Genre: Action, Adventure
Developer: Tate Multimedia
Publisher: Tate Multimedia
Platform: PC (Steam)
Release Date: Jun 1, 2019
Price: $1.99
I never played Kao the Kangaroo when it launched. We were into the PS2 era of gaming and the mascot 3D platformer was beginning to wear thin in an industry that was beginning to place the focus on more adult games. The only reason I know about this game is because it was being given away free on Steam for a hot second. Don’t know is this was intentional or not, but it got the game some attention and got me to put this review together.
I missed the freebie, but since Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 is only $1.99, it was hard to pass up. A retro 3D platformer starring a cute animal and his friends: count me right the heck in. And for the most part, I really enjoyed my time with Kao the Kangaroo Round 2, even if the game is a clone of better games that came before it.
You are playing a game that would look right at home on the Nintendo 64 alongside Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, even though it came out on the far more powerful PS2. You get the standard 3D platforming with the wonky camera, a hub world that takes you into the various world with unique playstyles, and lots of extra gameplay segments that serve to mix-up all the jumping on platforms and punching baddies.
It’s all fine. But while Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 is colorful and looks great updated to play on modern systems, it never really comes into its own. The game simply has no identity to speak of. Every segment that you experience will only serve to remind you of another game where it was introduced and done better. Remember the ice-sliding races in Mario 64? You got it here. Love Sonic Adventure 2 and the crazy truck opening? Yup, Kao has that too. What about SSX? Add it to the list. Donkey Kong Country minecarts? Check. There are even Crash Bandicoot-style running toward the screen segments.
Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 simply pulls the cool moments from other games that the developers liked, but it just never does them quite as good. It’s like a greatest hits of what came before. I know this might sound a bit harsh in 2019, but even when it dropped on the PS2 these criticisms would stand. It’s the sort of game a wide-eyed child would create; pulling from all their favorite games instead of doing something unique to itself.
Rolling around at the speed of sound.
That said: Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 is still a lot of retro fun. It also has in its corner the fact that a lot of people passed up on the title, at least here in the West, for their Metal Gear’s and Madden’s and Mortal Kombat’s. Taking it for what it is allows you to go back to a simpler time where the polish wasn’t as important as it is now. The story makes no sense, the dialogue jumps from one laugh-out-loud scene to the next, and some solid platform makes all this worth the small investment.
But aside from a few laughs, there are a few problems that are inherent with 3D platformers. The camera will get you into trouble and sometimes spin around to a position that in incredibly inconvenient for you. Combat is simple but has issues as the game goes on. Once projectiles enter into play the game becomes much harder, not be cause of the difficulty, but because you can’t easily avoid projectiles. You can’t jump over most of them and the lack of targeting means you’ll be killed, sometimes before knowing it.
The worst this problem gets is during the mine-cart style levels. Enemies will lock onto you and peg you before you have time to react. I would simply blind-fire and hop to avoid taking as much damage as possible. Deaths can often feel cheap which really does take away from the experience in later levels. I’m okay with being killed, but when it feels like it’s the games fault I take issue. And then there are the platforming issues themselves.
Getting stuck in the environment is a pain.
More than a few times I got stuck in the world somehow and was forced to exit back into the hub-world. This was extremely annoying as some of the levels can be pretty long, especially because of all the deaths and checkpoint restarts. And then there are the boss battles and lack of explanations to go along with them and some gameplay sections. It’s really easy to skip cutscenes that never show up again. Look, I’m all for skipping cutscenes, but I usually want to skip them after I’ve seen them at least once. The games first boss was like this and even after a restart, I needed to go online to find out what to do.
Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 is a lot of fun, but it’s also wicked frustrating for the wrong reasons at times. It’s not a good game or an underrated game as many claim, but it’s worth the $2 if for the insanely funny mess of a story the game presents. I don’t know anything about Tate Multimedia, but I love that they updated this PS2 game for modern systems and are selling it for a wicked fair price. It’s not a classic but it’s worth a lot more than the $2 there are selling it for.
“Kao the Kangaroo Round 2 isn’t a classic 3D platformer, but at $2 this remaster is packed with lots of fun.”
Final Score: 2.5/5
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