Kao the Kangaroo (PC) Review

Kao the Kangaroo makes a hop, skip, and a jump to modern consoles and PC, for a mostly delightful 3D platforming remake.

G’Day

If you’re a 3D platformer fan, a few games from the genre probably spring immediately to mind from across its history. But whether you remember the glory days of the N64, PlayStation (PSOne), or PS2/Xbox, chances are that one of those titles isn’t the PC original, Kao the Kangaroo.

Not that Kao was a bad game, because from what I gather, it wasn’t. It kind of couldn’t have been honestly, since it spawned two contemporary sequels. One of those, Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2, appeared on consoles as well, and the series even had a side-set of Game Boy Advance releases. But even with all of that, I think it’s safe to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find too many players of it who’d have dubbed any of them a classic.

That though, is a fact that didn’t stop Tate Multimedia from reviving Kao, and bringing it back to its roots with a full-on remake in 2022. For the most part, that’s a very good thing, since the new(ish) title gets a number of things very right, though there are still some rough spots as well.

Straight from the down under

As 3D, anthropomorphic platforming titles go, Kao is pretty darn deep in terms of its story. The game sets up its world well, and actually does make you care about its character roster. That’s no mean feat, especially when you take the voice acting into consideration.

The action focuses on Kao, a young kangaroo who’s living with his mum and sister in a small village. Things go awry for them though, when Kaia (said sister) goes missing. It seems that some time ago their dad, who was a great warrior, vanished while out on a quest.

Kaia takes it upon herself to find him, and that gives rise to Kao breaking out of his hum-drum life. The lad digs up his father’s (mystical ) boxing gloves, and sets out on his own adventure to find his missing family. Along the way, he meets an assortment of adventuring buddies, including his dad’s former master, and has to battle an army of foes, both large and small.

No, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but the narrative is still well done. It’s even got a twist or two, though some of those you can see coming a mile away, and a solid script. But while isn’t bad in Kao, the voice cast doesn’t do it any favors whatsoever.

We’ll get back to that a little later on though, because first we have to chat about the gameplay.

Rope a dope

As you can imagine, the gameplay in Kao does center more on ‘boxing’ than anything else. Not that it’s going to set the world on fire, but it’s decent enough. With the boxing theme though, I’d have loved to have seen some fighting game-like moves included, though there’s nothing really like that.

Instead, players will find the basic attacks and jumps (etc…) that you’d expect in a 3D platformer. I will add though, that there’s nothing wrong with any of it, save a few weird control glitches here and there where you might miss your target. And the action does get a little bump (and strategy) from elemental-powerups that the gloves can make use of.

Aside from battling enemies and taking out bosses, there’s also some light puzzle solving and lots of collecting to be done. The in-game loot that you find can be spent in towns/hubs between levels, where Kao can buy cosmetics and upgrades (some of which are pretty fun), before engaging in another level.

In order to open up fresh stages, Kao has to find crystals that more or less serve as keys. Get enough of them, and you can crack open the door to the next stage. While that’s a familiar gimmick, I will say that finding the aforementioned crystals can be a little tricky at times. There were more than a few instances where I thought I was going to have to go back and replay levels, because I was sure I missed something, only to stumble across a crystal stashed away in the hub world I was in. So be on the lookout.

UPGRADE

If you’ve seen the original Kao, then you know it was… let’s say stylized. But while simply remastering the game with a modern gloss over the original character designs would have been underwhelming, Tate went in a vastly superior direction. Plainly, they basically built a new game and it looks great.

The animal characters that you find in towns and enemies that you’ll battle in stages all have a great cartoony look to them, that perfectly conveys the lighthearted tone that (most of) the game has. It reminded me a lot of Crash Bandicoot, though not in a ‘rip-off’ way.

Likewise, the colorful and bright sets of levels themselves each have a separate feel. Themes included are the beach, icy mountains (which somehow avoid being annoying to play through), and a demented circus/amusement park. All of the above are well detailed and filled with personality, plus a few really neat set pieces that Kao has to make his way past.

But while the looks of the game are great, the sound is more than a little meh. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the musical score, though it’s not exactly memorable, but the voice acting probably should have been left out.

Tate could have gone the Nintendo route with this, with on-screen text, and I would have been just fine with it over the majority of the cast’s phoned in performances. The reads almost universally sound off, in terms of what emotions the characters are supposed to be conveying, and at times they’re just flat-out annoying.

The last thing you want is to have one of your main characters be grating on the player, and that does happen here. It didn’t make me want to turn off the game at any point, but it definitely made me want to skip a few cutscenes.

Overall

Are you hurtin’ for a new 3D platformer? Well, while it’s not exactly new to market, Kao the Kangaroo might fit the bill. It’s not perfect by any means, but if you can get past its flaws, this pugilistic ‘roo does look great, and plays well enough to probably keep you busy for a while.

If you’re picking and choosing too, you might want to go with the Anniversary Edition of the game, which was more recently released. It’s got DLC included, as well as a digital art book and soundtrack.

A copy of this game was provided by Tate Multimedia for this review

Kao the Kangaroo
Release date: May 27th, 2022
Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch
Publisher: Tate Multimedia
Developer: Tate Multimedia
MSRP: $29.99 | $39.99 USD for the Anniversary Edition