There’s a handful of classic 3D Platforming games that we’d love to see make a comeback.

Pandemonium. Croc. Gex. We’d even love to see more Rayman. Only a handful have managed to see the light of day, though, with Crash and Spyro being the big obvious choices, with Klonoa, amazingly, joining that crop later this year.

Another more obscure choice is Kao the Kanagaroo, probably the lesser known of all the above mentioned platformers, but a game with a cult following nonetheless. So much so there was a bring Kao back hashtag that did the rounds for a long time.

Fortunately for those fans, Kao is most definitely back in a big budget, beautifully redesigned video game for modern formats and it’s pretty good.

Set on Hopalloo Island, Kao really leans into that classic 3D platforming vibe that so many games have failed to recreate over the years. It has that familiar level design, the extremely vibrant color palette, smooth controls, plenty of action and hidden items, and enough creativity to keep itself interesting.

It also maintains that obsession of spelling out a character’s name with letter collecting. At least it’s pretty short and sweet with a name like Kao.

Kao is minus the Akubra and plane this time, though, and is an all-in boxing kangaroo, gloves and all. The game has grown up plenty from its more tongue-in-cheek origins, too. Well, aside from the obvious pun on the name. But it’s less about making jibs about Australian culture, more about fighting off an evil overlord in a stunning fantasy world.

It suits the game well as you battle oversized frogs, spiders and puffer fish, all while still maintaining an identity from the reams of competitors you’ll find on the market.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not up to Nintendo’s high platforming standards, but Kao is an entertaining enough romp with its focus on combination timing with punches, projectile deflecting with tailwhips, and some good old fashioned boomerang throwing to hit things from range.

You collect far too many coins to know what to do with, get to have conversations with wise old koala bears, and even have ferocious lava and ice levels to work through. Because of course you do.

It’s everything you’d expect from a 3D platformer, for better and worse, and sometimes it does inherit those same frustrations, repetitons and linearity which became commonplace in those same retro hits.

Verdict

Kao the Kangaroo does everything you’d expect on the tin but not much more. That’s both its biggest strength and greatest weakness. It’s a wonderful throwback with a stunning visual palette and fairly strong core gameplay but it suffers the same technical limitations as other classic platformers and falls into almost all the same traps they did.