You're just an old. Chameleon Mackie A billion, my friend. You're a bad, bad, bad. Chameleon Now who do you think you're looking at? Chameleon sunglasses at Hills Department stores. They can change your whole outlook. Welcome to Remember 64, where this week we fall down a rabbit hole of adventure. Welcome to the show, everyone, whether this is your first episode or you are a returning listener. My name is David Pitrangelo and I'm just a little blue lizard chilling in the forest.
Oh, is that a rabbit with a tux? And he seems to be late for a very important date. Oh, I'm going to follow him for sure. This can't get weird. Not at all. Well, if any of that makes any sense to you, then you might have guessed that yes, this week we are playing 1997's Chameleon Twist. And if you're wondering what the heck that was at the start of the episode, I had a really hard time finding commercials or clips that had any kind of audio other than just soundtrack and
sound effects from the game. So I looked up Chameleon on YouTube and found a commercial for Chameleon Sunglasses. So they have nothing to do with this game or with this franchise in any way whatsoever. But yeah, I mean, I did what I could in just a few moments. I will be joined by Danny from Retro Wars once again. Yeah, we spun the wheel of N64 games last time we were together and landed on this platformer.
And here we are. Check back on other episodes we've also done together, including Mario Golf, Mortal Kombat 4, and Duck Dodgers. All right, let's bust out the history books, everyone. I'm landing. We're heading back 25 years to December 9th, 1997. Chameleon Twist was developed by Japan System Supply and published by Sunsoft. Now at this point in time in the mid to late 90s, Sunsoft will mostly be familiar to people that had an SNES for example, as they had their hands in a number
of platformers over the years. Japan System Supply may not be the most recognizable name to some, but that little cat logo that meows to start the game, at least for me, somehow flipped a little bit of a nostalgia switch that I did not expect. I don't think I played many of their games, but just this one maybe. Anyways, they set up shop making educational based software. Over the years it created a number of Japan only releases on the Gameboy, Amiga 500, Famicom,
Sega Saturn and a couple more. Chameleon Twist and its sequel were some of the few that were also released around the world. The company did close shop in the mid 2000s after releasing a number of other smaller games, also mostly released in Japan. Overall development of the game was fairly smooth and worked over the course of 1995, late in that year into 97 when the game was released. Now there are some differences that the Japanese version of the game had and international ones
did not. The White Rabbit greets the player before meeting every boss and gives them small hints on how to defeat them. Not the North American version, but it was brought back in Chameleon Twist 2. There was also carrots to find that would take you to new secret areas, which you'll hear in a few minutes. Danny myself talked about would be a great addition to the game. Sadly again, just in the Japanese version and then in general the bosses moved a lot faster making them much tougher.
This would frustrate me for sure. Again, I mean Danny, definitely talk about some of the bosses going forward as well. All right, time for a little bit of housekeeping here. Of course you can support this show at patreon.com/remember 64 show. You'll get all the episodes early video content and you can help us shape what episodes will be coming up and what games we will be playing. Also, you have a chance to take home a holographic Remember 64 logo sticker as well, so have a
few of those up for grabs. If you become a patron, that will be mailed out to you free of charge. And also just wanted to mention that in 2024, if you are listening to this before 2024 comes along, did you look back at myself or coming up with some pretty fun ideas? We're going to be playing a slew of different types of games. What I mean by that, some of them will be unreleased and
we'll be playing ROMs of those. Some of them will be games that are inspired by N64 but have been made in the last, let's say, decade or few years as well. And you know, we're just going to go with some cool ideas. We're going to play some mods on games like Super Smash Brothers, Mario 64, all those types of things. We're going to have video versions of them. We're going to have audio versions on the feed and something different as well in between going through more of
the regular library of the N64. So look forward to that as well. All right everybody, It is time to dig into Chameleon Twist with Danny from Retro Wars. As always, we record these episodes together, release them on our individual feed. So you will hear us talking on this episode and on his as well. We also do have intros and things that are different from each other, but make sure you check out Danny's work at Retro Wars. It is awesome.
And yeah, you know what? Without further ado, instead of just me talking, let's talk about some Chameleon Twist with Danny. I was thinking I was going to say this before we hit record, but I'm going to say right now so everyone else can hear it. I'm always really looking forward to sitting down and talking with you, man. Like these episodes that we've done together and continue to do are always so fun, regardless of the titles that we're playing.
Like, I really we've had some hits and misses over the last several episodes that we've done together. But I I don't care. I love it. So I'm I'm more than happy to be doing this again. You know what, Like I know we're doing, we are. We've got another game in the pipeline which is kind of away from our usual spin the wheel just because you've done it on your shows. Oh, I want to play that. I want to play that. But yeah, I'll spin the wheel.
Process usually does kind of get some interesting ones. And with this 1A chameleon twist was what we picked this time or what the wheel picked. Yes, it's one of them. I've heard of it but never played it. Yeah, I I think I I may have rented it or a friend may have rented it because the first stage or at least part of the first stage, I had a little bit of a nostalgia hit four when I when I started playing it, but that's pretty much it. I very, very little experience with this.
