Ami joueur !

Si Kid Chameleon ne te plaît pas, alors épargnes ton temps et passes ton chemin. Car même si l'on me suspendait par les gros orteils et me chatouillait les aisselles et la plante des pieds avec des vers de terre, je serais bien en difficulté pour en dire du mal. Je serais tout aussi inapte à t'aider à réviser ton jugement, car ce qui te déplaît dans ce jeu fais probablement partie de ce que j'apprécie ; ou alors c'est que j'en ai fait mon parti depuis plus d'une trentaine d'années.

Ce jeu fait partie des quelques uns qui m'ont en quelque sorte façonnés en tant que joueur. Peu de jeux m'ont marqués à ce point malgré des premières parties qui ne m'avaient guère convaincues. Depuis sa découverte sur Mega Drive, j'y suis revenu régulièrement, et j'y reviens encore aujourd'hui.

Le conseillerais-je à n'importe qui ? Assurément non !
Le jeu est fourbe, parfois injuste. C'est du traquenard de partout, un véritable labyrinthe, des situations tendues, un "level design" retors, des niveaux à connaître par coeur, sans parler des innombrables embranchements... C'est aussi un excellent jeu de plate-forme avec un concept de transformation séduisant à l'époque et toujours efficace aujourd'hui en matière de jouabilité. Vu le nombre de niveaux et la conception labyrinthique du jeu, la rejouabilité est énorme. La direction artistique est de qualité jusqu'à la fin et techniquement le jeu soutient très bien l'air du temps. Quant aux musiques, ce sont de petites perles.

Kid Chameleon est un de ces titres indémodables, de ces jeux maîtrisés à leur époque et que les années ne parviennent à émousser. Il demeure certain que, nonobstant cette intemporalité technique et conceptuelle, Kid Chameleon ne peut être recommandé n'importe comment et à n'importe qui.

Kid Chameleon is fucking stupid, and that's both what makes and breaks it. Most of the charm is found in how utterly goofy it all is, especially the powerups, while on the other hand it all comes crashing down because of the prominent absurdity, even cruelty, of the level design. This had to have been a heavy influence on those kaizo games and Mario Maker levels you see around nowadays.

And it's got no passwords or saves, either. A major selling point for this one was that it has over 100 levels in total, it's even on the front of the box. You probably won’t see all of them, as some are on alternate routes and such, and some routes get you through the game faster than others. Whatever the case, it's still really long for a 4th gen platformer, so what gives? It even has limited continues, so I have to wonder really if anyone actually beat this when it came out. Difficulty-wise it's just...such a different breed, even for the time.

I really wish I liked this one more, it definitely has a lot going for it, but the length and all around bullshit design just deal a massive blow to the overall quality. Despite being in a bunch of compilations, I sadly can't recommend it.

Gráfico charmoso mas PÉSSIMO LEVEL DESIGN

Além de ser extremamente frustante

As músicas são boas e eu gosto das referências da época

One of the best games of all time, as far as I'm concerned. There's just so much personality in the level design and art all over the entire game, and it feels so rare to have a game that is actively designed to reward high scorers and speedrunners. Yeah, I wish there was a password system or something to make a single playthrough more accessible, but honestly, the levels are just short enough that 103 of them (of which you're not even playing half of, due to the maze-like layout) isn't as impossible as it sounds.

When people talk to me about difficult games, this little beauty I tend to bring up doesn't seem to draw much attention. It seems unassuming, with its 90s shades and jacket wearing cool dude looking like he's being chased by a comic convention for saying Batman sucks the Joker's dick on the weekends, but do not be fooled.

This game is EVIL. I shall tell you why.

You play as the titular 'Kid Chameleon', esq. as he travels through an evil VR game that kidnaps losers into its sinister clutches, collecting gems and platforming his way to the end of many levels. Throughout the game you can pick up the assistance through many helmets that grant special transformations and powers, like the Knight who can scale walls, Maniaxe, the Jason Vorhees look alike that throws axes, and Eyeclops, who can reveal hidden passages with his ray gun. Helmets also grant special gem powers, used by holding Start and pushing the B button, which are different for each transformation.

