Chameleon Twist 2 (N64 review)

Developer: Japan System Supply
Publisher: Sunsoft
Released: 1998

The original Chameleon Twist was a fun, if slightly flawed, platform game that was released in 1997.

For this 1998 sequel, Japan System Supply had a great opportunity to fix a number of issues that plagued the original, such as the awkward control scheme and camera angles. Instead, they made the controls even harder by introducing fiddly new moves such as vertical pole swings, and leaving the camera exactly as it was in the original (meaning you can't pan around your character with full 360 degree motion).

This makes progressing in the games six worlds incredibly frustrating, as you'll be replaying sections over and over before you manage to button-mash your way to the next area. It's a real shame as some of the levels showed glimpses of promise (i.e. Carnival Land and Toy Land) and the play areas are much more expansive. The six bosses are more imaginative than the previous game (especially the Burger Battler!), but the final boss ruins it by having the cheapest and most random attack patterns I've ever encountered!

Overall, this game fails to improve on the ideas found in the original - if the developers had paid a little bit more attention to the core mechanics this game had the potential to be one of the best platform games on the N64.

Random trivia: Bizarrely, the North American and European versions of the game featured different playable characters who were designed to be more chameleon-like. The Japanese game retains the same characters from the original who were far more interesting in my opinion!