Kid Chameleon (1992)

Preliminary: I'm quite skeptical cuz most reviews here mention things that are red flags for me like too long and overly hard later in game with trial and error gameplay instead of just run and have fun with power-ups. And mostly meh reviews. However, I had heard about this a lot, sort of like an Earthbound where I never played it but heard about it. And I really liked the intro/concept/Feel (as many people do), just hoping the Play can hold up especially if it overstays its welcome. So far I'm liking it, I'm on the 5th or so level. The power-up puzzle aspect so far has been fun enough but I could see where that gets annoying later since I have no desire to use a guide for a platformer, and it takes a bit too long to get things out of the power-up boxes, I wish it were faster. But so far enjoying it, so it'll likely at least be a 3 star for me! We shall see tho...

I'm loving things like the Friday the 13th mask/power-up and the fact there is a run. But I am seeing what people mean. Some definite gotcha level design/enemy placements already this early in the game. And you would think power-up rooms would be exciting but instead it feels like a chore to hit all the boxes and collect your rewards. But you kinda have to, in case the needed power-up is somewhere in those 30 boxes. And it's weird how some walls are passable and I don't see a way to tell except to throw my axe through it :-p Yet here I am, still playing at Hills of the Warrior. Maybe I should see how many levels there are.

Yea no the difficulty gets too high there and just lots of design choices that frustrate me. Still, better than I expected considering the reviews, and some neat ideas. And I found the controls okay, even tho I know many would find it slippery it's something I'm used to and okay with :-p <3

(The trap of 92 games being 3 stars and move on, despite my old strict rules about 3 stars vs 2 stars, continues :-X There's just something about this era... Hopefully I can shake it off and start being more okay with the fact that some games deserve 2 stars despite good ideas and playing for 20-30 mins, since games tend to be hours long now in 92)

Kid Chameleon is one of those old-school platformers that seems fondly remembered by a lot of people. But I'm afraid I gotta say... this ain't it chief.

Premise-wise the game's fine. You're a way-cool kid at a virtual reality arcade, and the game's AI has turned evil so you gotta take it down. You acquire power-ups that change your appearance and give you new abilities, like a samurai who fights with a sword, a masked Jason/Splatterhouse guy who throws axes, and a knight who... climbs walls. The abilities are fine, and I like how the game works as a kind of silly parody of all that was way-cool in the 90s.

Where the game fails hard is in its controls and level design. Jumping and running is shit in this game. You're way too floaty and slippy-slidey, and you're asked to do precise platforming somehow. There are like a hundred levels to play through (with branching paths even, which is great on paper), but none of the levels are any fun at all. They all feel like what kids would randomly come up with in a basic platformer level editor. Think of poorly-designed Mario Maker levels, but with graphics from Flash games on Newgrounds from the early 00s. The game neither looks nor sounds good, and it's overall a frustrating experience.