So it's it's essentially a a new playthrough for me as well. I think for me it was like looking at it, I recognize the box straight away as I know what this game is. I've seen it, I know of yes, I must have seen it rentals in the shops and I was going up. But as I never played it and yeah, when I say oh God, how long is this game going to take? Like fucking hell. It's just going to be a nightmare. But look how I'll say this game is. It's a non offensive 3D
platformer. That's that's how I put it in my head. It's not amazing. It's not shit, it's just all right, that's that's the best way of summing this up. I I think so. I think that's a good way to put it because it has some some pretty interesting ideas and definitely does some stuff that's that's pretty unique. I would say that other games don't. That's partially due to the characters that you play as and stuff but but yeah it it mostly plays pretty well. It it still feels a little bit
dated. A lot of it's the camera and we'll get into like sort of details, but yeah, it's awkward. Like a lot of stuff is on the N64 and PS1 era, but doesn't necessarily fail on all parts either. So it's yeah, it's just it's OK, it's OK. It's OK now, believe it or not, this thing has a plot, which is ridiculous. Please educate me because I've played through this game and I still don't know what it is. Well, see, this is the weirdest plot I've ever seen.
So you put you pick the chameleon you want to use. So I just picked the blue one and it's basically this bog standard chameleon. And he's sitting there and he watches this rabbit go past. And I was thinking it's akin to Alice in Wonderland and the rabbit suddenly. 100 percent, 100%. And the rabbit jumps down this ball pole and the chameleon is like to himself, What the fuck? Where did he go? And he decides, oh, I'll follow him. And then he goes in this Alice
in Wonderland, you know hole. And then suddenly he's now got limbs like a norm. He's got, he's what would you call a biped? I don't know what the word is, but he's now got legs and all. He's like, he's like. It looks like a walking, looks like a walking bubble head. That's how I I saw it. I mean it's it's cool. It's kind of like, oh, I guess that's you don't really need a set reason for them to sort of change their body type and whatever. It's fine.
It just is what it is. I just, I found it interesting that you actually start as a actual lizard, like an actual chameleon. I thought maybe you were just always that character because it's funny because like like you said, when you pick which color, essentially you want to be one of the four. I think it is. All it does is change your color and the and the expression on their face it doesn't really matter, but it's funny because you pick. That's all it is.
Yeah, it's it's I mean we've talked about games like and our choices of like you know, just give us ninjas in Mortal Kombat. I mean it's not Scorpion and Sub Zero and and and all that but it's it's really just color it's skin. But it's funny you you have you're on the select screen and you're the, you know you're the bobble head looking character. But then immediately when the game starts you're not that I was like oh I oh OK I guess. I guess we actually are a chameleon. I didn't realize.
Yeah, we're a community. And then literally you find the rabbit. It doesn't really solve much because when you actually finish the game, what? What? What's the ending? Oh, you just go out of the portal and you just become a chameleon again and you just crack on. That's it. That's the plus. I'd like. I don't. Understand the fuck. What? Literally, I'm going to say this. They have every game I've ever played in the show. This is the most weirdest plot and bare bones plot I've ever
seen in my life. So the worst plot ever is get this game gets it. Echo the Dolphin probably has a better plot than this. Literally. It's. Very weird. Like they just they tried to. I played. Some shit games on the show. This has the shittest plot I've
ever seen. I I think it's lazy is what it is. I think that's part of the problem is that like, I think they had an idea here or they could have, you know, maybe thrown in a couple of like small points when you start a new stage or something. But it's essentially, it's essentially like, like you said, Alice in Wonderland. I mean it's very clearly Alice in Wonderland. It's a rabbit in a tux with a with a pocket watch that says they're late for something like
that is 100% out. So where is I? Don't, you know, don't make a tea party and don't do stuff like, like, you know, don't have the Cheshire cabinet. OK, fine, that's that's fine. Do something else but make other hints about it maybe to sort of at least feel like that theme continues through, but like almost right away. None of nothing that happens in that opening scene carries through. If 5 minutes later, like never Mind, 5 stages later, 5 minutes later, it's like, well,
everything just dropped. You see the rabbit at the start of every stage and he just like kind of tells you what you're what the stage is about, I guess, or why it's themed the way that it is. But that's it. That's the only continuity throughout this entire game. As far as the story goes, it's. Ridiculous like and all is is 6 levels and they could be done relatively quickly and that's it. 6 levels, each one as a boss and I was expecting more.
Well, I don't know what I was expecting to be honest, but if you'd bought this game like you can have this done in an hour and a half, if you bought this game, you'd be pissed off. It is. It's. It's way too short I think. You know it's it's an early one. You know it's it's one year or just over a year after the
release of the console. And you know as we kind of know like a lot of the third party developers really didn't have a lot of you know, kits and dev kits and stuff available to really like do much with developing these games early. Like a lot of it was just internal Nintendo. Everyone else got the shit into the stick and stuff and that sucks right. But I don't know, another couple of stages would have been, would have been nice.
Like it's if you want to collect everything, like the sort of crowns and all those things that you can cut, fine. But what's that going to, What's that going to do? Add half an hour, 40 minutes. If you went back and played some stages, that's pretty much it. I think one of the reasons why it would take you longer is because you kind of move slow. And I didn't love that kind of looks, kind of feels like he's walking through mud the whole time.
I don't know if you felt that. As I said, it's a non, it's a non offensive platform and yet you mentioned the camera early on I think so most of the the world is like in kind of square boxes. That's how I'd kind of looked at it. Like you go into a room, it's a square, there's a puzzle, you solve that little puzzle, whether it's a platforming puzzle or whatnot and the camera
kind of rather go behind you. It kind of takes like I'm going to sit in the corner, which, yeah, yeah, works like, I'd say 90% of the time it's actually OK. It's actually what it needs to do. But there are some moments in my, yeah, I would like to actually see the other side of the room.
That'd be handy. Yeah, because I think with a lot of 3D platforms, I mean, yeah, I even experienced this a little bit with playing stuff like Donkey Kong 64, where I don't think the camera's all that bad or anything. It works definitely better than this game does.
