Reader Reviews Retro Special

Kid Chameleon (Mega Drive)

by Lutz

The games of our current era seems to be the Tomb Raider esq. clones, the endless waves of FPSs and FIFA '95 repacked with some new numbers. Well, a long time ago it was the 2D platformer that reigned as king. Kid Chameleon was one of the better and most unique ones. The basic plot was, well, basic. A new computer game had been invented, much like a Star Trek Holodeck, and it's a hit with the kids. However something goes wrong and the machine starts to abduct the kids. Up steps our hero, Kid Chameleon, to enter the game and beat it to rescue the children.

At its core the game had the traditional foundations: Get from one end of the level to the other, killing or avoiding monsters and grabbing power-ups along the way. Power-ups came in two forms (aside from extra lives and continues), diamonds and masks. Each diamond you collected went towards a pool that would be used for magic. (Which came in two strengths, 20 diamonds and 50 diamonds) However the masks was where the real fun lay.

Each mask would transform your guy, giving him a new persona and new abilities. And there were eight masks: Knight, Red Stealth (Samurai), Cyclone, Fly, Tank, Hoverboard, Berserker and the old fave, Axeman - Jason to his friends - who had a penchant for hurling axes at everyone whilst wearing a hockey mask. Each one had totally different abilities, The Knight could climb walls (Tricky in full armour, but still) and had the most energy; Cyclone could fly; The Tank could fire skull bombs. Each one had to be used to tackle puzzles to progress through the myriad level structure.

Which was the second great thing about this game. Whilst the first two or three levels were the same and there were a few "anchor" levels that you had to pass through (Like bosses) the rest of them were all over the place. There was a staggeringly large amount of levels, only about half of which would be completed en route to the end boss due to the massive branching structure of the game. One level may contain three or four exits, each one leading to a different level. No two games were ever the same. The sheer amount of levels was great too, meaning that one game could take as long as four to six hours to finish, and with the lack of a save feature of any kind it was rare you finished the game. But boy was it good when you did.

One great feature of the game that seems to be sadly missing these days in recent releases is secrets. Not unlockable content or extra levels [And not bloody 'concept artwork' -Ed], but hidden power-ups, secret walls and invisible platforms. This game was full of them. They were even used against you. What may have appeared a straight path upwards for you to fly may have had invisible steal blocks halfway up. Or course you may drop from a level and plummet towards death only to find your attempted "pavement pizza" halted by a teleporter.