Kao the Kangaroo Review: kangaroos to the rescue

Created by the Polish studio Tate Multimedia, Kao the Kangaroo he is one of several characters who in the early 2000s tried repeatedly to ascend to the status of icons. Unfortunately, the cute kangaroo never reached the popularity obtained by Crash Bandicoot or Spyro the Dragon, nevertheless the platform he was the protagonist of was successful enough to guarantee him the beauty of two sequels and as many spin-offs. After an all in all convincing debut, the Kao the Kangaroo series has however spent the beauty of fifteen years in a deep oblivion, only to return to the limelight on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary thanks to the incessant requests of the most loyal fans.

Impressed by the campaign #BringKaoBack that the latter have carried out on social networks, not only Tate Multimedia has in fact decided to bring the second episode of the brand to Steam, but it has even put in place a lively reboot. Simply titled Kao the Kangaroo and already available on PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch and console of the Xbox family, will the title be able to drag its protagonist into the Olympus of the medium’s mascots? Time to find out!

In search of the missing loved ones

Untied from the events told in the first five iterations of the saga, Kao’s new adventure begins on Hopallo Island, when the marsupial awakens from a cryptic nightmare starring his sister Kaia.

Convinced that the mysteriously disappeared kinsman is somehow asking for his help, the young kangaroo with a somewhat impetuous and reckless character decides to travel to find her, but not before having visited the wise Walt, an elderly koala and expert in martial arts. Along the way, Kao comes across a chest containing the portentous Eternal Gloves that once belonged to his father and takes possession of them, discovering through the mouth of Master Walt that these they have been corrupted by a dark and evil power. Still needing his parent’s gloves to find the missing members of his family, the stubborn kangaroo then undergoes yet another test of the old Walt, in order to prove that he is actually ready to use the Eternal Gloves and at the same time obtain the precious. help the austere koala in the perilous mission on the horizon.

Clearly addressed to a very young target, the narrative plot of Kao the Kangaroo is light-hearted and witty as the creature of Tate Multimedia, it is no coincidence that his protagonist and the characters he met in the course of the story are often at the center of funny curtains aimed at snatching a laugh from the player. The main difference between the reboot and its predecessors, moreover, is to be found in the characterization of Kao himself: if in the past the boxer seemed a bit dumb, also because of his not exactly inspired original appearance, the new version of the character was modified at the root to show off an exuberant, combative and slightly reckless look and personality which in our opinion is well suited to its exquisitely youthful nature and the playful tones of the story.

The only real flaw of the plot of Kao by Kangaroo, who with his oddities and sometimes bizarre dialogues has been able to have more fun than we had anticipated, is represented by his low longevity: to get to the credits, they are barely necessary 5-6 hours which in any case can become a dozen depending on the time devoted to collecting the numerous collectibles hidden in the various levels.

Between a hook and a collectible

If the setting of Kao the Kangaroo is very classic and, like Spyro the Dragon, the platformer features a handful of worlds built as freely explorable hubswe must acknowledge the merit of having built some absolutely atypical internships to the guys from Tate Multimedia.

Instead of following the tradition of Super Mario, Crash or Donkey Kong and providing each area with five or more short levels, the developers have chosen to take the opposite path, proposing only three per world, plus the inevitable boss fight with the enemy on duty. If in total Kao the Kangaroo is therefore composed of just twenty levels, each of them is characterized by a duration much higher than the norm, which in most cases has allowed the team to create complex and spacious landscapes. In short, forget the areas that can be completed in a matter of minutes, because this tour it may happen that you spend even half an hour in a certain place, especially if you decide to sift through every single crevice of the map and collect all the collectibles. Too bad that the levels, unlike the stages included in New Super Lucky’s Tale (here you can find the review of New Super Lucky’s Tale), appear roughly linear, as the frequent secondary paths are almost always dead-end and only lead to treasures waiting to be found.

As mentioned in our tried Kao the Kangaroo, every single area hides a fair amount of collectibles, including the three letters that make up the name of the protagonist, diamonds, extra lives and ducats to be spent in the appropriate shops to buy accessories and costumes with which to customize Kao’s appearance. To the delight of nostalgics, the waste of the collected coins even allows you to unlock skins that restore the original appearance of the kangaroo, rigorously characterized by disproportionate eyes and an expression that is anything but awake.

Moving on to the analysis of the gameplay, it must first be emphasized that Kao the Kangaroo presents an extremely simple and basic combat system, so much so that this does not even use all the buttons on the Xbox controller. Able to jump, crash to the ground, do somersaults to dodge enemy attacks or pass through bottlenecks, as well as use its long ears to climb and support all its weight, the marsupial’s main feature lies in its ability to unleash powerful hooks at others anthropomorphic animals.

Equipped with his faithful talking gloves, Kao can smash through the wooden crates scattered all over the place with his fists, as well as the enemies encountered along the way; however, his true strength is only unleashed when he is surrounded, as the chaining of combos allows you to fill a special gauge which, when filled enough, allows him to delivering a terrible right in slow motion that annihilates the target and stuns anyone in close proximity. Although modest and not very articulated, the intuitive and immediate combat system is undoubtedly one of the most captivating elements of the package, also because the possibility of spreading obstacles with well-aimed punches always gives a certain satisfaction.

In any case, in the stages of platforming our cute hero has access to a handful of extra tools and absolutely essential to solve the environmental puzzles. For example, in the presence of wooden barriers or impenetrable cobwebs, Kao literally can use the power of fire to ignite the Eternal Gloves and clear the way with a few hooks; other situations instead force him to collect the boomerang to activate raised devices and timed mechanisms which, once triggered, cause platforms to jump on or holds to cling to with the rope.

What has not convinced us completely is unfortunately the level of challenge calibrated downwards, as well as the impossibility of increasing the difficulty and adapting the experience to the needs of the different types of users. Being intended for a very young audience, Kao the Kangaroo therefore risks being too easy and, consequently, not satisfying fans of the genre. Both boss fights and environmental puzzles they require very little effort, since the solution to overcome them is almost always self-evident. With good reason, we believe that Tate Multimedia should have implemented an appropriate difficulty selector, dramatically expanding the target of the product.

Pleasant enough

Finally, moving on to the analysis of the technical sector, we conducted our tests on Xbox Series X, where the platform – while not reaching 60 FPS – stays smooth throughout the campaign, including the hottest fights.

The loading times are also excellent, which in the passage from one world to another requires just two to four seconds. Although Kao the Kangaroo suffers from obvious limitations, which result in angular polygonal models and animations not exactly state of the art, on the whole the rendering of the platform is simply delicious, also because the lively universe of the marsupial overflows with vivid and always very pleasant colors. Too bad only for the soundtrack, in our opinion sluggish, not very engaging and unable to accompany the boss fights with equally lively and adrenaline-pumping tunesand for the track subtitled in Italian, which currently hides some small grammatical errors.