But when you have to do like tight platforming, when you have to go across, you know, I think it's in the first stage or two you're going especially you're going across a couple of really small narrow platforms without walls on them. And if you fall off, it's so fairly forgiving, like when you fall off it kind of just puts you back to the opening part of that of that area. That's fine. I I think that's a a decent approach to it.
But it's I actually found it kind of hard to go slow enough across those small areas and without the camera in a certain position or having more control over the camera. I couldn't actually tell if I was too close to the edge or if I was moving too fast or too slow or you know, if an enemy is on it, God forbid. Or if a piece is going to fall to the ground. Like if the if you had a little bit more control or you could zoom in or or sort of tilt it a
little bit in a different way. Sometimes that's possible, but when it's not, it's it's not great. That would have been nice, to be able to move the camera just a little bit. I was sitting there because I was compared. I was thinking of like Mario 64 and other games that try to see a Donkey Kong 64. And I was like, OK, look, I see what you're trying to do. You because you've just got it in like a like literally five of the six levels of square boxes. And I was like, I can see what
you. Yeah. Because I can see the moment you try and put a camera behind them in one of these square boxes, you're going to be stuck behind the wall. It's going to be an absolute piss fest. I was like, look, this is what I've got to deal with. It wasn't too bad. Yeah. He the character moves like,
he's a bit like in mud. I was like and yeah, it would have been nice if you got a little bit faster especially when you're trying to use this tongue physics which oh I didn't think I ever say that on this show. The tongue, the tongue physics sometimes can be a bit of a painy ass because of the camera angle and you're trying to let you know get things like censor it and stuff like that. But yeah I was like do you know what I'll I'll deal with this camera. You are right.
It's early days and if it was behind this would have been a disaster. I think this would have been an absolute fuck ton shit of mess. But being where it was, serving a purpose, it's not a great purpose, but it's serving something. Yeah I I think I I think I want to talk about actually the the, the, the tongue physics as you say which is exactly what it is really because because that's like the most unique thing that this game brings I think. Right. Like that's the stand out
mechanic. That's the thing that I remember doing for whatever reason. I just knew to press the button and I could I could direct the tongue in whatever you know direction I wanted to. I don't know somehow I I I
figured that out. I just knew it intuitively and you know, I I think it's it's kind of cool that they can have like because the the the character, your chameleon, your Davey, which of course I picked Davey because I had to pick Davey. I I think that what's cool about it is that, you know, despite the speed being a little bit slow and sluggish sometimes and the jump being I think pretty responsive but also again feels a little bit light or a little
bit floaty or something at times, especially in boss fights. But the tongue at least let's you do something different in platforming areas. I I wish there was a little bit more of it early on so that you kind of got a better feel for it because later they kind of make you do you you jump and then you and then you use your tongue or you fall and you use your tongue and you do it at like different heights and stuff. And it felt like I wasn't quite
ready to do that yet. And I think early on it's a little simplistic, but like, I don't know, I still kind of like that you could get over large gaps with that as opposed to having a double jump. You know, it sort of replaces that in some ways. And then when you actually can scoop up a bunch of ants or a bunch of bombs or whatever and then shoot them out, I thought that was pretty good.
I don't know that it controls that well when you actually shoot the things back out that you're eating. But the actual act, yeah, but the actual act of of scooping them all up with your long tongue I found to be kind of fun. And the fact that you can control where it goes, I thought that was pretty good. Like that part I I definitely enjoyed, even if it didn't control all that great sometimes like I. Can imagine Nintendo was sitting there. Whoever made this, I can't even remember.
It was was like, right? How can we basically rip off a Nintendo character? I said well Yoshi's got this big ass tongue. He spits things out, let's just rip that off. And I can imagine Yoshi or Nintendo sitting there going what off? No, this tongue is a rip off. It's like an advanced Yoshi, because yet you, as you said, you can lick up enemies and spit them out. You don't poop them out, you spit them out. But this tongue rides it go.
It goes on for about 20 meters. If you wanted to, yeah, it's. Huge. Yeah, it's huge, 100%. And you can control the direction it goes, is that you can have it bend on it. So it's like, what the fuck is going on this? No, this is not, this is not physics. And don't come up me with it. This is a video game. Bullshit. I don't. I'm not listening to that. But I want some realism in my games. But you can literally make this tongue. You can use it to catapult yourself up to platforms.
I was like, actually, that's quite cool, I thought. That's quite funny. I thought that was a cool idea. I don't know that the execution of it is all that great, unfortunately. Like at some points you need it, but there's like a momentum to it too, where you sort of like.
Swing back and forth in some ways and I I think that was, yeah, I I like the idea, but I actually got more frustrated with that than I thought I would 'cause it should be simpler to do. You should just press, you know, the button, I think it's the Z or the Z button and then you can just press jump and he sort of flips off, you know, it looks, it looks cool. It kind of does like this, you know, Acrobat looking move kind of thing.
I I think it looks kind of cool. I just wish that the whole, you know, where where you sort of bend one way and then sort of use the momentum to kind of push yourself forward or higher or whatever. I wish that was easier to put like to pull off and actually execute. But at least they tried something different with it and it wasn't just, hey, it does this one or two things and that's it. You know, there's no double jump. There's no wall jump. There's no, you know, floaty jump type thing.
It's it's based around what you can do with the character's tongue and it's it's odd. But again, another idea that I don't, I don't know that I've really seen in this way used in this way before, so I thought that was kind of cool the funny.
Thing is that you you've literally just said that the how the physics and how it bends because there is I know is it momentum is is literally the the big one because momentum I can buy that this tongue can go 20 meters I can buy because it's in a magical world I can buy the fact that you can jump on your tongue and bounce off. What I can't buy is when you use your tongue to like grab a platform and then all of a sudden spin do a 180 through the platform. I was like, no, no. Yeah.
