The first thought that enters your head when playing Kid Chameleon is probably 'Mario Clone'. The game steals ideas from Nintendo's finest, such as jumping on the heads of enemies and bashing item boxes from below. It's not the first game to copy Mario and it certainly won't be the last, but back in the early 90's when the Sega/Nintendo war was at its height, it seemed like Sega was running out of ideas.
Thankfully there is at least one aspect of KC that makes it stand out from the crowd. By putting on various headwear, Kid is able to transform into several different characters (hence the 'Chameleon' of the title). These range from a knight in armour to a Splatterhouse-style axe murderer! Each has special abilities that can be used to successfully complete each level. And boy, the number of levels is amazing. There's loads of stages to play through here - unfortunately the rather bland design means you may not have the willpower to see them all.
Compared to the aforementioned Nintendo classic, KC is sadly lacking. There's some neat ideas here and the idea of having several different characters is certainly original, but the execution is sloppy. The graphics and sound are hardly groundbreaking and the level design doesn't have any of the inventive qualities found in the Mario games.
I'm sure many Sega fans have fond memories of this and nothing I say will prevent them from enjoying KC, but to anyone else I would recommend you save your points and download a Mario title (or Sonic) if you haven't done so already.
1. ehawk
18 Apr 2007, 00:33 GMT
How can you not like this game? The gameplay is excellent and with all the different helmets and secrets to find what is not to like?
It can be very frustrating though but still a Mega Drive classic.
2. Shivelamouse
18 Apr 2007, 19:28 GMT
Actually, you don't necessarily go through all 100 levels. Different warps and whatnot will branch off in different directions. Also, in the 2nd level, there's a warp to the last boss battle, and a couple levels afterwards, a secret area that will skip you about half the game. Super Mario World's boss battles were fantastic? When did that happen? The sonic ones were fantastic. SMW's bosses were just sort of...there. The game was about platforming, which made it great, as well as Kid Chameleon. I actually prefer Kid Chameleon because a lot of the levels are non-linear but not confusing, making it fun, not to mention the variety of power-ups.
The levels are a lot harder then SMW, and you have a point about the obsession of a gamer trying to play through all 100 levels, but with the Wii's save function, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be when it first came out. You can actually beat the game in 1, maybe 2 hours if you don't get stuck on Bloody Marsh xD.
3. Simon Rees
18 Apr 2007, 22:30 GMT
This was one of my favourite games as a kid
never finished it
this will give me the chance to or i may just pull out my megadrive see if i can finally finish it
4. superBBQ
25 Apr 2007, 21:01 GMT
Wow, nostalgia moment. I haven't played this for a while but it was the most addictive game I've ever played. I thought I'd beaten the game very early on but I had to go through all the levels aain witht the bad guys just changed colours. The little tricks are neat, at the time I thought they were glitches and were the most satisfying thing to find by yourself. Shivelamouse already mentioned the one in level two and there are little tricks like hitting invisible blocks, sliding through bricks, going in the wrong direction and falling at some points that let you skip bits. The suits remind me a lot of the Mario ones, but I this beats it by far.
5. Shivelamouse
29 Apr 2007, 00:01 GMT
Here, I'll give you a little tip if you're having trouble beating it:
-Beat the first level without getting hit or getting items in under 20 seconds
-Beat the second level without getting hit in under 60 seconds
-Get the warp in the 3rd level
-Grab the Cyclone helmet
-Go to the secret area in Under Skull Mountain I where you get the points (you can only get it if you have Cyclone). You'll get 40k points to add to your 60k+ points, therefore giving you 100k points and triggering the secret warp. Half the game has been skipped.
-Stop complaining about the length and beat the fackin' game already!
6. Bass X0
28 May 2007, 16:30 GMT
Haha... I thought you actually played as a Chameleon in this game going by the title alone until I read more about it and looked at the screenshots.
7. Drake
28 May 2007, 17:35 GMT
I swear that Maniaxe looks exactly like Rick from Splatterhouse.
8. PresidentLeever
05 Jun 2007, 00:27 GMT
Or Jason from the movie?
9. Shrapnel09
08 Jun 2007, 19:49 GMT
you know i think your review gives this game a bad name, i remember my mom renting this game for me as a child and it was pretty fun, then i played the rom 10 years later and it was still good. I was planning on getting this for VC but then i was hesitant by your harshed review. However the spirits and good will of the people's comments have rekindled my spirit and now i do plan to get it.
10. Dazza
08 Jun 2007, 20:40 GMT
3 out of 5 ain't a train wreck matey, people can still play this and enjoy it. I stand by Damo's review, this is an average game when you compare it to other platformers on the Megadrive.
11. PresidentLeever
01 Jul 2007, 23:26 GMT
Seeing as most platformers on the MD aren't worth bothering with, this is well above average.
12. Dann Pichette
25 Jul 2007, 00:26 GMT
I didn't put up a huge fuss over this game in Target back in 1992 for nothing!! (i think thats when it came out) but either way my fuss won over my brothers and we got KC instead of Golden Axe 2 which is alright on its own but we already had GA-1.....I couldnt beat this without the game genie back in the day, It was almost impossible for me....i remember looking at the book and seeing all the level warps it had for it and thinking holy shyt, and actually trying them all.....a few of those levels are just kindof.....there
I loved this game tho....it had a creepy originality to it with the weird looking bosses it had.
13. Chris
04 Oct 2007, 04:16 GMT
I remember this game back in the day! When it first came out my friend and I took turns every other level trying to beat this game, but IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE! This game is so hard. If you can beat this game from level 1 through 100, you are a god. Golden Axe 2 was awesome too, but Golden Axe 3 really kicked ass!
14. stinssd
17 Mar 2008, 17:46 GMT
Karma, karma, karma, karma, kid chamel-e-on!
I had to say it!
15. Epyo
01 Aug 2008, 23:18 GMT
I've played the game before, but always got stuck on the third level because I didn't know how to climb walls. I always just gave up thinking the game was silly. But lately I really really yearned for a long, difficult platformer with small sprites. I remembered this game, and my brothers really really liking it when I was young, so I downloaded it. This game is EXACTLY what I was looking for. This is probably one of my favorite virtual console buys. I can't stop playing it. The oh-so-slight-nonlinearity of the levels as well as the whole game is quite a bonus, as well.
16. MultiPLAYA79
07 Aug 2008, 07:00 GMT
I remember buying this game as a kid and spending HOURS playing it until finally completing it. Yeah... some of the levels do seem to blend together a bit but if your in the mood for a good, LONG, platformer... you can't go wrong. A solid 3/5 from me.
Leave A Comment
Please login to post a comment.