War! The countryside is ravaged by it. The good king and his family have been duped by the Princess Kalus who has aligned herself with the evil Troll King Thorn. They want to rule the land by putting it in their evil grasp and having captured the royal family during the throes of battle, victory seems assured. The land is besieged by massive battles as dragons roam the sky and Trolls engage in combat with the forces of good. But it isn’t enough, the tide of war is not on the elves’ side and all hope seems to be lost. But wait…
Walking into this two-way slug-fest is a lone hero, one who may stop this steamroller of death and destruction, one who possesses the ability to morph into fantastical creatures capable of great feats. She is the second elven princess and her name is Kameo.
Taking place in a mythical land, Kameo places the player smack-dab in the title role of Kameo, a headstrong princess who must roam the countryside rescuing the elemental creatures that she can transform into. The land is alive and brilliant with creatures working and doing their business just as one would expect even as war is occuring. As headstrong Kameo, your initial offensive to save your family led to a world class butt-whoopin’ by Thorn. But now with the help of the good wizard Ortho (who has placed himself into a magical book called the Wotnot) and the repulsive yet helpful Mystic, Kameo has a slim chance to save the kingdom.
Kameo is viewed from a 3rd person perspective with a dynamic camera that follows her every move. As an elf, Kameo can float, jump and do a wicked backflip kick in order to move around. Using the Wotnot book, players can have three of the elemental spirits ready to go at the push of a button and store the other elementals inside it’s pages. Accessing the Wotnot book, you can assign one of three Elementals to the face buttons on the controller. Not that you start the game with Elemental spirits.
You see anytime the kingdom is at stake the chances are that the lone chance at saving it will involve an uphill battle and Kameo is no different. Starting off, you are told that the elementals all have been captured by a splinter group of the Trolls called the Shadow Trolls. These Shadow Trolls have the Elementals trapped inside their evil lairs and their power negated. Only by adventuring to these sinister locales will Kameo be able to do battle against and free the trapped Elemental. Once the Elemental has been freed, Kameo can merge with it and unleash it’s full power, only to store it in the Wotnot and use it when necessary.
Which brings you to the ever evolving challenges of the game. You see as the adventuring becomes much more difficult, you must figure out which Elementals to have at the ready to activate. You never know when you must use the Rolling power of Major Ruin to launch into the air only to transform into the ice wall climing Chilla and stick to the wall lest you fall to your death. And that is only a small example of the quick finger acrobatics that the game demands of you.
Of course that isn’t the only way to get an Elemental, rescuing one of your family can sometimes result in them giving you a new friend. And don’t even think that the game only involves you running from one Shadow Troll lair to the other. Oh no, events are unfolding as you run around and often the soldiers will ask you to help them at a critical stage of the war. Which brings in a series of cool action scenarios. The most memorable one involved me turning into the Dragon Ash and defending an Elvish artillery from attack as the elves turn the cannons in the appropriate direction to stop a troll warship. And it’s these scenarios that break up a game that could potentially become monotonous (yet never does)
But does it look and sound good?
Being in the first wave of 360 games, it is expected that all of the games be above board as far as what they look like and sound like. Well I must say that Kameo is really a fine looking title. I spoke about it briefly in my review of the 360 itself and I think that it is a testament of what’s to come in the future. Being a launch title Kameo still has the chops to clearly place it above even the best looking original Xbox or PS2 title. Why? Well, lets talk about that for a minute.
Using an almost cartoonish look (cell shading) but not quite a full cartoon, Kameo features a very fluid and smooth design. Each individual item, whether it’s a rock on the ground or a major character, has very clean and distinctive lines. You can easily distinguish one item from another even a large distances (which we’ll discuss further down). For example, during one sequence (actually it happens several times), Kameo is required to mount a horse and quickly ride to a distant location. As she rides, you can marvel at all the beautiful scenery, but what’s that up ahead? Looks like it’s a crowd of people mosh pitting. And as you get closer it is a crowd of people, only they aren’t dancing, they are fighting. And even though you whip by at a healthy 60 FPS, you can still see the detail in the Trolls’ battle axes and the Elven warriors armor. It’s a real hoot to try and smash into the bad guys with a giant war horse and the clean graphics never bog down even with a ton of action happening on screen.