So what you're talking about is like there's the there's a move that you do where you can extend your tongue however long you need to or want to or or or or able to. And then you press a button and he just picks up off the ground and and twirls around whatever you know pull or or bar or whatever that you're attached to with the end of your tongue and
spins around. You can like essentially just trip up characters, which you have to do and I think in at least a couple of the boss fights and it, you know, knocks them on their butt or or it scoops up what you go by and stuff and yeah, it makes absolutely no sense. Yeah, I was like. I'm not having that absolute bullshit fuck right off. You're lying to me. It's a joke like this, is all. They had you. They had you with the rabbit, yeah, They had you with the
rabbit. They had you with turning into a walking bobble head. They had you with different types of chameleons. All that was, you know, it's fine, but the second you had to spin around, that's it. You're out of here. You're done. Forget it. Yeah, fuck this, Fuck this game. Fuck you. Makes no sense. And yeah, because you have to trip up stuff and that's sort of the bosses you have to do. And I was like, no, this is bullshit. And again, I'm not listening to
your argument. Oh, it's a video game. Fucking fucking thank you. So absolutely get stuffed, but Yoshi's sitting there going good. At least my physics work. And I mean, I think, I think the the, I think you could, you could have a game that like this with Yoshi, why not. I mean there's Yoshi's story, it's a 2D platformer and stuff, but like you can do something similar with Yoshi in a in a 3D looking game like this.
And yeah, sure, the tongue mechanics might not be the same, but you could pull off a good platformer with Yoshi and and you wouldn't have the argument of these physics make no sense. I think you'd be all for it, man. I think. I think you missed your calling back in 97. Yeah, they it could. You know what? It would have been interesting how they had like a side character, like a secret character is Yoshi. I think everyone would have gone
holy shit, this is amazing. But yeah, no way Nintendo's letting that happen is are they? They're not like no, you don't have an R property. Actually, there is. I wrote this down. There actually is a couple of new characters. I don't know if you knew this, if you saw this in any way, but there's a white and a black one. So when you. Yeah, so when you beat the game, you unlock the white one. It just gives you a choice. It's just there, right? Again, white.
And it's just called white, which is really weird 'cause the other ones have names and then the black one is found in bomb land, which I think is technically the 3rd or the 4th, 1:00 and you have to go back to get him after you collect. I think it's carrots for the for the rabbit or something like that. He basically just looks like, you know, the black version of all the other chameleons, just with that color and he just has a really angry face. The the problem is you can't use.
You can't go back and use this, this apparent, you know, secret character in the single player if you want to play it again, you go through all this effort and he's just part of the multiplayer. And I found that so weird. Like, why? Why is that the case? Like, if you're going to put all that effort in, why not give someone like replayability, you know, incentive here. Anyways, there's two, there's two other characters. Again, they're really just color and that's it.
Or shade I guess if it's white and black but. Black is it. I I think it is. I'm going to double check. But I'm pretty sure it was just called Black. Davey, Jack, Fred, Linda. Oh, this is for a different 10. There's a there was a chameleon twist three. DI didn't know that. There we go. We'll learn something new every day. This. Comedian was Twist 3D. The game was in three DI. Know. I don't know. Oh, my God. It's. It's looks like it was 2018, too. Wow. Oh my God.
They went all the way back. Yeah. So there's a couple of characters again. You said the game's pretty short. It really is. I think if there was some, like some collectibles that were a little bit more complicated or you had a reason to go back to other stages other than, you know, unlocking this character, whatever, it would flesh things
out a little bit. But to be honest it's it's pretty quick, especially if you're going to go and do it, you know in one I I did it not in one sitting but in a couple of quick sittings and and that was pretty much it. And that's fine. Not every, you know, it's, it's OK like. I think I did it. I did it in two sittings and I was like, this actually works out quite well when I'm considering the the plate that what I've got on my dinner plate at the moment.
This works out quite well. And it's quite because it was like, oh, when I get some of these games, for how long is this going to take? How long is this going to take? I was like, shit, it's going to take forever to see. It's like, OK, that's actually not too long. And then I've got like other ones like act, raise and like, how long is that going to take? And I thought that would take
hours, but it didn't. I was like, OK, so it's quite nice and we get these games where it's not going to be forever. Like Nick, Mega Man took me a lot longer than this, although yes, that. You know our. Special one we're doing now is taking a little bit long. It's going to take a little bit longer. That's one I'm only on. I just finished check out two of that one, so that'll be nice. OK, so I'm working through, Yeah. So that's something to look forward to.
I I think that I I think one of the things I wanted to make sure that we talked about too is that is the boss battles which we've sort of brought up in passing every once in a while. Did you have? I was going to say which one was
your favorite, but which one? Let's essentially go through some of these levels and then we can go through the boss video because I've got notes on each one because the first one is jungle land and all that is, is basically kind of getting used to the game, going through mines and stuff like that. And it's it's, it's not exciting. But then you have to fight this monkey and I just referred to him as a Super Saiyan monkey that throws balls at you.
That's basically what and he's got, he's got sunglasses on of course because he's cool and it's a 90s, so of course he does. I this one was like super easy. I beat him without even realizing what I needed to do to beat him. Like you just you soak up that you eat up the bugs or whatever it is that that's coming at you and you just push him off the edge.
It was pretty quick and easy. I wish there was a little bit more to it. But again, like you said, first stage that just sort of letting you have fun with it, it's really not that difficult. Yeah, it's fine. Again, I just love the fact that he looks. What's the grass Pokémon? Oh, hang on. I need to those who like Pokémon. I'm very. Bad with Pokémon, I'm very bad. Why should when you say grass Pokémon, I just say? About that, that's Gen. 8. What's it called? It's not in Gen. Eight.
