Kid Chameleon

The Good
Imagine a videogame so real you were in the game called Wild Side it used holograms to create the realistic images and it was the hottest game in town, until it became too real and the boss monster, Heady Metal escapes and begins capturing children by defeating them in the game but there was only one who could not be beaten his name… Kid Chameleon.

Released in 1992 and developed by Sega Technical Institute the company that would later go on to produce the difficult but very imaginative Comix Zone, Kid Chameleon is a side scrolling platformer in the tradition of Mario or Sonic but with a twist your character has the ability to transform into different things like, Iron Knight, Red Stealth a samurai ,and a Maniaxe an axe wielding man that looks like Jason Vorhees just to name a few that spans about 60 levels that you have to complete and about 100 stages including secret levels and remember folks this was before the save feature was put into games other than RPGS.

The graphics are typical for a game from 1992 but still holds up pretty well today like you don’t cringe when looking at the screen like some old games hell even early 3D looks like that have you tried playing Playstation lately?

The Sound is a variety of typical platform sound effects but what really shines is the music its filled with a bunch of catchy tunes likened to the music of SOR or Streets Of Rage for the uninitiated, or Sonic The Hedgehog, considering that everyone says how the Sega Genesis sound chip is so inferior how did it create so many brilliant soundtracks?

This game has a very high fun factor and should take you a while to finish specially if you try to find the entrance to the secret levels and try to finish them all in one sitting which would seem like a pain to more modern gamers.

It’s interesting that the different forms have there own unique attacks, skills and advantages a lot of these skills are utilized and are needed to complete the stages like climb up the wall, or charge through objects blocking your path.

The Bad
Some of the power-ups have very little use and sometimes if you are stuck being the basic main form it proves too difficult and sometimes the level objectives are hard to figure out what to do to get from point A to point B

The Bottom Line
This is a very fun game to play when you feel like kicking it old school or to take a little trip down memory lane to remember what once was and the good old days that shall not return.

Sorry for getting all sentimental on you.

The Good
Everything,cool story,and stuff..took me a good while to finish but twas well worth it to say i finished a monster of a game.

The Bad
Nothing :)

The Bottom Line
Get it now,you're missing so much!

The Good
Kid Chameleon was part of a series of games that Sega published in order to create its own armada of recognized characters and marketable mascots that could stand up to Nintendo.

The early 1990s, marketing campaign could have been an excuse to make bad games, but actually it was a time of great creativity and excellence for Sega. Kid Chameleon was one of these games.

Sadly, many of the fun games, and the original characters that were created, were largely put by the wayside to make room for Sonic and his pals.

Kid Chameleon features impressive graphics, animation, music and sound effects. In the 1990s, Sega really showed off not only its own creativity, but the hardware potential of the Genesis (Mega Drive in the UK).

The storyline is perfect for the 1990s, with a young boy venturing into a strange, virtual reality-type universe in order to save his peers.

The game offers over 100 different levels, with quite a bit of choice involved in what levels you want to tackle.

The game does not offer any passwords and while you can earn extra lives, this is a game that you will have to explore and re-explore many times over to master it. It is not an unfair challenge, but it is one that requires patience and a willing to explore and experiment.

Your major weapon involves a cool line of special masks, which give you a special power or ability.

For example, one masks looks a bit like Jason from the Friday the 13th films and gives you the ability to throw axes. Other masks allow you to climb up ways and do many other amazing things.

The wide variety of different masks and multiple levels, with different paths to chose from makes this one of the most in-depth video games of the era and certainly with the most replay value.

The Bad
Kid Chameleon does not really have any major faults to it, but fully exploring, much less beating, 100+ levels is no small task. It would have been nice if their had been a easy way to save your progress, after you hit the power switch.

I want to say that Kid Chameleon had several Easter Egg secrets that addressed the issue, but their is something to be said (with such a long and complex game) taking into account the fact that your target audience probably has to stop playing games in order to eat, sleep, using the WC, go to school, do homework and the like.

The Bottom Line
Kid Chameleon is probably one of the longest, most complex, creative and fun, cartridge-based video games released during the 16-bit era.