Kao the Kangaroo is an Adventure Platforming game released by Titus in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance. In this movie, Kao speeds through levels, destroying enemies in his way.
Game objectives
- Emulator used: Bizhawk 1.11.3
- Takes damage to save time
- Uses hardest difficulty
Comments
Kao the Kangaroo is an Adventure Platforming game released by Titus in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance, as well as other platforms such as the Sega Dreamcast. The game consists of four worlds, each with different amounts of levels that Kao must beat. At the end of each world, Kao must defeat a boss to continue onto the next world, until he reaches the Hunter, which he defeats, avenging the kangaroos caught by the Hunter.
The game is awfully notable for it's difficulty. The fast-paced action combined with tough enemies makes the game a challenge for many players. However, armed with TAS tools, Kao anticipates enemies and utilizes them to his advantage.
By jumping on the right side of an enemy, Kao can get boosted by the enemy, giving him a large boost, and a speed increase of 25% for around 100 frames. This damage boosting technique saves many frames throughout the run. However, since Kao lose health for every damage boost, TAS must conserve health, often being left with 1 hit of health left. For this reason, most of the TAS is in the state of minimum health.
Glitches Used
Enemy Clipping
By precisely jumping through the bottom of a flower, Kao can get damage boosted through the flower, thus skipping the enemy whole, and also giving him a speed increase. The only known places where Kao can enemy clip are at three flower enemies in the middle of the level.
Animation Canceling
In the snowboard level, if Kao punches while encountering the snowboard, the punch animation will be canceled, but Kao won't be on a snowboard. Using this, he can jump down to the lower level. Though it looks as if Kao is "dying", he will continue falling, until the death animation is canceled, the punch animation finishes, and Kao gets a snowboard. This saves a few seconds over going through the upper section, since you can not jump down.
Stage Comments
1-1
Nothing to note here except the only use of enemy clipping in the whole run.
Boss 1
This boss is a little crazy (and boring as well). He has a lot of health, meaning I must manipulate him in a way that he doesn't move. By doing precise frame-perfect movements, which look very sporadic to the viewer, I can manage to manipulate him for a bit to stay in the same position. However, he soon starts an earthquake animation. I also gets a lot of hits from him, but this means he starts walking again, and it would be slower to manipulate him at this point. I continue with a normal strategy, then defeat him.
2-1
In this stage, I use animation canceling to save time. However, apart from this, there are no notable tricks in this stage
2-4
A funny thing that happens in this stage is when I have to climb up one of the trees. By jumping very fast, the camera can't catch up, and Kao's x-position overflows, putting him at the bottom of the stage instead of just above the camera. Nothing else in this stage is notable.
3-4
Again, in this stage, I have to climb up the "tower". However, this time, the tower is so tall that Kao's position overflows twice. Nothing else in this stage is notable
Boss 3
By strictly forcing the boss into the corner, he can not go back into his genie lamp and teleport, meaning I can just "ground pound" on him to my heart's content (or until he dies).
Boss 4
The Hunter is a quite easy boss: for TAS at least. All I need to do is move as he moves, and ground pound on him repeatedly until he dies. While running to the finish post, I end early to save frames on TAS timing, and the deceleration of Kao pushes him just into the post, triggering the long cutscene. TAS timing ends at 16:25.144.
Other comments
Due to the lack of computer memory, an encode of this movie would not fit on my hard drive. A temporary encode would be great for anyone who is willing.
Game Version
The game was not released in Japan, meaning I can't skip the language select menu. The USA version is same as the EU version, and contains the European languages as well.
Suggested screenshot
Frame 13316: Kao animation cancels, confusing the game on what animation to play.
Special Thanks
I would like to give a large thanks to those who helped me along the way during the making of this tool-assisted movie. These people are:
- Malleoz for showing me to the world of tool-assisted speedruns.
- AltruismAndCake for tolerating my consistent ranting about tool-assisted speedrunning, and even helping me as well.
- The tasvideos.org IRC channel who motivated me to complete my first tool-assisted speedrun.
- Freddie Mercury