Nothing Kangaroo does is bad; it's just not at all memorable or interesting. Kangaroo makes for a great case study on why the original two Donkey Kongs - which this is clearly trying to emulate - are so immaculately designed. The screens are less-interesting layouts to test game mechanics. Enemies are a lot more straightforward to dispatch and require less mastery over the game itself. Power-ups are dropped fruits (like DK Jr.) instead of something that completely flips the script like the original Donkey Kong's hammer. The climactic rescue level is THIRD in each loop rather than at the END of each loop. Music is admittedly considerably more complex, but it's all lite arrangements of existing music - far from the harsh sting of Toccata and Fugue that opens DK Jr.

There's enough going on here that it's not hard to see why this looked appealing in '82 - enough to sneak its way into the Saturday Supercade's line-up for season 2. But it's also not hard to see why this game didn't have the same lasting appeal as everything else featured in the Saturday Supercade's line-up.