Now something that I still can’t get over is how well things are viewed in this title no matter the distance. I talked about the fights at great distances, but you really do feel enveloped in a great battle when you can see a giant war machine rumbling across the field with Trolls hanging off it, and past that, the destoyed and burning remains of another war machine that has been felled, and even beyond that the mountains and then the clouds and eventually the sky and moon. I know for a fact that the programmers really took advantage of what the 360 can do and spread out all that graphic specific memory. Playing in HDTV 720p is just awesome, just plain awesome.
And even the surround sound that is featured in this title is geared up for a strong workout. Yet surprisingly the box doesn’t say anything about 5.1 surround. Still, my Dolby Digital receiver lights up like a Christmas tree when I begin playing indicating that it is being fed a true digital surround signal. Regardless, the game sounds fabulous, from the strange noises that emits from the various elemental beasts to the clever voice work done by the voice actors. All of it is done with great effort and the product really shows that. Of course what epic adventure wouldn’t be complete without the pre-requisite action soundtrack, and Kameo delivers there as well. From the thundering booms of the war sequences to the almost hushing lull of the exploration, yes this game has it all.
Finally, I would like to say how impressed I am with the character designs. Coming up with 10 known and not-so-known creatures takes some real effort and Kameo has some pretty fancy looking beasts. I am a big fan of Pummel Weed the boxing plant and Ash, the fire breathing dragon. As you adventure, you can collect magical fruit that is used to upgrade these elementals, making them more powerful. But more then that, the upgrades can be seen from a visual standpoint. Want a tougher plant? Add spiked leaves to his top and slice up the bad guys while burrowing in the ground. It’s these little touches that add to an already engaging title. Kameo borrows from an awful lot of other games, but clearly stands on it’s own with it’s wholly original characters and deep world. But there is more to this title then you may expect. For example, the game actually has a 2-player mode that splits the screen and devides up the elemental warriors. Yes, you both play as Kameo but hey, it’s her game, there’s plenty of her to go around.
Next, there are all sorts of nifty things to find in the game that will help improve Kameo’s and her elemental friends’ powers. Magical fruit, crystal eyes and elixers are everywhere. And some are even hidden amongst the lay of the land. These areas truly are hidden, not like other games, for me, finding one of these hidden spots is a real accomplishment. Of course there is a monetary aspect of the game, and you will collect money known as runes. These runes can be used to buy items at the shops found around the game.
And what kick-butt adventure would be complete without kick-butt fighting. Kameo has kick-butt fighting and it involves a combat system that as you battle, and take out bad guys you begin scoring “carnage”, “brutal” and “frenzy”. When frenzy is achieved the on screen action slows to a crawl while Kameo (as an elemental) can still move at regular speed. It’s sort of a “bullet time” thing that reminded me of the Matrix movies, but not in a cheesy way. You can start really tearing through the bad guys and racking up a massive score. As long as you continue to dole out the punishment, the longer the frenzy will continue.
Thorough players will eventually find an item called the Chamber of Living Portraits. It’s a creative way to allow players to revisit and replay scenarios that are already beaten in order to improve on their previous score. But more so, it’s just another neat thing to go and find in the game. Of course there are some things that must be found in order to beat the game, those being the members of the Royal court. You simply must find and rescue them or the game will not be able to be completed.
Lastly, the good wizard Ortho in the Wotnot book is an excellent resource for completing tasks. As you play, the game will give you some time to figure out how to beat a puzzle or pass an area or beat a boss character (really cool) but if you take to long, or simply cannot do what needs to be done, you can access the Wotnot and Ortho will give you a good clue on what to do. If you still can’t figure it out, he’ll just outright tell you what you need to do to beat the problem.
OK, one more thing. The boss battles in this game are really impressive to see and play. The bad guys can be massive and there is some thought that is required to beat them. More often then not, you need to figure out which three elementals you need to have at the ready to beat them. Massive living trees, huge aquatic creatures and even the HUGE Thorn are all quite the challenge. They look cool and they fight clever. Good boss battles can really make a game and these surely help what is already a strong title. But to reiterate, Kameo has everything we want in our adventure games. With it’s grand overall mission of saving the kingdom broken down by continually rescuing the elementals that in turn allow us to move the game forward. It makes for the kind of play that begs us to keep playing rather then turning off and going to bed. Plus those occasional action sequences that the player must complete in order to help turn the tide of war only add to the game’s depth and versatility. I smell a franchise title here and I suspect that Kameo 2 is already in the early stages of development.
So let’s break it down by the numbers… cause we’re all about the numbers.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Kameo Gameplay Video
7 minutes, 42 seconds
188 MB Windows Media