The first Chameleon Twist was a game with interesting but fiddly moves that weren’t used to their full potential, so I was hoping that the sequel would fix these issues. Chameleon Twist 2 adds two new moves: you can spin vertically on some bars now, and you can use a parasol to glide. Unfortunately, the issues of the first persist.

Chameleon Twist 2 is a bit longer than the first game, but still incredibly short. This game also drops the multiplayer component completely. The levels are now in more open areas rather than inside small rooms, however this just means loads of random floating platforms, often without rhyme or reason. The levels just feel thrown together without any thought for how they flow.

This haphazard level design is not helped by the most common “puzzle” type in the game: at many points, you’ll have multiple platforms to choose from. One will take you to the next part, the others will kill you, it’s just trial and error.

The camera also remains fixed. You can zoom our slightly and nudge it to the left or right, but you can’t rotate it. You’re entirely reliant on the game’s choice of camera angles, which are pretty bad for the most part. This makes the fiddly process of lining up your tongue more difficult than it should be, not helped by having low margin from touching your target and pressing A to rotate around it, so you’ll often latch on and then jump to your death.

Chameleon Twist still has some interesting ideas and is a good concept, but it does not pull it off very well. The first had the excuse of still being an early N64 title, but Chameleon Twist 2 had plenty to learn from when it started development.

Fine

Twist 1’s camera was a nightmare, but the sequel is like having a nightmare and waking up to find Shane Richie in your bed. Bizarrely, the game defies convention by refusing to let you rotate the view around the main character. Thanks to this semi-fixed angle, even running in a straight line and performing simple jumps becomes taxing.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine #26. Review Score: 55%

Remake or Remaster?

Merging both into one game and making it work a lot better would allow this game to have a chance – but really, this tongue-based platforming needs to be redone from scratch.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Chameleon Twist 2