Oh my God. I think I could. Probably. Who is it? Hang on. I'll send you a picture now. This is how this is how good we are on this show copy image right? He looks like he looks like this. Everyone is what? If you're driving. You have to wait till you get home. It looks like this super sane version of that. Oh my God, he really does. So what's the name of it really? Boom. That's a cool looking Pokémon, actually. Cool. Looking Pokémon.
Damn right cool looking Pokémon from Gen. 8, Gen. 8. Yeah, he looks like that. So not offensive. Second one is Ant land and you can never guess what the enemies are. It's like Jesus, they've obviously. This one was was weird. I I didn't I don't know I felt a little too like I liked the overall like in general in the game that most part of the first stage and then I think it's the desert one which we'll get to. I like the stages that were outside more.
This one felt too contained. I didn't love it and. They're all fucking contained apart from desert land. Well, the beginning of the first one isn't. Oh yeah, that's not for a. Little bit, a couple minutes. Mostly it's like into your box dose of it. Yeah, you're you're right. You're right. I I wish like you, like you said earlier, referring to mostly about the camera and stuff, but just in general, I don't know.
It somehow just felt better when you were less contained and in that box and this one definitely felt this one definitely felt that way. It felt very like, oh, you're in an ants hill or whatever you are, here's a bunch of ants. And it was just like, literally rows and rows of endless ants. And I was just like, OK, this just feels lazy. Is is lazy. It's so lazy. And even the boss isn't Queen I was like.
Of course it is, and you have to use your amazing tongue physics to trip her up. Yeah, I I didn't like this. Well, this one wasn't as bad as probably the next one we're going to get to, in my opinion. But it was pretty simplistic. Yeah. You sort of do the spinorama thing like we were talking about and you you spit some ants at her and and and that's it, you know? Yeah, she's got a huge. Is it thorax? Is that what it is on ants? Oh look.
At this getting scientific, you could have just said, yeah, I was gonna. I was. Gonna say giant pink butt, but I I feel. I think it's thorax. I think that's what it is. People can tell us that I'm wrong, but I think I'm right. Anyways, you know, she spins around. She has a crown on. She's the queen. Nah. OK, fine. It's over. You know, it was it was the stage itself that I was like, oh, is this where this game's going? I didn't love it. It was it was fine again, just fine.
Just just. Just just fine. Third was bomb land and then this one is the enemy. Is bomb fish again? Who the fuck designed bomb fish? There are. We need some bombs and they move in the air. Fish. Fish because that makes sense. They look like they look like flying sharks, like they do like is there. Is there not a Pokémon that also looks like this too? Is there not like a blue shark Pokémon that's a little bit not flat on the back, but doesn't have?
It doesn't have a tail on the. Back and it kind. Of it's blue and. Red sort of a Nava. Or something like that. Hang on. I think this stage at least like the actual level itself before you get to the boss to me had the best ideas. I think it was a little bit too tricky, but. Jorpedo I should know that Dickhead 0. Is that what That's what I was thinking of. That's what they look like. They're flying in the air.
They have a rocket going out their ass and they or bombs, you can use them as, you know little, little rockets. Yes, that's, yes, you sent me that one. That's exactly the one I was thinking. And you? Know what? It's really annoying me. I was like oh you idiot, why did I call it that? Was it Connor. But it was just pre evolved forwards Connor. But right, I'm not that thick everybody. I've got some knowledge of Pokémon. Shut up, shut up. Everyone at least.
One of us does. But yeah, you basically get bomb fish, and you use the bomb fish to blow up enemies, to blow up blocks. It's like, OK, I can see what you're trying to do here. You're trying to, you know, bring a different gimmick in every time, aren't you?
Yeah, yeah, and and and at least this one 'cause I think the difference between the 1st and the second stage is that it just felt like a more chaotic, less interest, not less interesting, but just felt like a more chaotic just for the sake of being chaotic version for the Ant land stage than compared to the first. At least with this one, they they didn't just fill the screen with more characters. And that's our idea, 'cause that's what the Ant one felt
like. This one at least tried to like, oh, you have to break the blocks to be able to get the jumps done. And at least it did that. My issue with this was that I hated this this boss. Yeah, I was like a like a centipede thing and you just had to try and basically hit to make it lose bits.
When you fucked around, there were the lava or the floor kept breaking and then you became lava and you're losing spots like, oh, for God's sake, let me just just just this is one of the ones that I just crawl off the platform and die.
Just do me a favor, Yeah. Something like like the IT was, it was a little too chaotic and I think because the the way that the character controls and the speed of the boss compared to you, it didn't, it didn't feel natural like it felt like it was cheating me a little bit and I I obviously I don't like that
feeling. But what's interesting too is that afterwards, as I'm looking up the development of the game and stuff, apparently in the Japanese version all of the bosses move at faster speeds and are more difficult. I would lose my. Mind. Yeah, I would lose my mind at this stage if that was the case because this was not the most impossible thing, but it was kind of frustrating. It took me a few tries. This was, for me, the the most frustrating part of this entire
game. I don't know what it was, man. I just was not clicking when I was fighting this boss and I was pissed off. Not gonna lie. Yeah, I can. I can. Understand why I'll be a bit fucked off with that. I was like, oh. Yeah. That's that's just a bit of a shit. Yeah, a bit of a shit. But it is. It's again, don't quote me expect, like, I'm expecting millions of things here, but that was like, that's boring. The 4th one, I read it because I've got dyslexia and I always
do this. I read it as a desert or desert castle. I was like, where's the case? But where's the fucking cake? And then it was like, oh, the sound on there. You've done it again, Desert, I think. I think the cake would have been more interesting. It would have been better. Honestly, like, just in general, cake is better than sand.
