Month of Nostalgic Video Game Reviews 2 – Chameleon Twist

Howdy peeps and welcome to Day #23 of Month of Nostalgic Video Game Reviews 2! This is a blog series where I review video games from my childhood. Today’s game is one that was just totally bizarre, it was also a fun game to play alone and with friends, today I’ll be talking Chameleon Twist!

Chameleon Twist was a platforming game released in 1997 for the N64.

When it came to gameplay, by pressing the B button, you could make your character’s tongue stick out and using the analog stick you could control the movement of the tongue. This enables the player to obtain power-ups from a distance or to swallow enemies. The tongue will extend until it reaches its full length and retracts back into the chameleon’s mouth, or until it bumps a wall. As a basic attack, Davy and his friends, who have the same powers, can stick out their tongue and swallow enemies that stick to it. Once inside their mouth, the Chameleons have the option of spitting the enemies back out of their mouths at other enemies.In order to jump up to levels of ground that are usually impossible to reach, the characters are able to launch themselves into the air by using their tongues. If used while the chameleon is moving an a particular direction, the jump is given even more altitude, in what is comparable to pole vaulting. When faced with impassable gaps in the ground, which frequently block the way, you can usually able to grab a pole on the other side of the pit, allowing him or her to either move across the pit in a set direction. You may rather choose to move across the pit in a circular motion by swinging around the pole by pressing the A button and the desired direction after grabbing the pole.

Outside of the single-player game there was a battle option that allowed two to four players to take part in either a Battle Royal or Time Trial event. Battle Royal has you trying to be the last chameleon left standing on a suspended platform, while Time Trial rewards the chameleon that stays on the platform the longest. In the latter event, the chameleon that has fallen off the fewest number of times is considered the winner. Options include four difficulty settings for multiplayer games, adjustable battle lengths, and a choice of four stages for both the Battle Royal and Time Trial modes.

I first came across Chameleon Twist via my school friends and it was initially one of the most bizarre games I’d ever played, but it was addictive and as with most good N64 games the multiplayer was the place to be. This game was proper frantic and fun. Playing against each other and shooting projectiles while the stage got smaller was one of the scariest things ever especially when there’s three other people doing the same thing, and obviously in competition-based gameplay like this people are bound to lose and believe me arguments did break out just like when we played Mario Kart 64 or Diddy Kong Racing or any of the Mario Party games. Outside of the multiplayer I remember the main game being bloody hard as hell because there really wasn’t much in the way of help and you just had to figure things out for yourself. This held true with a lot of the boss fights where the strategy to beat them wasn’t completely obvious which would lead to some unnecessary deaths, sometimes it’d take me ages to figure out what to do or I’d just let my mate do it for me. But even before the difficulties in the game began you had to figure out the bloody controls! It wasn’t too hard once you got it down but when first learning some of the stuff you have to do with tongue movement when it comes to bending and flipping came be tricky as hell yo.

This is one of the few N64 games I come back to every once in a while and play with my sister. In single-player mode I’d definitely gotten better because I’m a lot smarter than my younger self, but when it comes to multiplayer some things never change when I lose to my sister I still get annoyed about it haha.

So in conclusion Chameleon Twist was a pretty cool game, it had a lot of crazy and intriguing ideas. Had the game been a little easier than I think it would have fared a lot better with players and critics but as it stands it’s a hidden game from history with a fun story mode and a crazy as hell multiplayer that just needs to be experienced. I’d say give it a try, you’ll never look at chameleons the same way again haha. 🙂

Well there’s another game review done only 7 more to go! If you have experiences with this game or any of the following ones do comment below! I’ll see ya tomorrow with another nostalgic video game review yo! 😀