The game starts out easy enough, with not many enemies and some jumping challenges which do not prove too taxing at first. Levels can be big and are cleared through the flag at the end. Teleporter podiums also dot the levels, allowing access to other levels, side areas and branching paths that take you on entirely different level structures. With the game touting over 100 levels on the box, you only really go through about a third of them on any playthrough.

Your first challenge should come on Hills of the Warrior I, where you meet the 'Murder Wall', a monstrosity of drills and machinery where Kid meets instant death if touched and will chase through the level. Then, when you fight the halfway boss, the Boomerang Brothers, all bets are off.

The game starts throwing more powerful enemies like leaping rock golems, fire spirits, rolling tanks, Lion Lords (no relation to Ruby-Spears Mega Man) and those godforsaken UFOs which fly in erratic patterns and rain death on anyone that runs under it. Helmets always come in handy supply, and some like the Cyclone are OP as they allow for flight, but the game will make sure you don't hold onto it for long.

Soon, you'll start bleeding lives and continues on painful levels like Forced Entry, Ice God's Vengeance, Alien Isle, The Hills Have Eyes, Forbidden Tombs, The Final Marathon and the most painful of all, Bloody Swamp.

Forced Entry and the aforementioned Bloody Swamp are cited as the hardest levels in the game, as the Murder Walls in these stages are faster and the stages come with multiple hitches and dead ends to enrage anyone brave enough to fight them. Forced Entry is hard enough, but Bloody Swamp is a nightmare of winding paths and difficult jumps that unless with pixel perfect memorization, most games end there. While Bloody Swamp is thankfully skippable, Forced Entry isn't. (Word of Advice, whatever you do, DO NOT take the teleporter at Hoverboard Beach.)

Overall, the way I speak of this game makes it sound awful? Truth be told, I actually really like this game. There's a genuine level of challenge that comes with it, and being able to clear this game with plenty of lives and continues is something I've done about three times over now. The controls are right, if a little slippery and the enemies never present themselves as unfair. (except for the little golems and the UFOs. Fuck Alien Isle, fuck it to hell)

If you're looking for a challenge of a game that rewards exploration and skillful platforming, you'll find something to like with Kid Chameleon.

Just be warned of the absolute hell that awaits you.

(This is the 67th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Kid Chameleon, a platformer developed by Sega Technical Institute and released in March 1992 for the Sega Genesis, is the 35th best game for the Sega Genesis according to magazine "Mega". That seems like a pretty good ranking for a game that I found to be overwhelmingly 'meh'.

The game got re-released in multiple collections over the years, and even is available on Steam for just 1€ since 2010 (it has 4 user reviews since then).

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10

Here is how the manual describes the setup: "Wild Side is the newest game in town. It's a hologram that creates a reality not our own. You step inside to play..." Basically, kids enter a building to play the most realistic VR game ever. Turns out, the antagonist of that game, Heady Metal, found a way to enter reality from the game world and started abducting the kids who played. The obvious question arises of how another kid was sent in to play after the previous one disappeared behind closed door, but alas, many kids are "KID-Napped!".

Casey is the cool Kid Chameleon, and he enters the game world himself to rescue these kids. Try to guess why he is called 'Chameleon'... Yep, it's because he can shapeshift into multiple different alter ego's. You collect masks in the game to take the persona of characters called "Iron Knight", who has 5 hit points instead of the Kid's normal 2, "Red Stealth" who can attack with a blade, "Berzerker" who can bull-rush and break walls and, among other options, "Maniaxe", who can throw axes and looks like Jason Voorhees.

That's pretty much all. You go through a bunch of levels to find the bad guy, kill him and free the kids.

GAMEPLAY | 9/20

This game is a side-scrolling platformer. You start off as Casey in his Kid Chameleon persona. Here, all you can do is walk and jump. You have two hit points. The game has Super Mario Bros-type blocks with hidden items in them, like diamonds for currency, clocks to give you more time, keys to give you more lives and, of course, masks to change your persona.

