Too Tough to Beat

A pretty good description of what the game I've been playing lately is.  Less so nowadays since people can use save states, though I've been trying to play this without using them at all...well, at least to cheat my way through certain obstacles.  I only save when I'm done playing it for the day.  Played this a lot when I was a kid and barely made it to the second boss each time I played it before shutting off the system, having to start all over again from the beginning the next time I played.

The game I'm talking about is...

Yep, Kid Chameleon on the Sega Genesis.  Think about your old school platformers such as Mario; jumping on baddies, hitting blocks with your head for power-ups, collecting large amounts of a certain valuable, etc.  That's pretty much what this game is.  Only several times more difficult.  Also, the game's path has some variability to it; although you have to fight all the bosses in the game, some levels have warp points that travel to other levels, allowing you to take different pathways through the game's course.  Although you only need to play like 50 levels to beat the game (to the best of my memory), there's over 100 levels that exist in the game.

Basically you're the Kid Chameleon (nickname of the main character, Casey), who goes through a virtual world in an arcade game to beat the boss that captured players that could not beat the game.  Along the way you can smash prize blocks to get various goodies, including masks that give Casey various powers.  Such as...

...the Red Samurai!  Yeah, this one is definitely one of my favorites.  Fast, high  jumper, and can attack with a sword (with a nice kiai to go along with it, which my older brother and I would always imitate when playing this during our childhood), and can even break certain blocks below him if landing on them while holding the sword downward.  On some levels though he can be a real bitch to control, especially on those with jumping puzzles (*ahem* DRAGONSPIKE).

I also enjoy playing with the Iron Knight.  One thing that stands out is his health; usually each powered-up character has 3 health (Casey having 2), but the IK has 5 so he lasts longer.  He's heavy though, so if you land on certain blocks with enough height (4 or 5 blocks I think?), he'll slam right through it.  Well, except for prize blocks, they'll open up first, then you can crush them after.

Oh, what's that ring of circles around him?  That's his 50-Diamond power.  When you have enough diamonds, you can trigger a character's power, the first power costing 20 Diamonds if you have between 20 to 49, or the second power which costs 50 Diamonds if you have at least that amount.  There's a couple characters that have exceptions to this, but I'm not writing an FAQ here.

But, there you have the result.  Once the ring of health bars disappear, an extra bar is added, giving Casey 3 health now, and all characters 4, except for the IK who now has 6.  This can be used until the IK has 9, after which it won't have any effect.  Also, if you die, you lose all bars gained this way.


Oy, just said I wasn't writing an FAQ and already feel like I am.  Anyway, been playing this game lately, and yeah, it's hard as SHIT.  Now I know why I got so frustrated with this game as a child.  Mostly because I had to start all over again each time I played, since I could never leave the Genesis on overnight.  But of course the game doesn't suck at all.  It's a pretty damn good game!  But come on, like...

How in the hell am I gonna jump over that?  Well I guess I could try to get on that platform and jump over it...

...and cannon block outta fucking nowhere! Reminds me of that Super Mario Frustration video, with all those invisible blocks.  It happens in this game sometimes, lots of hidden treasures in this game, but then there tends to be those hidden blocks that screw you over.


And when you get further in the game, there's more traps waiting for you...

...yeah.


At least some of the traps are a bit obvious...

...so anyway, if you own a Genesis (and if you do, that's pretty awesome, I wish I still had some of my old systems), get it.  Though I'm sure most people have other ways of acquiring their games...


But, if you wanna support this game and buy it, check it out on Steam.  They have this game up for like $2.99, and it's well worth it.


Oh, and, if you do play it, watch the intro a few times.  On the third time around, I found something pretty cool...

See him?  Look closely!

Got a bunch of other games on my plate as well, so surely enough I'll write a little bit on all of them.  See you all then!