emember back when everyone was soooo afraid the Y2K bug was going to wipe out all of the computers and toasters on planet earth? Seems like a really long time ago, right? Well, that’s when Kameo: Elements of Power first went into development. Throughout its long journey from GameCube to Xbox and finally to its home on Xbox 360, Kameo has done some evolving and may just be the sleeper hit of the 360’s launch.
The opening story of Kameo is thankfully abbreviated through a quick and stylish montage before thrusting you straight into the action. The power to transform into different warriors and utilize the five elements of power (plant, rock, ice, water, fire) is an integral part of main character Kameo’s family lineage. And Kameo’s older sister, Kalus, is understandably upset when she inexplicably does not inherit these abilities while her kid sister does. So in an act of youthful rebellion, Kalus taps into an ancient evil and unleashes a massive troll army on her homeland. Her newfound minions kidnap Kameo’s family and hole up in a massive castle. Kameo charges in balls-to-the-wall with three warrior forms under her belt intent on snubbing entire operation in one fell swoop. Obviously, this doesn’t work out entirely as planned or we wouldn’t really have a whole lot of game to play.
The game’s controls are deceptively simple. All attacks are handled by the 360’s top two trigger buttons while warrior transformations are mapped to the top three face buttons, similar to the 3D Legend of Zelda games. Hit the left trigger or the right trigger or both at the same time to perform various special moves. And they’re all conveniently listed and the bottom of the screen along with a face button guide in the top right corner displaying which warriors are equipped where.
In the beginning, the game will select three warriors for you, but later you will be able to choose from 10 different warriors who will pair off to share one of the five elements. While Kameo herself can only perform a flip kick and some limited fairy-winged flying, all of the warriors have a full set of upgradeable moves. Even though Rare would rather we not use the term “collect,” that’s exactly what you must do to expand your move set. But nabbing the cherished power-up fruit is more about completing side missions than scouring every last corner of the world.
We played as three different warriors throughout our time in the aforementioned castle raid: Pummel Weed, Chilla, and Major Ruin. Pummel Weed is a feisty man-eating plant with a penchant for boxing. Clicking back and forth between the L and R trigger released a flurry of punches ending in a nasty uppercut. By pressing the triggers simultaneously, Pummel Weed will tunnel underground with only his little head leaves showing. This can be parlayed into a rising dragon punch on unsuspecting enemies.
Chilla is some kind of Sasquatch beast with several icy spikes protruding out of his back. He can either grab enemies and impale them on these spikes or utilize a first person ice spear tossing attack. When trolls are stuck on Chilla’s back, he can grab them and use their bodies as a club or throw them into some spikes, lava, or off a cliff in a first person targeting mode identical to the spear toss.
Major Ruin is a rocky-shelled armadillo who spends most of his time rolled up in ball. You’ll use him mostly to maneuver Kameo’s platforming elements since he’s pretty much the only one that can jump. Hit L to hop or R to charge your ball speed in place much like Sonic the Hedgehog. Use the charge to roll up walls and over fences or to ramp over bottomless pits. Pull the triggers simultaneously to perform a devastating whirlwind attack that will impale an enemy on your spikey ball and then continue to spin around wildly to smack other trolls with the body.
The game does a great job of forcing you to switch between characters as much as possible. First, a blue spirit bar in the top left corner depletes as you use one warrior’s special moves. You can either sit around and wait for the meter to recharge or simply switch to another form with full spirit powers. You’ll also find that some warriors are better suited to take on certain enemy types than others. Pummel Weed’s dragon punch will knock an impenetrable metal shell off of these wimpy little white trolls. Chilla is best suited to take on the flamey trolls because he can grab them and toss them off a cliff without immediately bursting into flames like our plant-based friend. But if you do happen to come into contact with fire, immediately change into Major Ruin to douse the flames because rock is immune to heat. The rock ball is also best suited to battle sphere-encased trolls. Use the Sonic charge move to smack into them like a cue ball and send them flying over the edge. You also have to use a healthy variety of attacks against every boss in the game, but we’ll leave it to you to figure those tactics out on your own.
Battles aren’t the only reason to get your warriors working together. Numerous platforming elements require teamwork as well. At one stage we had to use Major Ruin’s rolling charge to ramp over a bottomless gap and then morph midair into Chilla so that he could whip out some ice knives to stab into the wall so that we could climb it. Another scenario has Chilla chucking an ice spear at a switch on top of a gate. This only lifted it a hair, but it’s enough for Pummel Weed to sink into the ground and slip through.
Another major element of Kameo is its triple threat combo system. Combos are divided into three categories: brutal, carnage, and frenzy. Carnage kills are awarded with every death, but the other versions are a little more difficult to pull off. You must perform some kind of creative kill to earn a brutal like throwing a troll into spikes or using the environment in some way. To earn frenzies you have to chain multiple kills together. Each death will add a point multiplier to one or several of the three distinct combo categories. If you get enough hits in succession, the game will automatically enter bullet time where you can earn double the points for a limited period of time. In theory, you could have all three categories maxed at 99X by the end of the level if you play smart enough. This means avoiding attacks as much as possible because every hit will reduce all three multipliers by one. And if you get hit by fire you can just forget abut it. The longer you’re on fire the more multipliers tick away one by one. But if you can keep your nose clean the possibilities are almost limitless. Producer Earnest Yuen said that they were forced to bump up the points limit into the billions as testers kept hitting previous caps.
These massive point totals are linked to the six distinct action sequences in Kameo. As opposed to roaming through the open world with varying amounts of danger, these sections basically amount to the game’s major dungeons. After beating them once, you can use a magic mirror to return to dungeons for speed runs and point maximization. These goals will add to your Xbox Live achievements and gamer score and also grant access to several unlockables. The action sequences can be played via split screen co-op as well. Rare has also toyed with the idea of an Xbox Live co-op mode as an eventual downloadable addition if the game is popular enough. Talk about your replay value.
It has been said by our very own Billy Berghammer that Kameo’s visuals are close to the best that Pixar has to offer. I must admit I was skeptical of this claim when it was first declared, but Rare really does come pretty darn close. Every texture in the game has sharp smooth and crisp edges. And if you get really close to a wall or another character you can really pick up so much detail and light reflection from surfaces instead of the ugliness of current-gen titles. Maybe you’ve seen the video from E3 that shows Kameo riding a horse through a massive sea of enemies. Well, it still shocks me that there is absolutely no slow down even when you throw in an additional thousand elf troops as your reinforcements. Also, when I was working my way through the first dungeon a non-stop barrage of giant flaming cannon balls came smashing all around me during outdoor sections. At the same time swarms of massive red dragons littered the sky above. Rare really thought of everything down to realistically blowing blades of grass, creeping fog, and water movement and reflection.
Kameo: Elements of Power is definitely going to surprise a lot of skeptics. Anyone who loves that 3-D action style adventure of The Legend of Zelda will find plenty to love here. The potential of ten different playable characters all with drastically different and upgradeable move sets boggles the mind when it comes to battle and puzzle-solving possibilities. If Rare can keep the challenge and variety up throughout the entire game, which I have a feeling they will, Microsoft could have a huge hit on their hands. Kameo has all of the elements in place to exceed Rare’s heyday in the N64 days, and bring back the developer’s good name. Now if only we could see a sequel before the Xbox 720 comes out…