Kid Chameleon (Virtual Console)

Kid Chameleon

Introduction

If you’re a fan of games such as Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog, then you’ll probably love this virtual console game. Packed with tons of challenging levels, enemies and bosses, it will have you entertained for ages at only 800 Wii Points. Kid Chameleon was originally released on the SEGA Genesis, and has been featured in a variety of re-release packs for the 360 and the Playstation 2 and 3. You won’t want to miss this one! =]

Console: Sega Genesis
Release Date: May 28th, 1992 for the Genesis, May 28th, 2007 for the Virtual Console. (I wonder if that was planned or not o_O)
Publisher: SEGA
Developer: SEGA Technical Institute
Players: 1-2 players, 2 player mode is switching off the controller every level.
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

Story

In this platformer, you play as a boy named Casey. A brand new virtual reality arcade game has just been released in his town, so of course every kid in the area is going to play it. Everything seems fine and dandy until one day, kids that had been playing the game start to vanish. It turns out that the virtual reality game’s boss, Heady Metal, has broken free from his script and has begun kidnapping every poor soul that can’t beat the game! It’s now up to YOU, oh noble protagonist, to save the world! Er, the town’s gaming population at least.

Gameplay

As stated earlier, you control Casey—now dubbed Kid Chameleon—and progress through a variety of different levels. Each level is set up in traditional 2D platformer style, where the goal is to reach a flag at the end of a level after dodging obstacles and owning enemies.

What sets this game apart is the different masks that you can pick up, which enable you to transform into another character with its own set of unique powers. Each level can be played differently depending on what character you use, which adds a lot of variety to gameplay. Here are a few examples of masks you can find:

• Iron Knight: This tough dude has the best HP of all, as he’s covered in armour. He can also climb walls like spiderman (a skill that took me ages to figure out..).

• Red Stealth: What’s a game without a ninja? He has a really useful sword that lets you slice enemies from the side, instead of jumping on them from above.

• Maniaxe: A character that looks quite like Jason, mask and everything. He can throw axes at enemies.

The controls are pretty standard, 1 to jump, 2 to attack, and the d-pad to move. These can be switched around in the options area however.

The gameplay is great overall, and quite addictive at that. The only complaint I would have is that you can only suspend data, there are no save files. But as it’s an old game, it’s to be expected, and certainly doesn’t overpower the fun of the game.

Graphics

Now, as this game was released in ’92, the graphics are obviously not up to par with modern day. But compared to the games released alongside it, the graphics are a little sub-standard. When you compare it to games like Super Mario Kart and Wolfenstein 3D (both released in ’92 as well), it doesn’t score very high in the graphics category. Keeping in mind that this game is 16-bit, graphics aren’t a huge deal with a game like this. It’s still a really enjoyable platformer, regardless.

Longevity

In terms of longevity, you can’t get much better than Kid Chameleon. This game has over 100 different levels, each quite unique. There are a lot of teleporters (hidden and not) throughout the game, so there are also tons of different paths you can take to reach the final boss. This combined with all of the different masks you can pick up makes for endless fun. The real killer here is lack of save file, so it’s pretty awful to lose once you’ve gotten so far in the game.

Sound

When you think of great platformers, you can usually associate the notable music (for example, the Mario theme, Sonic music etc.) While Kid Chameleon’s soundtrack doesn’t stand out quite that much, the tracks always fit very well with the stage they’ve been selected for, which, in my opinion, is a great feature.

OVERALL

Pros:
+Addictive gameplay
+Great replay value
+Lots of variety

Cons:
-Slightly substandard graphics
-Lack of a save file

All in all, I really enjoyed playing this game. It's a ton of fun, and is well worth 800 Wii Points. =)