Forget Crash Bandicoot For Now, Here's The Return Of Kao

I hadn't heard of this IP before but the upcoming game looks more promising than I thought when I read the headlines. Good to have Crash and Spyro back and new ones like Lucky and Yooka-Laylee. Even Bubsy and Kao are back. Where are Banjo, Kazooie and Conker, though?😅

I hope that Microsoft can It's a shame if Microsoft don't release a new Banjo-Kazooie game now that not only they have Rare but Beenox, Vicarious Visions and Toys for Bob. The three of them are very good developers that make this kind of thing. Gregg Mayles still works at Rare and Grant Kirkhope would love to join the project as he's a huge Banjo-Kazooie fan (and the composer). I'd really like Leigh Loveday to write the script and story.

Spencer said they want the new studios to make games they want to make and bring old IPs back so I'm still hoping that Banjo-Kazooie and Conker come back. It's the only thing I am hoping for in regard to this hobby.

I don’t know why I don’t remember this. I was a huge fan of the Dreamcast and had a lot of games for that system even though it’s lifespan was so short. It looks like it could be a fun game. I do like platformers, I’ll keep an eye out for this one.

Never heard of this title before.. It looks really good though, Kinda like a Crash and Spyro hybrid.. I will be picking this up because I'm a sucker for 3D platformers..

I'm amazed MS hasn't made a Banjo-Kazooie game in over a decade or a brand new Conker at all. Both series' could use new entries and I hope we get them soon.

@Banjo-
Totally agree we need a new AAA platformer for Xbox of the likes of Banjo, something to even rival a game like Mario Odyssey.

Would give it a shot if it weren't such a blatant copy. I feel I've played this colorful 3D platformer many times before. Even the promo music in the trailer was a ripoff lol.

Looks cool but I've never heard of this IP either, and it came to NA even.

@IronMan30 "I'm surprised MS hasn't made a Banjo Kazooie game in over a decade.." You say... ***** MS have never made a new Banjo Kazooie game ever since acquiring Rare! That should have been something they worked on straight away honestly... It's not like Rare started making Sea of Thieves as soon as they were acquired.

And yeah since Rare have openly stated they do no want to work on any of their old IP's right now, we all have to hope that at least one of the new studios MS acquired have a pitch for a new Rare IP revival.

Lastly, when I started watching this trailer I went from less than enthused to pretty damn hyped.. Because I thought the game was going to be exclusive to Xbox haha. I also did not know that Kao is an old IP, I have never heard of it at all, N I had a Dreamcast as well as all the other older systems. Not that I want Xbox to gatekeep games from studios that they do not own, But Phil has mentioned more than once that Xbox needs to start making more family based games... And that thought is starting to sound more and more hollow as the time and opportunities go by with no results. At the very least a 4K remaster of the Banjo games (not nuts n bolts though, that games is garbage lol) and possiby Conkers Bad Fur Day if the Banjo games sold.

Yeah I played first time to Dreamcast

Nuts & Bolts is not a bad game, it's just that isn't really a platformer. Once you have upgraded Banjo's moves -at first he's not agile but at least it's explained in the introduction- it becomes a very addictive sandbox with vehicles. Creating and editing vehicles to achieve 100% in this game is very creative and rewarding. You just need to give it a little time.

Forget Kao, the Inexplicably Named Kangaroo, where's Bonk?

@NEStalgia Forget Bonk, where is Hugo?

<a class="external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(video_game)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(video_game)</a>

In 2003, PlanetStation, having previously given both Hugo and Hugo 2 the lowest possible score of 1 star, included Hugo among the five worst games from the 50 issues of the magazine.

@Banjo- woof. That's terrible 😂

At least Bonk was relevant kind of.

That reminds me though, I wonder who owns the rights to Little Big Adventure/Twinsen? Activision published it in the US. EA published in EU. Adelaide/Delphine liquidated (they were former Infogrames ( Ubisoft)), an iOS port was made, and just 3 months ago the source was released open source, but I have no idea who owns the rights or is Microsoft is getting any rights to it.

That was a wonderful series dead before it's time. 2 was PC only. But it was such an awesome adventure/rpg. I want to see sequels!

@NEStalgia Little Big Adventure was a game on my father's PC. If I remember correctly, it's a guy wearing a blue tunic that can have a normal, athletic or quiet attitude. That would be interesting, a remake?

Hugo is bad but Asterix is a beloved French franchise in this part of the world. I still haven't played any of the XXL games, though. I should give them a try.

