Kameo, elements of power, for Xbox 360

Rating: 8.2/10; Great

Recommended for action-adventure fans, and maybe even action fans, as long as you don't have a problem with pokemon levels of cuteness

Kameo is a third person 3D action adventure where you play as a faerie who can polymorph into a variety of cute elemental creatures. The game is inspired by (and quite similar to) the Legend of Zelda series, while also being somewhat similar to Super Mario 64.

The game starts off with a tutorial mode where you have a small subset of elemental forms, which serves to teach you about combat and puzzle solving. After this, you lose all of your forms and must set out on a quest to find them again, as well as other forms. Kameo by herself is able to do a simple kick attack, and use her wings to hover and jump, and I found this to be her fastest form for just getting around. Each zone has a town area where you can talk to the npcs to learn about their lives, backstory etc and sometimes get side quests.

One of the best parts of the game is when you leave the starting city to enter the hub area and see the massive battle between the faerie and troll armies. This is straight out of an epic movie (such as Lord of the Rings), and you have to move through the battle without getting killed! As you progress through the game, the battle changes with new and more powerful enemies being added, and there are times when you have to assist in the battle.

Basic gameplay comes to down to exploring each area, figuring out how to solve puzzles, and defeating enemies and bosses in combat. Puzzles are very well done and involve figuring out which elemental form to use, and sometimes you have to quickly switch between multiple forms to combo their abilities together. These puzzles often recur throughout the game, making you use many of the forms regularly (though some forms are only occasionally needed). Also included are backtrack puzzles, which involve visiting a previous location later in the game when you find the appropriate form to get some kind of side reward. A fair amount of the puzzles involve platforming, which sometimes gets annoying.

Combat is fun and well done. Each form has its own selection of moves (all of which are clearly explained). There are a large number of different strategies you can use in combat, so you can play the game how you want; ranged, melee, area attacks, grappling and so on. Some enemies are creatively designed to make you use specific forms to defeat them, though it is sometimes possible to find other creative combat options. On top of all of this, the combat encourages use of environmental hazards to defeat enemies in creative ways. Bosses usually require specific forms and can be quite challenging. There are even some bosses that must be fought using your normal faerie form.

Character progression is tied into solving puzzles and doing sidequests to find treasure. Namely, elixirs of life (which increase your max health in the same way as Zelda heart containers), and magic fruit which is used to unlock and upgrade the moves of your forms. Every elemental form has a selection of moves which must be unlocked to use, and then can be ranked up to become more powerful using the fruit, which gives a significant tactical decision based on your supply of fruit.

Overall, Kameo is a beautifully crafted high fantasy with solid gameplay that is well worth playing. A general lack of replayability and some slightly annoying platforming are the only real flaws.

Pro

• Beautiful immersive world, with epic npc battles
• Large variety of shapeshifting forms, each with unique puzzle solving and combat abilities (and natural faerie form is not useless)
• Good story, voice acting and dialogue
• Puzzles are well crafted and not obscure. There is also a hint system
• Robust and fun combat system
• Can adjust equipped forms while paused, so easy access to all in the middle of combat
• Limited resource for improving forms, so there is a personal and tactical choice in what to improve
• Early areas have puzzles that can only be solved with later forms
• Can replay levels in a sort of score mode
• Limited multiplayer mode

Con

• The horse is kind of pointless. It does hurt immersion slightly to have such a mundane creature in the game, plus you can go just about as fast while hovering in faerie form
• Platforming. Some have annoyingly long falls if you fail, and too much of it relies on the ball form. Conceptually it makes little sense why the earth form which can roll into a ball has gravity defying properties which make it better at platforming than the winged faerie form
• The most frustrating part of the game was navigating the ice ramps, because it is far too easy to fall off
• Underwater controls are a little awkward
• Sometimes after solving an area, powerful monsters infinitely spawn to encourage you to move on