Well, this is a momentous occasion indeed - my first Xbox 360 review. And what better place to start than Kameo: Elements of Power? Ever since it became clear that Kameo would be a part of the launch, I knew that this was the game I most wanted to play. It was the first game I loaded up in my sleek new console and it's blown me away! Sure, there are shooters like Perfect Dark Zero and Quake 4, sublime racing action in Project Gotham Racing 3 and the dark, tense atmosphere of Condemned: Criminal Origins, but The Legend of Zelda remains one of my favourite gaming series of all time - in fact, other than Halo and Halo 2, they're my favourite games. And I'm delighted to say that Kameo is the first true competition Zelda has had since the release of The Ocarina of Time.

There's trouble brewing in the Enchanted Kingdom - after Kameo is presented with the Elements of Power, her resentful sister Kalus betrays the royal family, summoning up the evil troll lord, Thorn, and taking her own family captive. Now only Kameo can hope to save her family, defeat Thorn and restore balance to the kingdom, as long as she can master the Elements of Power, the only force great enough to achieve victory and put right what Kalus has done.

It's a simple enough storyline, but perfect for the feel and style of the game - and rather than starting off slowly, Kameo begins with a bang! You are thrown straight into the action, as Kameo makes a desperate assault on the castle in an attempt to rescue her family. This first level serves as an exciting and action packed tutorial level, and you have three elements available straight away too, giving way to some brilliantly designed puzzles that introduce you to the powers of the elements you've already mastered. However, your rescue attempt fails and in the process the elements are knocked out of you - the next thing you know, you're back at the Enchanted Kingdom and now the quest begins to gather all ten of the elements, rescuing your family along the way, as well as protecting the kingdom from a massive assault at the hands of the troll army - they might be ugly and smell really bad, but those trolls sure do know how to build weapons!

The first thing that stuns you about Kameo is just how amazing it looks. Yes, it utilises a distinct cartoon style, but never has anything looked so breathtakingly bright and detailed. Every character is beautifully drawn, animated to perfection and tailored down to the smallest detail, with the most rounded and natural contours you've ever seen and not a jagged edge in sight. Every texture is high resolution, every surface brimming with detail, with plenty of lovely effects like shimmering icy walls that you can scale in the form of Chilla, who himself sports some amazing fur effects that are approaching Monsters Inc. in their quality and realism.

When you attack the castle, it is well and truly under siege - literally hundreds of dragons are swarming overhead, fireballs rain down and explode, showering you with dirt and rubble, as the castle takes a real beating from the troll onslaught. Here you must make use of the Yeti-like Chilla, the armadillo style Major Ruin and plant creature Pummel Weed, utilising each element's unique abilities to lay waste to your varied foes and progress through the battered castle, both inside and out.

While Kameo takes a lot of inspiration from Zelda, its main hook is your ability to transform (eventually) into ten different forms, each one with unique abilities and multiple attacks that can even be upgraded as you progress, meaning that the combat never gets old - in fact, my only concern was that I wouldn't have enough time to fully enjoy the extent of each element's power before the game ended, as there is almost too much choice in who to use when belting the living daylights out of dozens of trolls!

Working through the first level, you get a taster of the ingenious level design that will delight you throughout the whole game. Chilla must be used to scale icy walls - he takes a couple of icicles out of his back and uses them as picks to climb up the wall, leaping up or along as he goes. Major Ruin's ability to spin on the spot and then launch off at speed is essential to master, as you speed up ramps and then charge up the next spin in mid air, changing your direction to enter a nearby pipe, or bowl over enemy trolls. Now, combine these two elements and you get a classic example of a puzzle that uses them both - a ramp with an icy wall beyond and a lethal drop below. So, you spin up Major Ruin, launch off the ramp, follow up with a second spin if needed and then transform into Chilla as you hit the wall, who then grabs on and begins to climb - and the controls are so cleverly mapped onto the controller that this is easily achieved, once you've figured out what needs to be done.