@Banjo- Yeah, you remember the right one! (Unfortunately the name would have to be changed as it would now be confused with the far bigger Little Big Planet brand..... In the US the sequel was named Twinsen's Odyssey by Activision, but it was LBA2 in EU. It was such a good game. Dated, now, obviously, but really good and would stand up incredibly as a remake. There's still some popularity to it if it's getting modern mobile re-releases and the source is recently opened to open source. I'd love to see the series reborn, there's a rich base to work with there. But I can't figure out at all who really owns the rights to it.

Asterix, wow, that's a name I haven't heard since the mid-90's! I didn't even know it was still around. That's cool.

@NEStalgia Ha ha I thought you wouldn't even know him (since USA is the only country in the world). I'm in for a Little Big Adventure remake but I don't remember much about it...

@Banjo- Whoa, actually I searched and found this article from three days ago! Am I prescient or what?

https://www.pcgamer.com/little-big-adventure-is-being-rebooted-for-the-series-30th-anniversary/

(TL;DR: Adelines old CEO rebuilt the studio as a 12 person indie shop, was going to make the 3rd and final installment last year, but instead decided to reboot the series with a possible remake in 2024, changing the name to Twinsen's Little Big Adventure to avoid the LBP conflict.)

Best gaming news in 25 years, though not at all connected to Activision anymore. Hopefully that includes a console indie release! (The original was on PS, but the sequel was PC-only before, but it should work on console just fine.) Might be playing LBA on Game Pass after all! I'm not into indies usually, but to me this was an AAA Activision IP for 25 years, so....

LBA2 is most familiar in my head at this point. But as you said, it had the normal/atheletic/quiet modes. It was either an adventure game or an action RPG depending on how you view it. Kind of had puzzle elements. The bouncing ball was the weapon/tool, but there were also inventory items, NPC dialogue, some amount of lite-point-and-click-adventure puzzle aspects, but mostly an action adventure, top-down. Strange and fun alien world. Definitely fits the "family" category as a theme. But somehow it's just one of the most memorable games I've ever played. Still have the OG (large) PC box for 2.

@NEStalgia I was watching a Youtube video with gameplay (amazing) and I read the whole article you linked. Actually, I've never played Little Big Planet but Twinsen's Little Big Adventure is a great choice as a reboot title anyway. I will 100% buy the remake, I hope it comes to consoles. I just checked and both games were published by EA here so it probably belongs to its creator. They must remake both!

@Banjo- Neat, it apparently has a whole website already, and a note about the plans for it:
https://twinsenslittlebigadventure.com
https://twinsenslittlebigadventure.com/a-message-from-didier-chanfray/

Seriously more giddy about this than anything from the Activision deal. Other than Zork and Dark Reign, this is the first thing I think of when I think Activision anyway... (Yeah, it was only published by Activision in the US, but the logo on the box is burned into my brain.) I just hope it really works out. It seems ambitious for such a small studio (despite tons of experience.) And it's hard taking a cult classic with an early-3d-era artstyle and making it modern and massively successful. The tech gave it it's feel to a degree. And the comments on their site seem mostly toxic about chasing new audiences killing it, though one comment compared it saying the only games in the 21st century that compare to LBA are BG&E and Psychonauts... That's a big compliment.

I hadn't known that after LBA2 they'd formed a new studio backed by Sega just for making DC games, and the fate of the studio is partly tied to DC going down. That elevates the studio's mythos even more.

I can't figure out target platforms though. They seem to be mostly a PC studio in the past, but they said they wanted to bring it to the widest possible audience. That got me thinking mobile, but their mobile remaster of LBA one failing is part of what made them do this. I think it says they're using UE5 though. Could mean it's just Steam & GoG, but it would be nice to see it go console. I could see it doing well on Switch. LBA1 was on PS1, so there's some PS history, though PS doesn't seem favorable for these smaller projects today. I'd love to see Game Pass pick it up and pay for the dev. Being a cult PC classic could help that come true. It says they want to turn it into a major franchise, basically. I don't see that happening, but that's their aim.

@NEStalgia

"Seriously more giddy about this than anything from the Activision deal".

I respect that, I didn't even play it properly and I'm excited too! It looks original and fascinating.

"it's hard taking a cult classic with an early-3d-era art style and making it modern and massively successful".

They could do something like Link's Awakening remake and keep the isometric view. If they accept fan support, it should be easy.

"I think it says they're using UE5 though. Could mean it's just Steam & GoG"

I think they'll bring it to Xbox and PS5. Not sure about Switch but they could downgrade it for Switch. Link's Awakening remake looks good.

