Harrison Abbott reviews Kao the Kangaroo…
It might be painfully self-evident, but a mascot platformer ought to have a decent mascot.
Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog and, more recently, Captain Astro Bot are all great examples of this, on account of their distinct visual designs and likeable, albeit simplistic, personalities. None of them are particularly deep or nuanced when it comes to their characterisation, but that’s beside the point.
What’s important here is that these mascots are genuinely iconic. People toss that descriptor around a lot nowadays without giving it much thought but, in the case of those listed above, it’s meant in the truest sense of the word.
They are icons for their respective consoles, development studios and publishers. Mario is synonymous with Nintendo, just like Sonic is with Sega. Meanwhile, both Astro and the Ratchet & Clank boys proudly fly the flag for Team PlayStation.
In terms of what distinguishes a good mascot from a bad one (e.g. Knack), there are a few pieces of criteria. As aforementioned, they need to have a strong look that’s recognisable from just a silhouette and they also need to have affable personalities.
Another (often overlooked) ingredient is audio. Some mascots benefit from being mostly silent and only communicating via a few sound effects. For instance, think of Astro’s cutesy hums or Crash Bandicoot’s legendary “Woah!”. Hell, Cuphead manages to make a big impression despite never uttering a syllable.
Of course, other characters are more loquacious and so it’s vital that they have matching voices. Although the games they’ve starred in haven’t always been top-tier, Ryan Drummond and Roger Craig Smith have both done a great job at supplying the English language version of Sonic with youthful gusto. After all, their delivery perfectly gels with what you’d expect The Blue Blur to sound like if you only had a picture of him to go by.
Likewise, over the course of his 30-year tenure as Mario, Charles Martinet has managed to take just a handful of basic phrases — including “Mama Mia” and “Let’s-a-go” — and inject them with so much personality that you get a proper sense of who the Italian Plumber is. No one else can pull off a “Yahoo!” quite like him, so much so that it is considered blasphemous that Hollywood would even attempt to replace him in a movie.
The point of this, increasingly long-winded, intro is that a platforming mascot needs to sound just right if they’re to become an icon. Astro Bot doesn’t need to soliloquize, Crash Bandicoot’s exclamations are an integral part of his identity, and Charles Martinet simply is Mario for most people.
Kao is an obscure platforming mascot from the early 2000s, who is now attempting a comeback.
The reason I bring this up is that nothing can adequately prepare you for what Kao, the titular Kangaroo, sounds like in his new 2022 reboot. At first glance, you might expect this kickboxing marsupial to have a voice like Sonic’s (i.e., cool and bubbling with attitude). Alternatively, you could easily envision the developers going down the more obvious route by having him speak with an Australiana lilt, or capitalizing on the pugilism theme by getting him to do a cartoonish impression of Rocky Balboa.
You know, something like that. Basically anything other than having your lead character sound like a whiney preteen who’s being forced to act in a school production against their will. It’s astonishing how much Kao’s nasally voice does not match up with his visual design, bringing to mind that much-derided Pauly Shore version of Pinocchio that recently become a meme.
The first time I heard Kao speak, it prompted an involuntary chuckle before it depressingly settled in that I was going to be stuck with that voice acting for another 7-or-so hours. It’s at its most risible when he is trying to sound tough or threatening, usually as he taunts his opponent in the lead up to a boss fights.
In general, the dialogue-heavy moments in Kao The Kangaroo are farcical, because it’s not just our protagonist who sounds deeply wrong. Every single character has a voice that’s utterly incongruous with their look and supposed personality, to the point that it often feels like a parodic YouTube dub.
There’s an imposing gorilla that sounds like some random guy got pulled off the street to mumble his way through a few lines, coming across like an addlepated Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then there’s a pelican that is maybe South African, but it’s not entirely clear, and a kung-fu master who has no discernible accent yet omits random words in a way that’s presumably meant to evoke Asian stereotypes. You’d accuse it of being culturally insensitive, if only it were clear what culture was being mocked.
Honestly, it comes as a relief when you discover that the speech is only audible in cutscenes (elsewhere, conversations are relegated to text boxes), Otherwise, it would be too difficult to focus on the gameplay when you are left in constant fits of laughter.
The level design and mechancis of Kao The Kangaroo will be instantly familiar to anyone who has ever played a 3D platformer.
To wind things back a little, Kao the Kangaroo is a reboot of an old-school, 3D platformer from the Dreamcast era. Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the obscure brand, as you’ve definitely played countless titles like this one before. It’s a standard collect-a-thon with anthropomorphic animals (in this case, a Kangaroo, themed worlds that connect to more linear stages, and an archaic lives system.