Meanwhile, Pummel Weed has the ability to burrow into the ground and whiz around with only the leafy top of his head available - perfect for sneaking under iron portcullises that are almost down but with a small gap between them and the ground. Each element is more than capable of doing serious damage to the enemy, too. Chilla's attack is one of the funniest - throw a troll into the air and it lands on your back, blood spurting out as it howls with pain, and you can have up to three enemies impaled there at once, as you lumber around! You then have a choice - you can either use one of the enemies as a club to smack all nearby foes, or you can hurl them into the distance, listening to their howl as they disappear into the horizon line or smack into a wall and vaporise! This might look like a kids' game, but I can assure you that the combat is brutal and satisfying enough to engage any adult gamer with a good sense of humour and fun. That's right, us big kids!

Major Ruin can bowl over enemies (and later you get a cyclone attack where you spin around knocking them all flying, impaling them on the spikes you've grown), while Pummel Weed uses his spiky fists like a boxer, pummelling his victim before sending them flying with a massive punch - or how about an uppercut, launched from below the ground? There's even a power move that tears an enemy to pieces, and the limbs, head and body all fall back down separately! Still, all this fun comes to an end, temporarily, when you lose your elements - now it's time to win them back, by any means necessary.

When you awake, you're back in the Enchanted Kingdom and when you first leave your hut you'll be astonished by just how beautiful and ethereal it all looks. The colours are bright, there are flowers scattered liberally around in the grass, every blade of which sways individually in the gentle breeze, as butterflies flutter past and squirrels scamper in the trees. It all looks so lovely and fairy-like. Kameo herself features some amazing animation, as she can hover on her fairy wings and fly around the place, which is much quicker than walking and it looks fantastic too. There are many citizens in the kingdom and you can talk to all of them - some have something specific to say, some need your help (when you gain some of the elements back) and others just say hello, but every character speaks and the voice work is excellent throughout.

After wandering around for a bit, you're called to the home of the Mystic, who persuades the Wotnot Book that you are worthy of holding the Elements of Power, despite your reckless attack that lost the elements you had already obtained. A quick bit of training with the Warrior Trainer familiarises you with Kameo's abilities (which are limited to hovering, jumping and a single flip kick attack, while in your natural form) and the Wotnot Book agrees to work with you again. If the Mystic looks familiar, it's because she's very much reminiscent of the trader from Starfox Adventures, both in look, speech and attitude - she's reptile-like and looks very sly. I guess Rare liked the character from their final game for Nintendo so much that they decided to incorporate her here! She contacts you from time to time using her magic eye, to tell you where to go, while the Wotnot Book is always on hand to offer an explanation of what to do next if you get stuck. It does somewhat spoil the fun of figuring it out yourself though, so only consult the impatient and haughty book if you have to!

Upon leaving the Enchanted Kingdom, you're greeted with another spectacular sight - the Badlands, an area of desolate wasteland. You soon see that the Enchanted Kingdom is a massive island of rock, suspended in the air by the magical forces of six shrines, which have come under attack from the troll legions. This scene gives way to one of the most spectacular moments of the whole game. You meet up with a knight, who gives you a horse and then warns you that if you want to cross the Badlands, expect to bump into a few trolls. You trot to the crest of the hill and then the camera begins to pull out to reveal a group of trolls - no wait, a horde - hang on, it's an entire army! The camera keeps on pulling back further and further and your jaw drops as you see literally hundreds of trolls crowded all the way down the slopes beneath, every one of them individually animated and fully detailed. It's simply astonishing - as is the next part, where you charge through the army on horseback, knocking dozens of trolls flying as you gallop down the hill. You can stick around here as long as you like, but once you've helped defend the Forest Shrine, where a massive battle rages, it's off to the Forgotten Forest.

Each of the three main areas you go to on your quest looks gorgeous and features a fully realised Zelda-style village, complete with inhabitants that have all kinds of problems - whether they're under siege in their huts, missing an item or short of a family member, there are a number of side quests to complete in every area, with the added incentive that the reward is always an elemental fruit, the power of which is used to purchase upgrades for your elements. These fruits are also hidden around each level too, so you'll find yourself searching each area thoroughly to find all those fruits and max out your elements - a task made a lot easier by the Fruit Finder bulletin, which gives you hints on the areas where you need to look.

