Kid Chameleon is
an above average platformer which was held back by only one flaw. The
fact that you could play the game non-stop for five hours and make
steady progress, and then find that you're only half way through the
absolute multitude of levels. If only there was a save feature, it could
have been so good!
The background of the game goes a little something like this. There's a
new game in town. A virtual reality game to be exact, the most superior
game of it's kind, and every kid in town wants to play it. There's a
problem however, any player that goes in doesn't come out, the evil boss
of the game is kidnapping them! Kids all over town keep disappearing
until finally there's only one person to turn to, the coolest kid in
town, Kid Chameleon!
The gameplay in Chameleon Kid (or Kid Chameleon as it was called in the
west) is actually quite good, there's a lot of depth and originality in
there. The best feature that Kid Chameleon offers is his transformation.
Find a helmet and he'll change into one of his various alter-egos, each
with different abilities. Knowing when and how to use the abilities of
your character is vital if you want to progress further into the game,
for example, the fly will enable you to stick to walls and fit into tiny
spots, the iron knight can break blocks with his jumps and shimmy up
walls and the cyclone guy can fly. There are over 10 different
transformations and each of them requires a mastery to finish the game.
The controls are decent, once you've got the hang of them there's not a
worry in the world. There's a button for running, one for jumping and
one for performing the special move of you're character. All of the
levels are well designed, but as you progress it's difficult not to
notice the repetition and passing through the levels can quite quickly
become a chore. There is a steady learning curve, the levels gradually
get harder and harder until you're pulling your hair out in frustration
from the ridiculous time-limits and hoards of enemies.
Graphically Chameleon Kid’s graphics are reasonable. There is a huge
amount of detail put into the backgrounds, just some fuzzy trees and
clouds with a few other things thrown in there. It wouldn't have hurt
the developers to put a few brighter colours in as the darker palette
that was used often sets a mood that's just too gloomy for a platformer.
The chameleon himself, and all his various transformations that he
undertakes look very nice, it's a pleasure to control someone that looks
that stylish, but overall the graphics were a bit of a disappointment.
Kid Chameleons challenge is perhaps too difficult for most of us. Only
the most persistent gamers could have a chance if finding their way to
the end, and that's only a slim chance. The learning curve, as written
above, is decent, but about half-way through the game the difficulty
peaks and making any more progress becomes near impossible. The fun
factor was good for a start, but the more times you start up a new game
the less fun there was to be had. IF ONLY YOU COULD SAVE IT!
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