The game follows the eponymous Klonoa and his companion Huepow as they journey to save the songstress Lephise from the evil Ghadius.

Players control Klonoa as he runs and jumps through each stage, using his ring to fire a "Wind Bullet" that can inflate enemies.

[3] The remake was developed by Japanese studio Paon, with the original game's director Hideo Yoshizawa serving as producer.

The Japanese cast includes Kumiko Watanabe as Klonoa, Akemi Kanda as Huepow, Yuko Minaguchi as Lephise, and Bin Shimada as Joka.

[8][9] During development of the international version, Namco Bandai released a public survey which proposed a region-specific redesign of Klonoa with more cat-like ears, as Yoshizawa felt that the original design would be considered too "old-fashioned" and "cute" for Western audiences.

[11][12] As a result, Namco Bandai decided to scrap the redesign and keep Klonoa's original design for the international release instead.

The Western release also dropped the Door to Phantomile subtitle from its title and added a new "whirlwind" attack which utilized the Wii Remote's motion functionality.

[19] The title experienced low sales in Japan, however, debuting as the 33rd highest-selling game in the region during its first week with only 5,800 copies sold.

[34] The magazine also felt that the graphics had "evolved significantly",[34] sentiments echoed by Kotaku, who also praised its gameplay while criticizing the game's overall simplicity, calling it a "fairly stock platformer".