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Kameo Finally Arrives
After a long and arduous road, but today we picked up the retail copy of the morphing princess.
by David Clayman November 8, 2005 - Rarely does a game span four consoles and still come to fruition. Most recently touted as one of the premier launch titles for Xbox 360, this game has a long and strange history. Some editors figured it would never see the light of day but today we went out to our local mall and, lo and behold, rows of shiny new Kameo 360 copies lined the shelves behind the counter.
It's a strange thing for a game to show up before the console itself, but after waiting so many years for this game we decided to pick up a copy even though we don't have a console to play it on. Now that the game is finally in our hands we decided to take a look back at its long and sordid history.
Originally known as a Nintendo 64 project, Kameo made its first appearance back at back at E3 2001. Rare surprised us with the announcement that it had secretly been working on a role-playing adventure with elements that reminded us a lot of Pokemon. You see, Kameo didn't just change into different creatures -- she captured them and summoned them in battle just like the popular card battle game. As the fairy princess traversed the world she would point a device at creatures around her and play a psychedelic mini-game to trap them in a bubble. Looking back at our coverage, one of the features highlighted by a bullet point was: capture, train, and command up to 60 creatures.
When we first saw the game, we were struck by the beauty of the animation. The way Kameo's lizard form animated when scaling a wall, the flying creatures, and the whole transformation gameplay concept looked like a whole lot of fun. The game also used to have a "capture" element, where you'd try to catch creatures, but the capture mechanics felt weak and unintuitive.
-Peer Schneider covered Kameo on GameCube many eons ago.
Check out the original GameCube videos. The video entitled "Failing to catch the beasts" shows the creature capture mini-game in action. The movie called "Amazing promo footage" shows the fairy calling out her animal friends to help her in battle. Below are some of the original GameCube screens.
The original GameCube game was expected sometime in 2002 but instead of launching a game Rare had much bigger news in September of that year. At Microsoft's X02 event they confirmed that MS had purchased Rare Ltd. for 375 million dollars. The announcement trailer included appearances by Banjo, Kameo, Joanna Dark and Conker. At the time, no one had any idea that many of these characters would be appearing on Microsoft's second console. Especially since the orginal announcement included information that the deal between Rare and Microsoft will yield five games over the next two years including Kameo, Perfect Dark 2 and games from the racing, platformer and shooting categories. Considering Rare's development pace, it should have been obvious to everyone that this tall order might take a bit more time than originally planned.
Fun Fact: Also announced at X02: You will be able to train Tyrannosaurus Rex in Peter Molyneux' B.C.Things were looking bleak at E3 2003. The game had made a transition from an animal collection adventure to a platformer with puzzle elements but it wasn't looking much better than the conceptual builds we witnessed on GameCube. Over a year passed before we received our next dosage of Rare's transforming action adventure game and E3 2004 brought us a pleasant surprise. The textures and graphics had received a major upgrade and the art style was looking a little more grown up. One thing that remained the same was the simple control scheme that had carried over from the original GameCube layout. This is the same setup you'll see on 360 making the game incredibly accessibly due to the fact that combat relies almost only on the triggers. See some of the original Xbox screen shots below.
I remember after E3 2004, we came away with a hefty demo of Kameo for Xbox. I wasn't too hot on the game, but I knew the readers were interested. So, every few days I'd pop it in and goof around with it for a bit. Then Microsoft called to tell me any coverage we had proposed on Kameo was off, because the game was "no longer in production for Xbox."
My response went something like, "But, I've played like half the game, what the hell are you talking about?" I still have that preview build. Every once in a while I look at it longingly and think of what could have been. Then I drink myself into a brief coma.
-Hillary Goldstein recently covered Kameo on Xbox. Then in November of 2004 the inevitable happened. The platformer known as Kameo that was originally scheduled for a 2005 release was pushed back indefinitely. The complete message from Rare was:
Here's one you didn't see coming! After a lot of thought and discussion, Rare and Microsoft Game Studios have decided to push back the launch of Kameo: Elements of Power in order to incorporate several changes and new features (some minor, some not so minor).Its Finally Here!? Of course, one not so minor part of the announcement was the fact that the game was being moved to the Xbox 360, although at that time the console was only a twinkle in J Allard's eye. Fast forward to Microsoft's crazy marketing blitz for E3 2005 and Kameo slowly became one of the center pieces in the 360 launch lineup.
At TGS 2005 the game revealed itself to be one of the most promising 360 titles on the horizon. The lead designer, George Andreas, looked back on the lifespan of his project with humor and a hint of exhaustion. He told us that he was grateful to finally see a game that he'd been trying to make a reality come to fruition.
Now, much like SSX for the PS2 launch it looks like Kameo has arrived at retail outlets before the console itself. Besides seeing the final box design for 360 games (its a light translucent green) we were also privy to the final game specs given in the instruction manual.
Cooperative play can be unlocked on select levels by beating them in the single player game. Co-op is solely an offline split screen affair and Player 1 is responsible for all of the game settings.
Players can travel back to previous stages via the "Chamber of Living Portraits" at the heart of the Elfin palace. By replaying levels for a higher score gamers can unlock new outfits and more.
Battle points are awarded for killing trolls. There are three types of bonuses that multiply Battle Points. Carnage is awarded for every kill, Brutal is awarded for every one-hit kill, and Frenzy is when players kill enemies in quick succession.
Kameo can enter shops that offer objects that are not required to complete quests but can be helpful.
Kameo should not be brushed aside as an upgraded Xbox game. After getting a deeper look at the title and actually playing a bit for ourselves, the game is shaping up as to be an excellent launch title. It has accessible yet deep gameplay and a campaign that will last hardcore gamers 20 hours not counting side quests. The levels we witnessed included a battle atop an armada of airships, an underwater encounter with submarines, and a boss battle against a hammer wielding metal plated giant. Kameo has been many years in the making, but from what we've seen at TGS it should be worth the wait-David Clayman is covering Kameo: Elements of Power for 360 as you are reading this.
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