for glory. Klonoa 2 Dream Champ Tournament is rated ³E² for everyone.

  Both Ace Combat Advance and Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament are available now exclusively for Game Boy Advance.  For more information, please visit: www.namco.com

[Mario]

Anyone planning on getting Klonoa 2 GBA? I'd like to hear some impressions from that game.

[kennyb27]

I was actually about to ask the same question, Mario.  It looks like something I might pick up.  If I do, I'll post some.

EDIT:  While we're talking about this game, I hope that PGC gets around to reviewing it.

[Djunknown]

I must've missed the whole Klonoa-craze.  Who/what exactly is this franchise? What other [good] games has this mascot been in?

[ruby_onix]

Klonoa is a black-and-white... ummm... animal something or the other. I'm really not sure what kind. With really big ears that can be used like hands.

It's a polygon-based three-dimensional 2D side scroller (or a 2.5D game, or whatever you want to call it, but 2.5D seems sort of insufficent) from the PSone and the PS2. It features a heavy amount of voice acting, but it's all gibberish (and subtitled). Like Pokemon-speak from the anime. Since it's all "acted", it's much better than the gibberish from Slippy and Falco in earlier StarFox games.

You mostly grab enemies and throw them around, and if you throw one downward while you're midair, you can get a "double jump" out of it, which seems to factor into a lot of it's gameplay. It's kind of like Sonic or Nights in that the beauty of the game just to go through it, and enjoy this great-looking world that they put together.

From what I've seen of the series, it's damn good. It's the kind of game which makes you wonder why the heck it's not available on the GameCube, aside from some vast conspiricy designed to make Nintendo fans suffer. And it's the kind which makes PS2 fanboys who knock the GameCube look like hypocrites.

My only complaint is that the screenshots of this title make it look like a 16-bit era side-scroller, rather than a next-gen side-scroller (which "the man" seems to be saying that nobody is allowed to have anymore), but since it's a DS game, I guess that's to be expected.

Edit: Oh yeah. GBA game, not DS game.

[Shin Gallon]

Klonoa 2 is one of the best games on the PS2, period, and I also loved the GBA and original PSX games. They're very good, and I'm glad we're finally getting Klonoa 2 here. Maybe they'll release the action/RPG GBA game over here sometime in the next decade : P