Once you collect a mask and switch personas, you either get 3 or 5 hit points depending on the character you get. You can also use their abilities, like throwing stuff at enemies, climbing up walls and flying upside down, to name a few examples. These characters are varied enough and fun to use, but most of my time, I simply got one of very few masks that would appear based on the situation at hand. A wall needs breaking? The game drops the Berzerker mask. You need to climb? The game drops the Iron Knight. Later levels will definitely get a bit more creative here, but considering that I got about 10% into the game after 3 hours and already saw enough, I didn't get that far.

Overall, the game doesn't play all too well. It falls victim to the control issue that plagues an occasional platformer, which is the icy block phenomenon. For some reason, jumping on a block means Casey takes a few extra steps forward, giving a "slippery" feeling to the controls for no apparent reason. The game also has a few issues with glitches, at least from what I can tell. Sometimes mask simply disappear, sometimes you jump on top of an enemy but it doesn't recognize it and you take the damage instead and sometimes you jump on a block that shoots spikes and for some reason, you get hit by them and instantly die. Fighting the game instead of the enemies is never fun. Finally, the pacing often felt slow. In one level, almost all you do is just stand around and wait for platforms to arrive. Breaking blocks, whether by jumping or running into them with the Bezerker, felt tedious and slow as well. Even boss fights, at least from what I saw, are very slow. And after playing this for hours, I couldn't believe how much game this game still had left. Why make it so long?

Apart from the personas, this game doesn't really stand out in any way, and the novelty of those personas does wear off after a while. So I can't say I am shocked that there is no official sequel, but maybe that had other reasons. According to the developers wiki page, the game sold well for Sega, whatever that means.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10

No voice acting, apart from a specific sound I will mention in a second.

The sound design has that Sega vibe to it but doesn't sound impressive as a whole. For some reason, when certain enemies shoot (or spit) projectiles, the sound that plays is a voice saying "die". Why? The soundtrack fails to have a kick to it in my opinion, it just sounds so stale and more like background music that is uninvolved with the gameplay. Thematically, the songs also often don't fit. The "Fantasy" track for example sounds futuristic for some reason. Didn't really enjoy listening to this a whole lot.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10

I'd say there is both good and bad here. For example, go to 1:07:34 of NintendoComplete's playthrough of this and look at the background. It literally looks like something my six year old brother drew. It looks like it came straight out of Paint and it's truly crazy how bad that looks compared to what you would expect out of a 16-bit console. I'm less insulted by NES games which simply have a black background to be honest.

But if you play most of the other levels, you will realize that this level's background is more of an oddity. Mountains have actual textures on other levels, entire cities are drawn on others, and the game does a solid job on a technical level. One level for example has the trees reflecting into the water, and that image moves as the water flows. Clouds move from side to side. And the sprites look pretty good here. The design of the different personas is especially well done and they remain the highlight of the game graphically as well as they already are from a gameplay perspective.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 4/10

Remember that you have entered virtual reality in this game. The game's way of reminding you of this is to have a stock image of a room with square tiling, which is the room that the Wild Side game is accessed in. Those squares fill out to give you the impression that you're in the game world. The game's levels themselves feel like a random mash-up of thematically different levels. There is the fire, water, earth and ice themed levels, there are levels playing below and above ground with no coherent overall map design apparent and all in all, immersion and atmosphere does not feel like a priority for this game apart from that initial set-up for the game's plot.

CONTENT | 4/10

The game has a lot of stages, with not nearly enough variety to justify it. The game is also fairly difficult at times, so the game can drag after you beat one of those more difficulty sections, only to realize you got many, many hours still to go.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10

Apart from there being too many levels in my opinion, a lot of them give the impression of being haphazardly designed. Often, I just felt like I had no idea where I was and somehow, some way I found my way to the exit. Having fewer levels and spending more time on each would have done wonders here, though finding the occasional secret passage to some (bland) treasure was enjoyable enough.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10

The personas are a neat idea, but it's not like that didn't exist before this game. If people reminisce about this game however, the personas will be what they will remember primarily. In every other way, the game is a very basic platformer.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

Not much replayability apart from trying to beat your high score and maybe using the personas slightly differently, though you won't be using them differently in a way that makes a notable difference.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at almost all times apart from the occasional glitches I mentioned.