But you know a. 100% cake is better than sand, and I even know you're in Australia and yet this is this is based outside and this kind of made me feel like a Mario level the the camera work was like, yes, this is what I wanted. Yeah, yeah. This was a good stage. Despite not having cake, I still enjoyed this stage a lot of because of exactly what you said.
Like there's something about like there's there's little things about it that like little changes compared to the previous stages and other ones that, yeah, felt more like AI don't know platform that you're used to or something. I don't know how you would say it, but yeah, Mario, Mario level is a good way to put it. I agree. Yeah, a little. Mario 64 that's it felt like a Mario 64 level. Yep, Yep. And that's obviously a good thing.
So the game. Should have gone for that direction because this was this was good fun this level like you got to use your tongue a little bit more and you essentially had to. You were going down slots and slides and you had to use your tongue to try and get to one pillar to the other. I was like this is what the game should have been. Should have done more shit like this. I. Agree. This is why I think they should have had like an idea like this in the forest than at the
beginning. Like, maybe it's not as much or as difficult as it is in this stage. Not that it's super hard, but you know what I mean? Like, do like a mudslide or you fall down a hill or something like that. In the first stage you'll be like, oh, is this one of the things I'm going to be able to do? Fair enough? Maybe it's not possible in the more like indoor stages. That's fine. But I totally agree.
Those sequences were fun. Even if I didn't, you know, land my, you know, my timing correctly all the time. I didn't feel ripped off. I didn't think it was like unfair. I didn't think it was not well done. I I like that part. I thought that part was one of the better parts of the entire game. I. Did I was I was like, oh I'm liking this like the boss battle went to it's normal thing of like you go into a room and then
you fight a boss. Like I was like OK fine would this is how you get to play it and the boss isn't that exciting. It's just Dung Beetle who he goes in, I'd say don't beat all. He basically goes in the ground and he bounces round and when he stops bouncing that's when you can hit him. So it was probably one of the easier bosses in the game, but the level itself was like, OK, great, because then you do that and then you go into kids land and it's back to square rooms again.
I was like, oh, come on. Yeah, I know. I wish. I wish just things continued to open up because that stage was it was probably even though it's it looks a little bit bland because it's just sand and it's brown and yellow and you know, whatever. I I do think that it had the best stage out of all of them I think or at least the most interesting one anyway. But yeah. And then it's like, OK, well, back in the box, like, oh man. Yeah, back in the box, never to
be seen again. I was like, oh, that shit, that's that's ridiculous. It's like, yeah. And I was like, you should have done this because, you know, kids Land is next. And you know, this is probably Michael Jackson's favorite zone, allegedly. And there are literally cake biscuits everywhere. I was like, oh for fuck's sake, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. Ideas like this, ideas like this can be good, you know sort of toy land type areas and stuff
and games I I like. I find it kind of, it could be charming and maybe it's just like, oh, life was so simple as a kid. I wish, you know, it's sort of this weird nostalgia type of simpler time of life kind of. But honestly, I think, you know, if you don't pull it off, you really don't pull it off. And that's kind of what this stage was, at least. Again, the gameplay itself isn't largely different, isn't like worse necessarily.
But when they're trying to come up with new ideas and you're only at six or seven stages for this entire like 2 hour game. The fact that, like at least two of the stages, just for me at least, we're not that great, really knocks it down a peg, unfortunately. Yeah, like the the the thing with this level was you had moving platforms and you had a kind of got to use your tongue to get on moving platforms. Again, they try and do different things each level, but it just
wasn't fun. And like the boss. I didn't mind the boss though. And the boss was a giant cake and they were like creatures in the middle. And they were firing strawberry bombs a year. I was like, OK, I can get on board with strawberry bombs. I've never seen that before. Yeah, it was. It was probably the most interesting boss, I would say.
Like the way that it Well, aside from aside from cool, cool ape at the glasses, this was like the most interesting one At least, Yeah. And you would basically that after a while of running from Strawberry Bombs, the cake would open and there were these four Creek like little things inside basically moving the cake. And once you ate them, ate them, that was it. That was the end of the boss. I was like, OK, so it's only four hits in the done.
But it wasn't again, not hard. It was just something else was like, OK, I like seeing, you know, food get used as bombs and then it's a new. Idea It's a new. Idea It's a new. Idea. Yeah, it's a new I've never seen actually a cake being used like that before. So you can have that. And then the final one is Ghost Castle and Oh, yeah, right, OK.
I liked one element, only one element of this place, and that was that you need 50 crowns to open this door, which it did because that was collecting the crowns and got in there and it was a poor table. I was like, cool. I get to play pool. I know, right. I thought that was I I mean definitely did not expect that. Like, I like why would that ever cross my mind.
So again, a new idea, something new like the game has ideas it it's there and and I think most for the most part it lands them or at least half the time it lands. It's pretty good. You know you get some new ideas and a surprise. This, I would say, quote, UN quote, far into the game because it's not very long.
But yeah, you're you're going to, you're probably going to find enough crowns in order to open it and everything because I think there's, I don't know if there's like 10 or 12 per stage for the most part, you'll stumble across most of them and they're not that hard to get. And it's it's cool that, yeah, it's like, oh, you're you're in this later stage and all of a sudden like a pool table. Like where where did this come from? This is the kind of stuff I
wanted to see the whole time. Yeah. Random shit. Like, I made a point of going to get these crowns thinking, oh, you know, it's not a long game. What's the harm in trying to get the collectibles and get the crown? Like, OK, I get to, I get to sit on the pool table and actually play pool. And then right, I did it. I was like, yeah, because I love pool. I love snooker and pool. And I played it and I finished it. What do I get a crown? I'll fuck off. Fuck off. Be something for doing this.
