Coleco Chameleon to launch with several unreleased Genesis games
Regular readers of our site might not be too familiar with the Coleco Chameleon. It was formerly known as the RETRO VGS and promised to resurrect classic, cartridge video gaming once again, but sadly its Indiegogo campaign failed pretty miserably.
The primary reason for its failure was cost – each unit was about $350 shipped. Even the most excited gamers scoffed at the idea of paying PlayStation 4 and Xbox One prices for a neo-retro, cartridge-based system.
Months later, Mike Kennedy and the rest of the team behind the RETRO VGS announced the system would undergo a name change to the Coleco Chameleon, a rehaul of the system’s internals to lower the cost and plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign in early 2016, with a playable prototype being available at the New York Toy Fair on Feb. 13.
Yesterday, they released the above video showcasing some of the launch titles that will be coming to the Chameleon. Interestingly enough, Piko Interactive will publish several unreleased Genesis games on the Chameleon.
If you’re unfamiliar with Piko, we had Eli on the SEGA Nerdcast in October 2015, where he talked about finally releasing Duke Nukem 3D on the Genesis in the U.S. and many other projects his company is working on.
Water Margin – The Tales of Clouds and Winds
Originally released in 1996 by Never Ending Soft Team and known as Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan, the game is a 2D-sidescrolling, beat-em-up similar to Golden Axe, where there are three playable characters.
Water Margin is based on an old Chinese novel and has enjoyed some level of infamy in that it used many assets from other games, like Streets of Rage, Street Fighter II and Knights of the Round.
After Piko Interactive acquired the rights to the game, it was fully translated to English. It’s also available to purchase on the Genesis on Piko Interactive’s website for $39.99.
Jim Power – The Lost Dimension
Jim Power – The Lost Dimension is a 2D platformer and was released on the Super Nintendo in December 1993.
There were plans to release a Genesis port, titled Jim Power: The Arcade Game, that was very similar, but it was sadly never commercially released and remained unplayable until a ROM was leaked years ago.
Piko Interactive released a collection of many of the Jim Power games on Steam, which you can purchase for $4.99.
Brave Battle Saga
Brave Battle Saga is a Taiwanese RPG released in 1996 by developer Chuanpu that is heavily inspired by Square’s Final Fantasy series.
It was translated to English in 2010, with some of the similarities between it and Final Fantasy removed, but it still retains many gameplay aspects from the Final Fantasy series, like the Active Time Battle.
Piko Interactive has secured the rights to finally publish a physical Genesis cartridge later this year.
That’s all the games with ties to SEGA that have been announced for release at launch, but RETRO VGS previously announced that GunLord, Pier Solar and Last Hope Pink Bullets would be released on the system. However, we don’t know if those games will still be released after the Chameleon underwent its changes.
We plan to be in attendance at the New York Toy Fair next month and will be sure to let you know our impressions of the Chameleon!