OVERALL | 45/100

Worth trying for the novelty of the chameleon aspect, but other than that, the game is a very typical, and slower-than-average platformer that I wouldn't recommend.

Kid Chameleon is one of those games that I'd play as a sort of "shut your brain off" kinda deal. Sure it isn't the biggest shot, it's more of a dud. The gameplay is there, and it can be fun, but eventually it starts to become a bit too stale, and since the game has 100+ levels, which out of that count, you go through atleast 71 of them, it starts to drag on, and if you're doing a full run of the total 103 levels, you're in for a marathon, because the game doesn't even have a password system, or a save systen if you prefer that over the former. Other than that, I wished they could do more with the levels, you know, make 'em more unique. But I understand that life is hard when you're a Sega Genesis game released in 1992 with over 103 levels (not accounting for the cut "The Crypt" levels). Overall, you can play the game just fine, maybe as a one-and-done, "shut your brain off" kinda deal. Just be ready for some shortcomings and the ocassional blandly designed level.

I really liked this game as a kid, when I played it it was available on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection on the PS3. But looking back at it, well... Yeah, the devteam could have used a bit more time and effort to polish it, especially with the levels, so it doesnt feel like it's dragging off forever.

got sucked into the wiki for this game and started having a little too much fun reading it... it claims kid chameleon is "the iliad" of the 16-bit era. I guess it would make sense that there were some players at the time enamored with its sense of scope, enough to look past the absolutely wretched level design. even with 103 levels and a variety of alternate routes through the game, each bite-sized challenge tastes far too sour to enjoy the variety. level design is often immature and confusing, with dead ends, blind jumps, hidden spikes, and invisible blocks scattered no matter where in the game you are. this is compounded by handling inspired by sonic's momentum without the carefully tuned parameters behind it; our protagonist casey awkwardly quickly accelerates and is slow to deccelerate as if the ground lacks friction, and his ability to move in the air is incredibly touchy for a game replete with single-tile platforms to land on. it's hard to forgive a platformer that's this utterly shitty and never seems to end.

where the game does succeed is with its power-up system, more or less. to curb the aforementioned difficulty each mask/costume for our protagonist to wear can be esaily found strewn through each level, and each one gives a full reheal as well. between them all there's no real standout either: each one has some major positives, even if they're not immediately apparent. enemies generally will die from a bonk on the head but also can be easily dispatched with the samurai's katana or Jason Voorhees's throwable axes, and other masks like the knight or the hoverboard offer enhanced mobility options. all of this feels clunky (especially when it comes to the samurai's ducktales-esque downward stab or the extra-wide skeleton tank), but it at least makes wallowing through each level less of a chore. this is especially the case when the devs offer an actual bespoke challenge suited towards one of the masks rather than simply plopping interactables into the world.

the game is somewhat ugly for a '92 genesis title, particularly when the backdrop is a cave or something similarly dull. minor parallax effects when bodies of water are present in the background somewhat rectify this. the level themes themselves are also noticably drab, and you'll rarely remember that you're actually a radical kid running through a holographic world outside of the neat level transitions at the end of each level. the branching pathways and multitude of areas would have benefitted well from a world map, or absolutely anything beyond the silent splash screens introducing each locale. music is surprisingly good given that it's a GEMS title, as beside for a couple grating clown synths it's overall got a nice groove to it and doesn't attempt any out-of-place rock stylings. otherwise there's just little to differentiate it from other mid-tier genesis title of its era.

played around 25 levels I think? maybe a little less or a little more, I don't know exactly what route I took. I quit at madmaze mountain for those curious, near the halfway point of the game.