Gameplay is a well-balanced blend of platform, adventure and RPG elements. The platform elements include taking your character to impossible heights through narrow pathways that will test the skills of hardened platform fans. The quest elements are all about searching out the wider story, accumulating coins to shop with, and elemental fruit to upgrade your elemental warriors' powers. The combat sequences vary from the simple bash 'n' dodge to utilising your special attacks in particular sequences.

The enemies are no slouches, either, with most taking more than one hit to take down... and even the dumbest troll won't just stand still and let you pound him. Luckily they have a hit point display indicating how much more damage is required to finish them off.

Battle points are earned every time you make a kill, and you can earn bonus multipliers depending on the speed and finesse with which you dispatch your foes. The ultimate goal in any combat situation is to achieve Warrior Focus, a spectacular slow-motion effect in which most of your enemies move at the pace of a speeding snail, while you remain unaffected. This enables you to rack up some serious battle points, and the better you are at laying down the hurt, the longer Warrior Focus remains in play.

In addition to the single player mode, Kameo can also be played as a split screen, two-player co-operative game. This is great fun as you can each chose an elemental that suits your style of play best and by setting up the right combination you can take on the most difficult aspects of the game.

The only issue we had with the various levels was that some of the boss fights were particularly difficult compared to the lead-up to the fight. Discovering a boss' Achilles heel can also be a challenge (using the right combination of elemental warriors and attacks). Included in each of the missions are bonus items and unlockables that are achieved by maximising your combat points. Unfortunately this aspect of the game is not particularly well documented.

The graphics are very special indeed, with some magical locales to explore and adventure in. The grassy fields sway and move while seed pods blow in the breeze and glinting light. The stones glisten with moisture, reflective surfaces such as metal seem most realistic, and the water looks cool and inviting. This is a beautiful looking game which really shows off some of the graphics capabilities of the Xbox 360. Sometimes the game takes a back seat as you just take in the cool graphics.

Animations are produced to a very high standard overall, with some nice comic touches added here and there. For example, a troll is knocked from his dragon steed by a fellow rider and is quickly gobbled up by the dragon (were we the only ones to notice that the trolls bear more than a passing resemblance to Warhammer orcs?). A particularly nice touch is where killing 'squishy' enemies such as bugs, results in their ichor splattering the screen from the inside. The goo is translucent in a way that is only possible on the Xbox 360.