Kao the Kangaroo: Mystery of the Volcano
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| Kao the Kangaroo: Mystery of the Volcano | ||||||||||||||
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 A good way to end the original Kao trilogy
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Kao the Kangaroo: Mystery of the Volcano (Polish: Kao: Tajemnica Wulkanu) is an adventure platformer video game released in 2005 by Tate Interactive and the sequel to Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2.
This is the first Kao game not to be originally released in Western Europe or North America, and the only English release was extremely limited to Australia.
Plot
In this installment, Kao ends up in an archipelago where he has to collect four artifacts to overcome evil forces manifesting from a nearby volcano, in order to get inside and defeat the God of the Volcano and free his friend.
Good Qualities
- Once again, the graphics manage to be pretty good, since they are very detailled and colorful, and overall are good for their times even for a 2005 game, in fact they look so good that they may be even better than in Round 2.
- Solid, responsive controls that are exactly the same as Round 2.
- Unlike the previous games where there's was little to no explorations, here it got more exploration and it's even to the point of being a traditionnal adventure platforming game, which could be great for those who wanted an exploration game of Kao the Kangaroo, even if it's way too short.
- Good voice acting, even if there isn't any english dub because of the game being only released in Poland.
- While forgettable compared to the previous games, the soundtrack is still pretty decent to listen to and is very relaxing at times.
- The level design is once again fantastic since it take inspiration from the Rayman franchise and had some inspiration from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger too, which is cool and make for a good combinaison of ideas.
- The combat is mostly taken from Round 2 but it is still solid and the target system work better here due to being slighly more fluids, and your weapon got more ranges in comparison.
- Kao had an Indiana Jones esque costume, which is a nice touch and is fitting considering that this is an adventure game where he try to find the mystery of the volcano, hence the title of the game.
- While forgettable, it had an interesting premise which is now centered on a volcano theme and for those who didn't liked the dark tone of the second game, here it is more light-hearted, though it remove some charms of Round 2.
- Great and epic final boss that is very challenging, though it is the only boss of the game unfortunately.
- It was a good way to end the original Kao trilogy, despite not being as good as Round 2.
Bad Qualities
- The game is still incredibly short, to the point of being even shorter than Round 2, as the game can be completed in only 2 hours.
- While the previous games feel like a rip off of Rayman 2 (although in a good way), here it feel more like a knock off of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, due to being more of an adventure game.
- Forgettable story compared to Round 2, despite being still good.
- Unlike Round 2, there's only one boss fight, which is the final boss, although the boss itself is pretty good.
- The ending isn't the best and feel like it was extremely rushed, since there's isn't any cutscenes after you defeat the final boss.
- Unlike the two previous Kao's games, this game is exclusively on PC, which can be disappointing for people who have a console who wanted to play this games.
- Not to mention that before the Steam release, having the game working is hard if you didn't had an Windows XP, though fortunately as of 2023, the game was released on Steam.
Reception
The game wasn't as popular to the first two games due to being a polish exclusive and not being released in North America, the game also received mixed reviews and wasn't as well received as Round 2, having only 6/10 compared to the former game 10/10 on Steam.
Trivia
- It is the only game in the franchise to never come out outside Poland, and this was what make the game so obscure in the first place.
- Idea of a remake was one of the many ideas to bring the Kao franchise back, but instead a completely new game in 2022 came out, which was well received.
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