Anyway, your first stop is the Forgotten Forest, complete with plant-based inhabitants that have authentic Northern accents! Fellow reviewer Dex loves them! Again, the environments are more full of life, both plant and animal, than anything you've seen before - literally bustling with activity. Later on you'll go to the Mountain Falls, populated by octopus-like inhabitants that sound very American, and with the sun shining, the water gleaming, the palm trees scattered around and the shimmering huts made of shells, it feels very much like a holiday resort. Finally there's Snow Top Village, where the insectoid populace sound a bit Russian and it's all very cold and snowy, as you'd expect!

These villages serve as hubs where you can go on side quests, explore secret areas, go to the local shop to buy elemental fruits (in limited supply of course!), get alternate skins for certain elements, an elixir of life (for increasing your health bar marginally) and a bigger wallet, if you've got enough cash! You'll find money liberally hidden around in crates that you can smash and even in pots that you can destroy in people's huts - all very Zelda! There's even one character that blocks your path and tells you how disgraceful it is to walk into people's homes uninvited and do what you please - a wry nod towards the way you're replicating Link's mischievous behaviour!

Each area also has many more places to explore though - caves with puzzles that lead to the Shadow Realm, which always require a bit of effort and puzzle solving to reach in the first place, and massive temples that you must negotiate as you work your way towards the massive boss encounters, where ancient foes are powered by your captive relatives, who you rescue by defeating the bosses. The boss encounters are outstanding in Kameo, requiring the use of multiple elemental forms and taking both intelligence and skill to first figure out what to do and then timing your actions right to make the boss vulnerable to attack.

Coming back to the Shadow Realm, this is a dark place where you must defeat the shadow trolls that have captured the infant forms of certain elements. Although these encounters are very simple at first, they do become more challenging each time you enter the realm and they're visually one of the most spectacular parts of the game - a hellish heat shimmer appears around the rocky arena, while dozens upon dozens of perfectly animated black bats flock and flit around the shadowy form of your enemy. Other enemies rise up and attack you - defeat one of those and grab its spirit, then the screen inverts to look like a photo negative (everything is in shades of white, with enemies showing up as black) and you can then locate the shadow troll and launch the spirit attack to weaken it. The effect is very impressive. Do this a couple of times (or more later on) and you'll win back your element - the transformation sequence for each element from infant to adult is brilliant too, some of the best animation I've ever seen, in a game or otherwise.

On the subject of the elements, I don't want to spoil all the surprises, but it's fair to say that there are simply no duds in here - each of the ten elements is perfectly designed in both look and powers, with a powerful array of attacks that can even be combined between forms. They're also given strengths and weaknesses, so rock-based Rubble is invulnerable to fire but can be blown apart by explosions, while the plant-like Snare and Pummel Weed can be greatly damaged by fire but are strengthened by water attacks. Rubble is one of the best elements - he's basically a pile of rocks that rumbles around, with a rocky head on top. Turn the camera to look at his face scrunching up with the effort of a blast attack - where every last rock in his body flies off in every direction, stunning or damaging nearby enemies, then they gradually roll back to reform his body. It's such a cool feature and something that couldn't have been done on Xbox. You've got Deep Blue, who's as lethal underwater as he is on the surface, with his oil slick and water cannons, then there's the hilarious Flex, a bendy little fellow who stretches all over the place beating up multiple foes at once, and Ash, the young dragon with his powerful flame attacks. I've already said too much and can't bear to reveal any more - discover the full extent of each element's nature and power for yourself, every one of them is a joy to use, whether negotiating your way around a level or beating up the evil trolls.

