While it was nice to see a surprise title on the show floor, the Kameo demo only offered a brief glimpse at what the actual game may play like. The demo offered 3 "levels" to play, a jungle environment where Kameo could capture creatures, a boss battle inside a cave, and an island where Kameo needed to take care of a group of trolls. I say "levels" because each was quite small and did not offer too much in the way of gameplay.

The jungle environment simply had Kameo running around looking for creatures to capture. To do this, the player needs to hit a creature with a bubble. A successful hit changed the screen to the capture sequence where the jungle faded away and a trippy display of lights and colors appeared with a dark circle in the middle. In this screen, the player needed to use the analog stick to maneuver the creature in a bubble directly into the dark circle where it could be properly captured. The whole capturing sequence seems like a way for the player to be actively involved in creature capture (as opposed to sitting back and hoping the Pokeball you used is up to the task).

The boss sequence brought Kameo into a large cavernous room with a pool of green water in the middle. The boss itself was a menacing plant-like creature. Unfortunately, I ended up taking a quick beating each of the 3 times I played this level and didn't figure out exactly how to slay the boss. I'm sure I had to use a combination of the abilities offered by the 3 types of creatures available, though. If the demo didn't dump me back to the game intro screen, I would have kept playing until I got it right, but unfortunately, each attempt took a minute or 2 to start because the system essentially reset every time I died.

The final demo level allowed the player to experiment with Kameo and 3 creatures on an open island. This was probably the best demo of what the final game would offer. Kameo could run around on her own or she could morph into any of the 3 creatures in her possession. She had a grasshopper-like creature that allowed for huge jumps. Also available to Kameo was a big hulking bear-like creature who seemed ideal for combat. Finally, there was a bat like creature that allowed Kameo to fly high above the island.

If you recall, the goal of this level was to get rid of a nasty group of trolls. I had no problem finding them by leaping and flying around, but killing them proved to be troublesome. Of course, then I discovered the wonderful ability to unleash my creatures instead of simply morphing into them. It turns out that the creatures are quite large and menacing on their own. All I had to do to take care of the party of trolls was to let out 2 of my creatures and watch the carnage. I choose you big bear-like creature! Stomp attack now! Swallow-troll attack! Use dismember! Ah, yes, it was quite fun to watch.

On the whole, the Kameo demo looked nice and provided glimpses at the gameplay that will be seen in the final game. None of the levels was too large or involving but the whole thing was pretty fun. Of course, the demo did exactly what it was supposed to. It showed some great graphical effects and a few examples of gameplay without showing off too much of the entire game; a tantalizing tease to make people anticipate the release of the final game. Nice job, Rare, I'm sure Nintendo's very happy.