Hello everyone I'm Jack Red, I recently gave another Rare classic I try. Kameo: Elements of Power was Rare's first Xbox 360 game yet one of the original titles for the console as well. Even for them, parts of this game won't seem much like their usual work. I will say this is a surprisingly solid beat em game with some variety.
Believe it or not, this game got moved between a few consoles originally was going to be an N64 game to it's successor GameCube. At one point, it was going to be an original Xbox game. Then finally on Xbox 360 with each version having different concepts to a degree. It was going to be a Pokemon style game. Now it's more of what many considers to be a Zelda clone.
They only got two Xbox original games as well as one GameCube game released. Prior to Microsoft flat out buying Rare. At the time, they were partnered with Nintendo. However back the screens, Nintendo wasn't exactly happy with some of Rare's decisions based on what we do know. The creator of Mario dislikes Donkey Kong Country is very mind blowing to me.
Kameo is one of those you must transform with each form having their own pros and cons. At the same time, this can help bring out creativity. It also will test how well you know how to use em especially a few key points. You play as Kameo whose going to stop Thorn, the troll king. Your sister helped in his plans, you will need to regain forms loss while gaining new ones.
Now I know Rare publicly talked about a particular issue in one of their Rare Replay videos. I am just felt like I need to talk about it. Usually, they end games more difficult than you could expect. Personally that's fine because you want to work for it at that point otherwise it kinda feels like you wasted your time. Yet the issue is more or less about the beginning.
Yeah, this problem even harmed it's potential sales. They throw you to the wolves expecting to know what to do. Trust me, beyond this portion of the game takes time to explain stuff better. Thankfully, this doesn't have a boss fight. I kinda felt some difficult parts in Battletoads NES was more satisfying than that. You can get this fruit to upgrade each form's abilities.
You likely will need a guide to get them all or you want the biggest achievement there is in the game. There's a great variety of controls among each forms. Sometimes, it suddenly feels like you're playing a different game. For the most, you can use the maps to see where your destination is. But sometimes, you need to put some effort getting there or in sections of areas you can't see the map.
In order to get each form, you must locate a sorta hatch like hole. Inside is within a realm where you must defeat a shadow troll. But to defeat em you need to attack these bright somewhat similar looking creatures. Temporary you can fire them at the shadow troll a few times. Parts of this will get tricky just a fair warning.
You also need to help your family's army dealing with major obstacles mostly destroying potential weaponry that can win a battle maybe even a war. You can ride a horse, oh well this is rather a strange thing I kept noticing. The actual face of this horse looks like he'll do anything even sacrificing itself to save lifes.
Sadly, this horse won't enter castles or possibly dangerous areas. Which means you must dismount from the horse to continue on foot. The game will tell you, one of the trolls could steal your horse too. I will say the artwork is very impressive even with it's frustrating development history. You have to keep in mind, some parts of the controls can get in the way of doing things.
Like you have some enemies that must be defeated a certain way. But you could press one of the other form buttons by mistake to suddenly get in trouble. This is one of the more frustrating problems you have to deal with. Some areas just with a gap between can be tricky to match it across. There's not many actual bosses in the game itself.
I am happy to say none of them actually sucks. My favorite boss as surprising this might be is Lord Drok. Before I even talk about his boss fight, let's dress the minotaur in the room. Doesn't this robot oddly look similar to Minatek from Bio F. R. E. A. K. S.? To clarify, I'm not saying Rare rip off parts of their design or anything like that.
Lord Drok will open a section of his chest. You got a limited time to attack it as Chilla using his spear move. The big damage comes from these insects. You will need Snare whose a plant snake creature I love it lol. You need to do a particular move after putting em in his mouth no not like that sick bastards lol.
You need to do his weird throwing attack. These insects won't explode but rather sorta cover parts of his body. You quickly switch to Chilla or Thermite then aim to attack those spots. This giant robot is surprisingly fast for his size. There's a great variety of places you go that do mix element themes very well.
Kameo is a surprisingly straight forward game that should take you a few hours to beat. You also need to get use to particular doors you need to certain actions to open. Like breathing fire on these dragon statues or causing an ogre bumping in the right spots among the trees to drop something to cover holes. Honestly, the story is well written yes some predictable moments I know.
I do like some of the characters on both sides. Oddly, parts of this maybe it's just me saying this. Doesn't this sorta remind you of another game from Rare Replay, Jet Force Gemini? Both games involves a tyrant attacking a particular race while our heroes get ridiculous stuff to stop em. Speaking of that, some portions has massive amount of enemies on screen.
Funny enough, this actually predates Dead Rising 1 a year before. A more famous game with a lot of enemies on screen. Personally, that's a better experience than this. Kameo is the most fun when you get most of the forms. There's one particular form that surprisingly was well worth the wait. He doesn't look like much compared to the other forms.
OMG, after I upgraded some of his abilities Thermite was owning some tough things with ease. This ant quickly blew my mind guys. I would even say he's among the very best forms. You also a rolling move that's technically faster than a horse. He also can use shield to move through stuff like lava. He also has two different explosive attacks.
I highly recommend you use the fruit on this guy. Some areas you need to pay a little more attention to. The voice acting is mostly decent I will say. You get to explore while at times defending shrines from the trolls. I swear the trolls do seriously remind me of The Lord of the Rings' Orcs I'm not kidding. They even have some stuff similar to em.
You may have to get issue to seeing game over screen since some areas can be tricky to get through. Like helping these giants for your father's army to get across a section. There's some clever concepts hidden in this game. I can't say it has as much depth as some of the other Rare games though. Another problem I had is strangely every dlc achievement has absolutely, I really wish I was kidding.
Absolutely zero gamer score at all added to the base game, I never seen that before. Now that's more weird than anything else really. There's more zero gamer score achievements in Kameo than those games within Rare Replay that have zero gamer score achievements. Also, most achievements is playing the game in different ways.
You can score as much as possible or test how quickly you can speed run it. The choice is ultimately yours folks. Kameo is a nice change from a lot of beat em up games. I felt they could've done more to have help make up for that. You also get more outfits since Rare Replay automatically adds dlcs to those that have it.
Overall, Kameo is hands down an underrated gem as well as a very over looked early Xbox 360 game. Honestly, they did an amazing job with most aspects to keep entertaining for awhile. There's also coop which I haven't tested. I got to be honest, I actually had more fun playing Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Parts of the story can be seen as dark like Banjo-Tooie but there's plenty light stuff to help with that.
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