I was so annoyed. I was like, I've spent this time getting the collectibles, but I was unlockable thing. You're going to give me like, something cool for doing it? No, you just give me one crown when I've already collected 50 before you fucking tits. You're so right. I didn't even think about that in the moment. I was like, oh, OK, I got a crown because I sort of not that I expected it, but I was like, OK, that's usually a reward in this game or some sort of reward in this game.
And I didn't. You're right. It doesn't really make any sense. No, it's like I can get it if the door, you know, if there was no 50 crown passageway to get in there and they gave me a crown. Yeah, I get that. But the fact you want me to get 50 crowns and then you're just going to give me another crown, that's bullshit. That's bullshit, at least. Make it, make it bigger. Maybe put giant jewels on it. Make it like a like an end game collectible.
Like never mind the the black and white characters. Like make this the thing. You know what? Like there's something about it where like oh this should be the thing because then why else are you why are you collecting 50 just to get 51? You know it doesn't really make any sense. This is. The Exactly the same bullshit out of Mario 64. You finish the game, you get 120 star. However many stars, there's can't remember how many it is now, top man. And then you get a cannon.
You go see. Yoshi gives you 100 lives. So fuck off. I don't need 100 lives. I just don't it. I just finished the game. More lives? Stick them up. Your ass? That was my opinion. Get those crown and stick that up your ass, you fucking chameleon. Fuck me. I wish, I I wish like in in some ways I wish there was like, I mean I guess there's these carrots apparently which I don't even know if I stumbled across any of them that will get you
that black character at the end. If you go, if you go back and and collect them all like there's five or six that said whatever it is. But I wish there was like another like mid level collectible thing that isn't just health hearts and the crown. Like something like there was one per stage or like 2 per stage that you could only get. Like, let's say every stage had like a secret area, for example, and you needed five crowns in the second level 8, crowns in the in the 3rd, 12.
And you know what I mean? Like the sort of progression that way and give you incentive to get the crowns in stages before and they would have a little pool mini game, for example, and you would get that next collectible and there's you know one or two per stage and that's it. I there's room to do that in this game. There has to be. It's not that big of a game that would have been really cool, that could have been extra cool.
I think I. Would have been cool, but no, we get these fucking crowns and that's it. And you know what? This level is going to piss me off as well. There's a point in the game, right, where you have to. You go on this platform and you have to eat fire and then spit a candle. OK, cool. Because that lights up a new platform. OK, that's fine. I like that. You know, do it a few times. No, you have to do it like 20 times in a row. It's like, fork me. I was bored with it.
Why am I still doing it? Yeah, it it. Some of the ideas either it don't work because of just control and camera and it's just, you know what you're limited to with with the capability of the controller and and the console and stuff like that. But but some of and then then some of the ideas just overstay their welcome and that is the prime example. I thought the exact same thing. I was like, oh, this is
interesting, I like this idea. I've seen ideas like this before in other games, totally fine, no big deal. That doesn't bother me. But then you're doing it for, I don't know, whatever it is an extra few minutes when it's like, OK, I got the idea like mix this in later, mix this in later in the stage or something like that with another type of platforming and then like do it just a couple times and that's it. That's all I need.
Just give me the new ideas if. He if he eat in the fire and then his tongue's on fire and then you've got to use your tongue and go across all the candles, that would have been cool. Oh, that's a great idea, actually. That's awesome. Yeah. You're combining. Yeah, you're combining the the, the idea that or the the mechanic that you've had for the last several stages and then something new. That's great. I think that's a great idea. God, man. We figured it out, eh. I think they.
Literally me. Game designer. I could be a game designer. Hit me up, Nintendo. Hit me up, Sony. I'm always available. Literally. I'll I'll drop this podcast shit if you make me a game designer. You only have time for one or the other, and believe me, that is your true calling. Clearly, after that idea, that is your true calling. Let's, let's let's get you over there. Come on, people. Well.
This is the thing. I don't know who the fuck the game developers were, because the final boss is just it's like literally they looked into a house and went right. What? How can we make a final boss? OK, we've got some lanterns, we've got some barrels, we've got some doors. Just just put them together and see what happens. Just is this the final boss? What point has he got to the story? Don't know. Fuck it.
Just put it in. What if, what if they what if they made it like a real twist and all of a sudden it was the rabbit and the rabbit was was like throwing all the ideas at you and stuff. Yeah, the execution of it maybe isn't great. I I don't disagree. But at least there's some sort of again, back to the story that we talked about at first. At least there's some weird, wacky, messed up reason for that rabbit to even be part of this game in any way. There's no reason for this
rabbit to be there at all. This final boss has nothing to do with the plot. It's basically going to a car boot sale or going to the tip and putting them together because that's all this is and it's got claw hands and you hit it a few times and then all of a sudden it becomes a fucking tank. I was like, what? What point does this have? This is ridiculous. I was like, I need a tank which will not die and I just fucking
die. Yeah it's again the certain things overstay their welcome or just not executed all that well and and I think that's the this boss is like this fight this battle is is a prime example of that for sure. Again, it's it's so easy to to sort of say like let's let's shit on certain aspects of this game. It's it's not that bad. It's just when the things don't come together in execution, you realize why it's not one step higher above in grade than it would be otherwise.
