KAO The Kangaroo PC Review

It's been a long time since I've heard anything about KAO The Kangaroo – my last memory being of my eight-year-old self struggling with what was a fun but pretty challenging 3D Platformer. Released for the SEGA Dreamcast during what were formative years for the genre, KAO echoed the inherent thrill of a hard challenge: a game that stood on the shoulders of Donkey Kong Country and Crash Bandicoot. 

So when I saw the announcement on Twitter, I wondered what a KAO game would be in 2022. Cutesy 3D Platformers are something of a rarity these days, and I was excited to see how Polish developer Tate Multimedia would go about reviving their twenty-two-year-old series.
 

Most apparent upon starting KAO The Kangaroo was that it was quite a different beast from its early 2000s counterparts. If the original felt like Crash, the new game was far more aligned with conventions established in games like Banjo -Kazooie – a shift away from brutal difficulty and towards a more relaxed style of play. 

It certainly feels derivative of a style we've seen a million times before, but with that being a style that's faded into obscurity, it's not necessarily a bad thing. 

The story is unsurprisingly weak – a hero on a journey to rescue a family member from an all-consuming evil – but that's also part of what makes it a pleasant play. KAO The Kangaroo is full of 3D Platformer tropes and offers very little in the way of original concepts. Still, considering I'm currently experiencing post-Elden Ring fatigue of sorts, it was somehow exactly what I was looking for.

In this regard, a large part of the appeal is the visuals – possibly the game's most stand-out feature. Again, it's nothing we haven't seen before, but the pastel, semi-cell shaded environments, and characters are vividly charming. Each of the game's four distinct worlds is quite beautiful, and despite KAO and his friends sporting a more mainstream appearance this time around, the animations looked great. I even chuckled at the dialogue a few times – a script filled with cheesy one-liners and pop-culture references (an allusion to KAO tripping over being uploaded to 'Roo Tube' being a particular favorite).

Of course, a game can't get by on nostalgia alone, and with our protagonist's signature look sporting a pair of magical boxing gloves, combat represents a large part of KAO The Kangaroo. The developers have done a great job at keeping balance here: there are enough moves to keep the fights nuanced and interesting, and I really got the sense that the last 20 years of 'z-targeting' mechanics had been honed to their best. There's some great enemy variety to keep you on your toes, too, and at the end of each world, you'll fight a boss – all of which switch things up to a suitable degree and add depth to the combat system.

 

Aside from punching stuff, KAO has the sort of move-set we've all come to expect by this point, whether that be climbing, swinging, or basic puzzle solving. Levels are appropriately varied and utilize broadly structured design to keep things from becoming too linear, and there are some particularly fun set pieces that take you by surprise in each area.

Being a love letter to the genre, it's no surprise that this entry is chock-full of collectables. You can go hunting for three KAO letters in each level which unlock some fantastic items, and the coins to collect can be traded in for new items in the shop (including an original KAO skin).

I was also surprised to find attention had been given to the KAO lore: the player has the ability to find scrolls that add to an encyclopedia, and the attempt to expand the world this way was appreciated. There are also hidden bonus levels similar to those seen in Super Mario: Sunshine. They offer an extra platforming challenge for those who are after it. 

The difficulty was, for me, the most contentious aspect of the game. With it deviating significantly from the challenge of the original games, fans of the original might be disappointed. While I welcomed the relatively easy ride, the lack of overall difficulty could be seen as a significant negative, depending on your perspective. 

This is a reboot, after all, rather than a remake, and it's understandable why the team has gone in the direction they have. I think KAO The Kangaroo is ultimately better for it; whether it be the increasingly high skill ceilings of online gaming or the ruthless punishment of the aforementioned From Software titles, we relish difficulty in 2022. Sometimes it's nice to have a break from that, and it's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of playing an old-school 3D Platformer that didn't feel contrived.
 

 

You'll beat KAO The Kangaroo in roughly seven to eight hours – a little more if you're going to go hunting for collectables. KAO doesn't overstay his welcome, but it must be said that there isn't much to go back for afterward. Despite my championing of the difficulty as it is, I think the game would have had a broader appeal if it included some sort of 'hard mode'.

All in all, though, I really enjoyed the reboot. Considering the series has been dormant for so long, credit has to be given to the developers for their foresight: what we have here is not only a loving tribute to a cult classic but a thoughtful revisiting of one of gaming's most formative genres. Anyone who had fun with 3D Platformers in the 1990s and 2000s is going to enjoy KAO The Kangaroo; although the difficulty may leave something to be desired for die-hard fans, I'm sure they'll still have a blast.
 

Linden Garcia (@garcia_linden),
Editor, NoobFeed