In this particular outing (which is the franchise’s first since 2005), Kao embarks on an island-hopping quest to track down his missing father and sister. Along the way, he dons a pair of magical boxing gloves that are imbued with mystic powers and then explores the obligatory platforming biomes of an ice-world, some lava caves, a jungle and a vaguely spooky area.
Suffice it to say, it is totally unremarkable in almost every way. The story is bare-bones, the characters aren’t very funny (try as they might) and the gameplay is competent but ultimately listless.
You’ve got the usual repertoire of moves at your disposal — Kao can jump, roll, shimmy, climb, butt-stomp — and it’s all pretty responsive. That is with the exception of the inconsistent grappling hook mechanic, which upon release will either launch you flying 20 feet into the air or send you hurtling into a straight vertical drop, as though your feet are being weighed down by anvils. These two outcomes are equally likely by the way, irrespective of how much forward momentum you appear to have when swinging.
Kao goes through the typical environments that you expect from this genre, including lava, ice and jungle levels.
The lack of decent audio-visual feedback is also a big problem here. If Kao collides with deadly spikes or a bomb, he seldom reacts in an audible way, and there is no animation whatsoever to indicate that you’ve taken any damage. You just unceremoniously lose a heart icon in the HUD.
The looping music sporadically drops in and out for no apparent reason too, leading to some very awkward set-pieces that play out in near-total silence. Conversely, on other occasions, the soundtrack will refuse to fade even after combat has ended, totally drowning out any subsequent dialogue exchanges (which is perhaps a small mercy in retrospect).
In short, it’s all very rough around the edges. Yet that can be forgiven when you take into account that this is an independent release and doesn’t have the resources of a AAA budget. In fact, the fan community had to get a hashtag going on social media, in order for the developers at Tate Multimedia to even get Kao The Kangaroo 2022 greenlit in the first place.
Considering the financial limitations, you can overlook a few technical quibbles here and there, but the final product remains very bland. What’s really missing— apart from an endearing hero, engaging combat, reliable mechanics, interesting level design, technical stability, and consistent audio — is a creative spark.
You’ve seen all of this done before and you’ve seen it done better. The levels use the exact same themes that Mario has been recycling for decades now, there are sequences in which you flee a rampaging pursuer that are clearly meant to ape Crash Bandicoot’s boulder stages, and the excruciating attempts at humour (aspiring towards Ratchet & Clank) are guaranteed to make your toes curl. On that note, be prepared for cringeworthy references to TikTok and a bafflingly dated “Arrow to the Knee” joke.
Whether it’s aping Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, or Super Mario 64, Kao always leaves you thinking about better games.
You do eventually unlock elemental powers that grant Kao’s boxing gloves special abilities — those being Ice, Fire and Wind. Yet these are mainly used to solve environmental puzzles and they don’t have much bearing on the action, other than occasionally changing up your animations. So even this gimmick doesn’t add much flavour to proceedings.
Speaking of combat, the fighting here is rather unchallenging and button-mashy, but that does at least mean that it is accessible for little kids (who, let’s be frank, are the target audience). Plus, there’s a decent amount of enemy variety to keep things feeling fresh, with you encountering brand new foes right up until the final level.
If you want an introductory platformer for little ones then this might be a solid candidate as it doesn’t demand a whole lot of precision, the timing windows are usually quite generous, and the collectable hunting will nicely occupy their time. In that sense, it could serve as a cute gateway title for newbies, before they graduate onto tougher games.
Overall, Kao The Kangaroo is a title that I desperately wanted to like, as its heart seems to be in the right place, and it’s got a certain old-school charm. To put it bluntly though, the game is just uninspired, technically shoddy and too formulaic to scratch any kind of nostalgic itch that I was feeling for the heyday of 3D platformers. The sad truth is that, even in the year 2000, this would have been a lacklustre offering.
Combat is functional, albeit incredibly simplistic.
Pros:
+ There’s some retro appeal, even if it quickly wears off
+ Accessible for little kids
+ Hoovering up all the collectables can be rewarding
Cons:
– Jaw-droppingly bad voice acting
– Janky platforming and combat
– Missing audio and music is a common occurrence
– Bland level design
– Rehashes ideas that have been done far better elsewhere
Rating: 4/10
Reviewed on Xbox Series X (also available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC).
A review code was provided by the publisher.
Harrison Abbott
