Kao: Mystery of Volcano

Kao: Mystery of Volcano is an obscure addition to the Kao the Kangaroo franchise. The game saw an incredibly limited English release in Australia.

Clarification Regarding the Game Engine#

Mystery of Volcano was developed after Kao Challengers, and is a direct remake of the Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 engine. Any text related to "possible ports" for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube is simply a leftover from actual Kao 2 releases.

There are a few more facts supporting this statement:

• Console-related text are nowhere to be found in the game's executable (kao_tw.exe).
• Archive versions supported by the engine include 0x8B to 0x90. 0x8C was a final version supported by Kao Challengers, whereas Round 2 supported versions 0x54 to 0x89 (actual archives starting from 0x67).
• The following build strings can be found in later Kao games:

Build: Aug 11 2005  02:11:29

Build: Nov 18 2005  17:21:05

Build: Feb  7 2006  20:18:21

Build: Sep 20 2006  11:42:42

Build: Nov  7 2006  14:15:16

• Some textures reused from Kao Challengers can be found in the game's files in higher quality.

Sub-Page#

Unused SubtitlesMany of them are leftovers from Kao Challengers.

Unused Objects#

eForest#

An object that never appears in any script file. It uses some code related to vertex shaders, which is quite unusual, and its purpose is unknown yet.

Unused Modes and Gameplay Features#

Tilting Camera in Virtual Race#

Example video.

A camera controlled by object "eBobsleighPhysics" that rolls around the track with the player vechicle. It can be enabled using debug flag 0x79 (byte[0x007595D0+0x79] = 0x01), or by using the following assembly hack:

001C6AF7: E9 E1 00 00 00 90 90

001C66A7: E9 E1 00 00 00 90 90

Split Screen Multiplayer#

Watch on YouTube

Multiplayer is a feature leftover from Kao Challengers that was supposed to be included in Mystery of Volcano as well, although it was partially scrapped because of an upcoming release date.

Both split screen and server-client modes are present in the game's code. It can be quickly deduced that the mode was only designed for battle instead of cooperation. Most objects from the singleplayer campaign were not scripted to work properly with other players than Player 1, although the levels from Kao Challengers work fine after a few tweaks.

To enable multiplayer, one needs to write -np= in "media/user.ini" file, followed by a number of players (from 2 to 4). Some additional tweaks to the game are required as well – by default, most launch options are not parsed, character script throws errors and other players' spawnpoints are set to [0,0,0].

Missing Cutscenes#

The following speeches are missing during the gameplay due to some scripting errors:

"sound/voices_pl/gadzet/gadzet_09.wav"

[Gadżet_09]
pl = "Ścigamy się jeszcze raz?"
en = "Shall we race again?"

"sound/voices_pl/drewniak/drewniak_29.wav"

[Drewniak_29]
pl = "Hehe, przecież to było oczywiste, że podołasz, ale wiesz, jesteś bardzo odważny. Naprawdę jesteś odważny!"
en = "Hehe, after all, it was obvious that you can handle that, but you know, you are very brave. Really brave, at that!"

Unused Animations#

The following character models have some unused animations:

"build/pc/Boss_lava.ar"

• "flame_02"
• "throw_stdby_02_in"
• "throw_stdby_02_out"

"build/pc/kao.ar"

• "fall_back_2"
• "speed_up"
• "attack_legs_old"
• "speed_jump"
• "speed_jump_d"
• "ass_slide"
• "snow_go"
• "snow_jump_up"
• "snow_fall"
• "snow_jump_down"
• "snow_ramp_go"
• "snow_ramp_jump"
• "snow_go_fast"
• "snow_turn_r_idle"
• "snow_turn_l_idle"
• "snow_brake"
• "snow_fall_2"
• "swim_go"
• "swim_hurt"
• "pelikan_idle_fly"
• "snow_ramp_jump_down"
• "start_fly"
• "borsuk_walk"
• "standby_sad"
• "run_happy_fast"
• "torpedo_swim"
• "swim_eksterminacja"
• "snow_standby"
• "ship_escape"
• "borsuk_oddychanie"
• "forest_1_cut_1"
• "wake_up"
• "torpedo_change"
• "torpedo_change_inst"
• "swim_speed"
• "pelikan_fly_fly"
• "pelikan_ready_go"
• "pelikan_hub_talk"
• "kao_sorrow"
• "kao_mean"
• "attack_roll_star"
• "attack_tail_star"
• "swim_standby"
• "moto_race"
• "borsuk_walk_slow"
• "ramp_fly_ground"
• "ramp_jump"
• "ramp_fly"
• "borsuk_throw"
• "garnek_standby"
• "miotla_start"
• "pelikan_run"
• "standby_angry"
• "give"
• "miotla_fly"
• "bobslej_old"

"build/pc/pelican_Ace.ar"

• "standby_wioska"

"build/pc/pelican_Gadget.ar"

• "standby_01"
• "scena_06"
• "key_throw"
• "naprawia_przerywa"
• "standby_01_lookleft_end"
• "standby_01_lookleft_start"
• "standby_01_lookright_end"
• "standby_01_lookright_start"
• "scena_10"

"build/pc/pelican_Kaplan.ar"

• "scena_22"

"build/pc/rockjaw.ar"

• "standby"
• "angry"
• "attack_przesuniecie"

"build/pc/rockman.ar"

• "upadek_01"
• "atakowanie"

"build/pc/Volcano.ar"

• "hurt_eye_02"
• "jump_and_hide"
• "unhide_then_stand"
• "ready_to_jump"
• "hammer_pose"
• "hide_pose"
• "jump_and_hammer_02"
• "standby_open_eye"