Kameo: Elements of Power

Kameo: Elements Of Power was a launch title for the Xbox 360 originally developed by Rare initially as a Nintendo GameCube launch title (early plans for it to be a Nintendo 64 game were quickly scuttled), then transitioned to the Xbox and pushed further back and finally released for the Xbox 360. Kameo is a bizarre hybrid of Beat'Em Up and Zelda-style Action Adventure puzzler.

The main premise is that Kameo, one of the princesses of the elves, receives the family's cherished transformation magic instead of her older sister Kalus. Kalus, infuriated that her younger and adopted sister got the powers and not her, frees the king of the trolls, Thorn from his imprisonment and kidnaps the rest of their family. Kameo attempts to rescue her family by storming the castle directly, but gets hit so hard she gets her powers knocked right out of her. This sends her on a quest to restore her powers, rescue her family, and defeat Thorn and Kalus.

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Kameo's Transformation magic lets her transform into 10 Elemental warriors of Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Ice. The warriors are:

• Pummelweed: A boxing plant with the ability to burrow into the ground.
• Rubble: A pile of sentient magnetic rocks.
• Ash: A fire-breathing dragon.
• Major Ruin: A cross between an armadillo and an elephant that curls up into a rolling, spike-covered ball.
• Deep Blue: A humanoid octopus who can swim, create whirlpools, and shoot gasoline, torpedoes, and water.
• Chilla: An icicle-tossing, wall-climbing yeti.
• Flex: A sea-lily with super-stretching powers.
• 40 Below: An ice-man.
• Snare: An acid-spitting venus flytrap.
• Thermite: A fire-ant that pushes around a giant egg made of magma from which he shoots miniature thermonuclear explosions.

Curiously, the game seems to be a bit schizophrenic about its target audience. It is about an elvish fairy princess living in a rainbow-colored palace in the clouds, who engages in Lord of the Rings-style battles, and which tracks the carnage and bloodshed she creates in battle.

Tropes used in Kameo: Elements of Power include:

• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Alternate skins unlockable for Kameo and her transformations - many of which are quite creative (such as Ash as a Grffin, Rubble as a pile of skulls, or Pummelweed as Mumbo Jumbo).
• Broken Bridge
• Bullet Time: Only activated after a good combo.
• Cain and Abel: respectively, Kalus and Kameo
• Can't Argue with Elves: The elves used to be real assholes, wiping out the lizard-people, the Sargothans, and enslaving the Goblins, as well as exploiting the Trolls - they cleaned up their act, but it bites them in the ass, anyway.
• Development Hell: All Rare titles seem to go through this, don't they? At different points, it was supposed to be released on four different consoles during three separate console generations.
• Dual Boss: Thorn and Kalus.
• Electric Jellyfish: One of the bosses.
• Elemental Powers: Duh.
• Elemental Shapeshifter
• Everything's Better with Princesses: Slightly subverted in that one is evil, and the kingdom is being ruled by a queen.
• Exposition Fairy: Orthos
• Eye Candy: Almost all of the game.
• Fake American: British Emma Tate uses an American accent to perform the role of Kameo. For some reason. Possibly for marketability overseas, or just because Microsoft wanted it that way.
• Feed It a Bomb: Variation, you shoot bits of your spiked rock-body into the mouth.
• Fridge Logic: In the cinematic at the end of the prologue level Thorn's Castle, Kameo is able to hide behind one of Thorn's legs without realising what it is - presumably she believed it was a pillar. Aside from the fact that she would have needed to run through his cape to do this, when you finally meet him in the final level, Thorn seems to be only a head or so higher than Kameo - certainly she is tall enough to reach past his waist.
• Gender Bender: All of the transformations are male, Kameo is a girl.
• Gotta Catch Em All: The Elemental Spirits.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kalus pulls one on Thorn after she has a change of heart during the final battle. She turns him back into stone by kissing him, which also does the same to her. Their fused statue then falls off of Thorn's Airship and into the sea.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Ortho is the god of the sea.
• Hub Level: The elvish castle.
• Jiggle Physics: While there is no real jiggle action in the game itself, just take a quick peek at Kalus' chest at one point in the opening cinematic to the game. You'll know it when you see it.
• Lady of War: Kameo herself.
• Magical Girl: Kameo
• Magic Versus Science: Wait, the trolls have actual technology on their side? Not like that's going to stop you.
• Man Behind the Man: The Mystic.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kameo.
• Mysterious Protector: Kameo's father, Solon, disguised as Farron - a young knight.
  • Farron is a Mysterious Protector, but he's not Kameo's Dad in disguise - they just wear the same traditional armour. Solon sacrificed his life to turn Thorn to stone in the first place; the podcast series that accompanied the game clarifies this.
• Our Elves Are Different: The elves have retractable fairy-style wings allowing them to fly. And the male elves are ridiculously buff, being 80% rippling forearms, almost gorilla-like in appearance.
• Our Goblins Are Wickeder: They are floating, fur-colored, fairy-like creatures covered in pastel colors with bunny ears who serve the elves.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Well, they're called trolls, but they're obviously orcs...
• Puzzle Boss: All of the bosses save Thorn and Kalus.
• Powers as Programs
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Elemental Sprites are all pretty much this.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The elvish royal family. Well, Kameo and the King, anyway.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Thorn, the Troll King.
• Sequel Hook: The Mystic turning evil at the last second. But considering how flaky Rare is with sequels, don't expect it to happen in the lifetimes of you or your children.
• Sleep Mode Size: The Elemental Warriors while not part of Kameo's repertoire are in a form called Elemental Sprites. They appear as small RidiculouslyCuteCritters the size of a puppy.
• Shout-Out: Many to Rare's earlier games.
• Taken for Granite: Thorn, and later Kalus.
• Treacherous Advisor: The Mystic, obviously. She's the last Sargothian, the lizard-people the elves wiped out to get the Elements in the first place.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Kameo can kill Trolls in a LOT of differently gruesome ways. These include, among many others, eating them, spearing them and then ramming them into the ground (as in, into), drowning them inside you, knocking them into conveniently placed lava pits, etc. Also, one of the Warriors shoots napalm.
  • You can hit innocent bystanders. If you hit them enough though, they will retaliate, and it takes a bit off of your life.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting
• What Could Have Been: Two Elemental Warriors - the Warriors of Wind, and at least one to three temples were axed during production to get the game out for launch.