Wow, this review has already gone on far too long and there's so much more to mention! The controls deserve praise for a truly ingenious system - the left and right triggers are used individually or pressed together for all element attacks and they're context sensitive, so the same triggers are used for different attacks depending on what your element is doing. This leaves the colour buttons mapped to three elemental forms, with green returning you to Kameo's true form and also used for actions like talking to characters and reading signs. And rather than having to go into a menu to reassign elements (something that would soon have become tiresome), simply hold down the blue, yellow or red button and a compass comes up with pictures of each available element, allowing you to reassign the button with a flick of the left thumbstick and transform into that element simultaneously. Like I said, it's ingenious!

The combat is also highly satisfying - as well as the huge range of attacks you have, there are many types of troll whose weaknesses you can exploit for quick kills - fire trolls can be extinguished, plant trolls can be burned, ice trolls can be melted and so on. There are also certain types of troll that can only be killed by certain elements too, like the shielded trolls that approach you slowly - Rubble fires a few of his rocks over their heads, and as the rocks roll back to him, they smack into the trolls from behind, stunning them and allowing you to finish them off as another element! As well as all this, you even get rated on your combat, and the only way to rack up the big points is to use vicious attacks that get you a brutal rating, while also going into a frenzy, where the enemies go into slow motion and you move around destroying them even more - this mode is hilarious, as the trolls fly up in slow motion, their cries of pain slowed down too! As long as you continue to do damage, the frenzy is sustained and you can rack up massive scores this way.

Why would you want to do that though - rack up scores? Because there's a leaderboard, that's why, and you want to reach the top of it! As with most games on Xbox 360, you can check your scores against the best in the world and there's even a Time Attack mode that allows you to replay any of the chapters again, to get a better time and score - this means that you can take your time to really explore during the actual quest and then race through at high speed once you know what you're doing and just go for maximum kills in minimum time. Perfect. There's even a hidden area to find in the Badlands, with a couple of entertaining mini-games too - those trolls are in serious trouble now! These additions serve to lengthen what is perhaps a relatively short game - I'd estimate 12 to 20 hours for full completion. But there is real incentive to complete all the side quests, find all the fruits and go back again and again for Time Attack, and I for one will be doing this for certain! There's also a split screen co-op mode, with an online mode coming soon thanks to downloadable content, so check back in a few weeks and we'll add in a section about that - it's bound to be a riot!

Before I draw this epic review to a close, I'd like to give a special mention to the sound, which excels in every department. The grunts and cries of the trolls, the noises that every element makes, the satisfying thwack as you land a punch, the sound of claw hitting armour, the roar of a fireball; every sound effect is perfectly done and the explosions are particularly meaty. Then there's the voice acting - it's very polished and a lot of fun, with a range of quirky and likeable characters, Kameo herself being a very strong lead for the game.

But best of all is the epic, orchestral soundtrack, the kind of soundtrack that is up to the quality of any fantasy style film. It's not quite Lord of the Rings, but it's actually very close! This is almost like a cartoon version of LOTR in many respects, with the massive scale battles, swooping cut scenes that show you around the huge levels and the epic score. The themes are memorable, a full orchestra is used, including voices singing dramatically, and it changes drastically, from dramatic and fast-paced during the action sequences to light-hearted and relaxed when exploring a village. It's the best soundtrack since Halo 2, and while comparison is unwarranted because they're such different styles of game and music, the imagination and quality of Kameo's soundtrack is to the highest standard I've ever heard in a game, up there with the best of the best.

I apologise for taking so long in my attempt to convey just what a magical and wondrous adventure Kameo: Elements of Power is, but there's just so much to say about it that it's hard not to harp on! From the breathtaking graphics to the stunning orchestral score, it screams next generation at you and it backs this up with truly imaginative, varied and engaging gameplay, with all aspects of the game featuring a host of lovely features that simply couldn't have been achieved had this game been released on Xbox as planned. I for one am delighted that Microsoft purchased Rare and although it has been a few years in the making, Kameo was absolutely worth the wait. Regardless of gaming tastes, every Xbox 360 owner should have a copy of this taking its rightful place in the beginnings of their collection.

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).