This is a game I picked up a while ago for a couple bucks and heard it was neat, and my ability to pick up more Bomberman games has been temporarily interrupted due to renovations at the place I usually buy them at, so I decided to go through this game in the meanwhile. I knew it was short, but I didn't really expect to finish it in just a little over an hour ^^;. Granted, I only did 4 out of 6 stages, but this is a super short game that albeit has a neat gimmick.

Chameleon Twist is a somewhat early N64 game with a very simple (although somewhat baffling) premise. You're a chameleon (the game has 4 different colors to pick from), just chilling out on a log, when a white rabbit right out of Alice in Wonderland hops past you and jumps into a weird, magical pot. You, being a chameleon with nothing better to do, I suppose, jump in after it, and transform into a little humanoid with a long chameleon tongue! The rabbit then proceeds to tell you to more or less get going with the adventure and leaves. You go through a few more stages, with the rabbit unlocking doors or giving you little hints about bosses here and there, but that's it for the story. Even calling it a "story" seems a bit generous. It's more like an incredibly general premise, but that isn't a bad thing.

The game is a 3D platformer that goes through 6 worlds of which you need to go through at least 4 (you gotta play at least world 2 or 3, and then again gotta play at least world 4 or 5). There aren't really meaningful secrets, but there are collectible crowns in each stage to do some platforming challenges for. Each world is a series of rooms and your goal is to get to the end and fight a boss. The bosses range in difficulty pretty significantly (I thought the stage 2 boss was pretty darn hard compared to the rest of them that I fought in worlds 1, 5, and 6), but it's far from insurmountable challenge, especially for the N64.

The game's main gimmick is your big chameleon tongue, which you can use to grapple onto poles from a distance, spin around on those poles, suck up enemies to then spit them out, or even shoot it directly downward to do a higher jump at somewhat of an angle. The game controls alright, but especially the fancy tongue-jumps take a while to get used to. There are also some timed platforming sections later on that can get pretty brutal, and the combat and platforming overall have a somewhat uneven difficulty curve, but you just restart the current room when you die, so it's not big deal even if you fail.

The music is quite good even though the graphics aren't terribly impressive. I suppose the biggest flaw with this game might also be its biggest draw: it's a very simple experience. Sure it controls kinda funky, but there's just not a lot of content here, so if you're into getting all the crowns or getting through the game as fast as you can, there can be a lot to enjoy here, but if you're looking for something to sink your teeth into over the entirety of a weekend (or even a whole afternoon), there just isn't a lot here.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Despite the fact that Bomberman gave me more frustration overall over a longer period of time, I would still recommend it over this game because at least Bomberman made me feel something XD. This game is just sorta "there," in a way that reminds me a bit of Snake Pass (although this game is way more actually enjoyable to play than Snake Pass is). It's very much just "a video game to be played" in a way that was of a dying breed in 1997, so it's somewhat remarkable in that regard, but it simply isn't my cup of tea at the end of the day. It's not a bad time, but it's so short and simple that I'd have difficulty recommending it if you had to pay more than a couple bucks for it.

While Chameleon Twist came out in America and Europe, I played a Japanese copy with an English translation patch. The western versions seem to be based on an earlier build, perhaps sent off to the localisation teams before the game was fully ready. The Japanese version has some more challenging rooms (for example, one room with lots of difficult platforms is just an empty room with collectables in the other versions), the multiplayer powerups added into the main game and some unlockable characters.

The story is pretty much non-existent. A regular chameleon sees the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland jumping into a pot and decides to follow, turning into the big headed thing in the game. From there, you go through the levels, killing everything in your path.

When you start the game, you’ll test out the moves. The tongue is very impressive as you can move it as it extends. I was expecting lots of puzzle use with it, but unfortunately the game isn’t very inventive.

The tongue is used for four moves. The first lets you swallow enemies to spit them out as bullets Then you can latch onto poles, from there, you can pull yourself towards it or spin around. Finally, you can push yourself upwards for a high jump that’s very awkward to use. You don’t gain any extra abilities and it doesn’t have the usage of Mario’s move set to keep itself interesting across the game.

Being able to move the tongue seems more like something added just to combat the terrible aiming in the game.

The biggest difficulty in Chameleon Twist is the camera. Moving it twists it in really strange ways and it’s very difficult to judge jumps and to target where you’re shooting. The game itself is quite simple – especially due to how few moves you have – although to get the boss rush mode, you have to find lots of the crowns hidden throughout the levels.

Chameleon Twist is a nice start for a game. The game needs a bit more variety and a much better camera – hopefully these are fixed in the sequel.

One of those games that I picked up at Blockbuster as a 7-year-old due to the cool cover art, and it ended up being a formative experience because there was no way for me to know what was worth spending my time on at that age (for reference, it took me until 2000-2001 to pick up Ocarina of Time, and at that point my taste in games was already pretty developed). Undeniably janky in a lot of ways, but the tongue-based platforming was (and remains) very cool and unique. Plus, some of the music in this game still pops up in my brain from time to time and I catch myself humming it absentmindedly, for whatever that's worth.

Chameleon Twist is a painfully fine game that has some neat ideas but doesn't go the full nine yards with it likely due to whatever budget the game had. It's a bit clunky, but its the "huh that's neat" kind of clunky where you can see what the devs were trying to cook with it.

Slurping up a bunch of enemies and spitting em out like a machine gun was really satisfying to pull off and I like how the levels were mostly designed in ways that force you to engage with enemies instead of just walking right by them. Bosses were eh, there were only like 2-3 notable ones that were cool. Presentation is fairly weak, music was alright.

The game ain't long, only 6 levels. It's over before you know it and you're kinda left with the feeling of "man, they had some neat ideas here, wish it could've been fully realized."

Overall Chameleon Twist isn't a waste of time. You can burn through it in less than an hour and it's got chill vibes. I recommend peeping it for that alone, its a fun little novelty and nothing more. Or you can speedrun it, that's fun too!