Koa the Kangaroo has hopped (sorry) onto PC and consoles, and you may be wondering how long to beat Kao the Kangaroo. Is it a lengthy endeavour? Will you be able to beat it in a weekend, or will it keep you busy for a week or two? That’s what we’re answering in this short guide.
Given that Kao the Kangaroo is an old-school-made-new 3D platformer, it’s only natural that there are collectables to hunt down and, er, collect. This drastically increases the playtime, especially if you’re in rush to beat the game on your first playthrough to get your review out the door for an embargo. No, just me on that one? To be fair, the lead time on Kao the Kangaroo was amazing, and I had a good couple of weeks to get it done. No last-minute rush this time around…
If you just want to enjoy the story and work your way through the levels without worrying too much about the numerous collectables, you can beat Kao the Kangaroo with around 8 hours of playtime. That’s roughly how long it took me and I didn’t collect everything, though I did manage to collect most of the hidden items.
Collectables and How To Find Them
In Kao the Kangaroo you have different types of collectables to find in each level, as well as in each hub world. You have the letters spelling out K-A-O, diamonds, runes, and scrolls. Some collectables are placed directly in your obvious path to the end of the level, like the runes. These rune stones are needed to unlock levels, so it’s reasonable that they’re fairly easy to find through your natural playthrough. I still missed a few, mind you, and they’re better hidden in some of the hub worlds, but not to the point that you’ll be searching for hours on end.
The K-A-O letters are a little trickier, but as there are only three of them and you should be collecting them in order, it’s easy to know if you’ve missed one. If your first collected letter in a level is A, it means you need to backtrack a little and have a look around to find K. Fairly easy stuff, then.
The diamonds are a little trickier. Each level has a handful of them and they tend to be better hidden. You’ll need to really explore the side passages and secret areas (hint: use your glove power-ups to find new areas to explore) to find them all. Something that’s a little annoying about the diamonds, however, is that if you collect, say, two or three in between checkpoints but Kao dies before you hit the next checkpoint, you’ll lose those diamonds. That means you’ll have to re-trace your paths and collect them again. This… was not so nice. And it’s the same rule in hub worlds where there are no checkpoints, so be extra careful when you’re collecting between main levels.
To make things even trickier, there are the Eternal Well challenge levels which require you to either complete a tricky platforming obstacle course or fend off a number of enemies while scooping up the diamonds. Die, lose them all. You’ve been warned.
The scrolls are even harder to find, mainly because each level only has a couple at most. For the most part, each level only has one scroll, so they are easy to miss and you may hit the end of the level without collecting them.
To get 100% completion in Kao the Kangaroo and to complete the game fully, you’ll likely need around 10-12 hours of playtime to accommodate the extra time spent backtracking through levels for hidden items, as well as replaying levels that you’ve already completed, as well as the challenging Eternal Well levels.