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Retro Monday: Kid Chameleon

Kid Chameleon was made by Sega and was released on the Mega Drive back in 1992, it’s not a game I’m really familiar with as I only played it once or twice around a cousin’s house.

Kid Chameleon is a game that firmly sits in the platforming genre, but this game has a twist, you don’t simply jump through levels, you get power-ups in the form of different helmets, those helmets change your outfit, and there are a lot of outfits and they all do different things, there’s one that is a knight like costume that lets you climb walls and gives you 5 hits before losing it, then there’s a rhino like costume that lets you smash some walls, and you even have a samurai outfit that lets you slice and dice your enemies. There’s more too, all with unique abilities which add variety to the game and allows you to tackle stages differently. Did I mention you can even get a tank??

The game has some nice visuals and some not great visuals, for example the backgrounds are a bit on the bland side, the foregrounds are ok, but the sprites are really good, and has the most detail of all. the soundtrack is enjoyable enough, there’s also variety in both. The levels seem to mix things up a fair bit, from caves to forests to beaches and so on. I will say though that the controls didn’t feel right, I did adjust to them, but they felt a little loose, also the game is difficult, I didn’t get a far as I thought and lost all my continues, I guess I should’ve handled my power-ups better, the game also seems really long for an old school platformer, I played it for – not a long 0 45 minutes and get to level 9, when I died, I checked how many levels there were and there were 11 or more levels on just stage 1 of the game, and there are 4 stages with about the same amount of levels each. Basically, it’s got quite a lot of game to it.

Overall I’d say the game is pretty decent, but a little tough, it’ll be worth playing for the unique gameplay with all the different skills you get, and it’s actually pretty fun if, a little frustrating.

Verdict: Recommended.