"I'd love to see Game Pass pick it up and pay for the development".

Microsoft should do that, like funding Ori should work very well and it's the kind of game that Xbox is still missing.

"It says they want to turn it into a major franchise, basically".

I can see it being Ori-big. The first and the second games were commercially successful by the 90s standards.

"After this experience I wanted to try to make a comeback for LBA and I managed to buy back the IP from Delphine Software".

"At this point, I had only one dream: find the best opportunity to make a winning comeback with LBA".

Good! We are waiting!

@Banjo- I dont know how many devs may cite LBA as an inspiration, but when I look back on it it was remarkably ahead of it's time. It was kind of the first game in that "action adventure" space that was neither RPG nor action game, nor puzzler, but mix of all of the above. Directly or not, I think it was a forerunner of a lot of what came later, but still entirely unique.

I'm assuming the reboot won't make it isometric. That was fun, but was also partial to the inputs of the time (it was on PS1 with D-pads and PC with mouse and controlled like a real-time Fallout.) I think they'd go for a more modern 3rd person, albeit with a high camera this time. Maybe more like modern Mario or Super Lucky. Sackboy does the kind of top-down at times, but that's a pure platformer, whereas the action adventure with dialogue and all fits the 3rd person better than isometric today.

As long as they're using an engine Switch supports, I can't see them not doing Switch. The colorful cartoon world fits Switch well (though it has adult humor in spots), and AFAIK Switch is still the best performing store for indies by revenue (aside from a Game Pass deal where they pay the whole development, but even that works best with a Switch entry adding cash.) Visually I can't imagine they're doing anything on their small budget be too intense for Switch to handle. These guys aren't Game Freak....

Technically it probably won't catch MS's attention, it's only a cult game after all, but with Xbox becoming the console home of all things PC legendary, It'd be nice to see it get a big spotlight on GP to help build the brand. I did see that it does say it's PC and Console (doesn't say which consoles but we know it's not PC exclusive and it's not a mobile game, so it's a win no matter where they go!)

It's an unusual indie setup. A tiny studio definitely on the veeeery low budget side of indie, but they have a ton of experience. The top execs are mostly from the non-games world (the tech lead was previously CTO for L'Occitaine apparently...definitely not video games.) But in addition to one of the OG cocreators of the series, the Director is from Ubisoft, the producer is from Guerilla (apparently including HFW), and the writer is from Ubisoft (ok, that doesn't bode well, lol ) Still, it's not your usual industry, they have a handful of people but all are industry vets.

Where did you get all that information? Not from A message from Didier Chanfray. Feel free to paste the specific links. I've never played Little Big Adventure (the title is great and so is the reboot title) properly but it looked like a mysterious and original adventure that had my father totally addicted. It felt a bit unfair with controls and evading enemies but that's normal considering the view, the digital controls and changing the character's attitude or however it is called. If it's 3D, great, it'd probably be even better.

The game should perform well commercially with a bit of hype on Switch, Game Pass and even PS for the PS1 players that still play on PS5. If Microsoft funds the project that would make things much easier (and Didier looks humble unlike Ori studio CEO who sounds like an ungrateful j*rk after having his first game funded by Microsoft).

Someone on the Sony fans criticise Aaron Greenberg for using a Crash picture thread wrote that many Crash Bandicoot players are not even on PS anymore, and it's true. I have moved from Nintendo to Sony to Microsoft and still on Nintendo but not exclusively like until Wii U. The reboot should appeal to new gamers as well.

"the writer is from Ubisoft"

Why would they need a new writer for a remake, I wonder.

"These guys aren't Game Freak...."

Link's Awakening also has slowdowns but hey, they can always do a "miracle" low-res-assets-360p-25fps port like Panic Button 😂.

Q) Will you be checking out Kao the Kangaroo's revival when it launches?

A) This year is already looking to be packed with games for me so I'm uncertain I'll have either the time or funds for this game but I'm glad to see the Kao series get a revival. I remember seeing it as a DreamCast game but never managing to obtain it and I've enjoyed seeing reviews on it from folks such as NitroRad.

If I can, I'd like to purchase and play it but E3 hasn't been announced and there are already 5 or so different games that I have my eye on (most of them releasing around the same time as well).

We've had all these 3D platforming mascots making a comeback, but I have just one question...

WHERE. IS. GEX?

It's past tail-time for the little lizard to lock and load!

At last, Ive found something good to spend my points on!