You know, it's there. Again, we've had this with other games that we've played together. Duck Dodgers was a perfect example. There's like little things that, you know, we didn't love that game, but there's little things that if they did a small thing to improve this or change that, that game and this and this game would have been exceptionally better. And I still enjoyed this more than that game, despite the shortcomings. But most of it's because there
was different ideas. Yeah, I. Enjoyed this more than Duck Dodgers. I can't believe I'm actually saying that. But if you just give me a little bit more, this could have been really, this could have been decent, this could have been a really little game. Like a really decent game. I I never realized they made chameleon twist to add their 3D. But Jesus again, was this early in the Super. It was this early in the N64 lifestyle it must have been.
Yeah, it was, Yeah. Well, it was, it was December of 97, so it was only just over a year after it came out and in the in all of 96 or, well, yeah, I guess so yeah, this was just over a year. Yeah, it's it wasn't in that first year there wasn't a ton of games for this console. This is around the time when the games really started pushing out even more for the console, because at first, for the first several months, you only had a handful of games. So this was pretty early on, yeah.
Look at this Apparently reading the game was originally only planned for release in Japan, but Sunsoft and Nintendo thought children in the US would enjoy the title. Would they fuck? Would they buggery? I again, I I don't think it's all that bad. I'm not saying that you're you're saying that it's a terrible game or anything, but the shortcomings definitely are not are like are pretty glaring. Unfortunately.
The good stuff is pretty good, but the shortcomings are pretty short and that's not a great thing and not a great way to sell hopefully, whether it's you and I or whether I play with someone else, Chameleon twist two, you know, fixes some of those or has better execution on some ideas. Whether they're new or old, it doesn't really matter. I'm interested. I'm at least interested to play the sequel you know as where as before.
You know, if someone told me that this game is just so so and I never played it, I would be like well then I don't even need to bother with the sequel or even give it a try. I'm at least interested in picking up the next one. Let's see. There's a sequel. OK, Chameleon twist to what did that get for a racing did that get shit? Oh, better. Oh, OK, yeah. It again. Short can completely please it in a day. So yeah, that could be finished really too.
So we're not doing if this thing, if this thing gets us freaking spin thing gets his chameleon twist too. I'm done. I'm really done. That would be hilarious. What are the what would be the odds? That would be amazing. Well, we're going to, we're going to do that. Let's do that in a couple of minutes here. But we're going to spin the wheel once again to see what the next game together that we're going to play is. Yeah, chameleon twist. I mean, it was, it was a it was
a fun little adventure, I think. Or at least particularly a fun little adventure. Yeah. It was, it was all right. So if you had to score this out of 10 what you given it? This is going to be a six for me. Not terrible not amazing. Has some ideas, doesn't land all of them. But that's OK and that's what happens. And early 64, yeah, I'd give it around six.
I'm. Going to be a bit crueler and give it A5, and I think if it just solved a few little more things it probably would have been a six. But yeah, I just, I just wanted more levels. Like the, I'm going to say dessert, desert castle. I just wanted a few more levels like desert, desert, castle, Give me. If it was more levels like that, this would have been a lot higher. But no, it kept with a box thing. They don't know why they did that.
And because Mario 64 was already out, they should look that as a template and go right, OK, how can we build on this? But they didn't. They went we'll go to boxes because obviously that freaking works. And yeah, it's just a bit, yeah. I'm with you. I totally agree. Yep. OK, let's shall we spin the wheel shall. We spin the wheel. This is gonna be interesting. OK, we're. Gonna do this.
So if anyone hasn't heard yet, and you're listening to our little adventure duo here of us going through games of the N64 together, I have a list of the chronological releases of the N64 from 1:00 until 390. That's what I have a list list. I'm not sure it's 100% complete. There's definitely some Japanese only titles on here which we would, you know, have to emulate and stuff if we did. We've done this a couple times and we've ran, you know, landed on random games.
So I have a random number generator from 1 to 390. If it hits anything that I've played before that we've played before, I just hit it again and then we just go from there. So we are spinning the wheel and we've landed on 243. OK, let's see in the list. Scroll down 243. We are looking at win back, Covert Operations. Oh, actually I know exactly what that game is. I've played that for a couple minutes. It is on Switch online. It's like a third person cover shooter type thing. Win back.
Oh, yes. Yes. OK, I'm interested in playing this. I think I played like half of the first stage just to try it out not too long ago, but all right, that sounds pretty good. That's something different. We haven't. We haven't done something like that. We. Can we can get away with that? OK, at least we know we. Can access it, yes. That's a whole other thing too. That's nice. What a what a coincidence. Look at that. The small list of games that are on Switch online, It is.
It is one of them. So there we go. Yeah. So if anyone, we'll. Take it, we'll. Take it It's something a little bit different. I don't think we've done something like this before. We've done fighters, we've done golf, we've done platformers, Why not do a a cover shooter? Let's do something like that. So win back Covert Operations. There we go. Thank you once again everyone for listening to this adventure of Remember 64 and US playing and talking about Chameleon Twist.
This platformer was a wacky adventure with some ups and downs, but hopefully if you've played it in the past or are thinking about it, you also enjoyed our chat about it as well. But that's pretty much it for this episode. Again, I look forward to some pretty fun and awesome stuff in 2024. We're going to be playing lots of different types of games.
Jiggy look back and I have some great ideas coming up and if you want to support the show and help us expand those great new fun ideas patreon.com/remember 64 Show and as always you can give us a rating on your podcast app of choice. Much appreciated if you do mostly Apple Podcasts and Spotify that seems for most of our listeners are. Anyways, give us a rating on there that helps more people find the show and enjoy this crazy weird adventure of the
Nintendo 64's library. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you next time on Remember 64.