One leap forward for platformers, one legion of devilish, smart, cosplaying monkeys!
With the army of apes, Specter arms every one of them with a helmet and has sent his legions back in time to erase humanities accomplishments and rewrite the history of apes. Along the way, Spike and his friend get sent back in time and end up separated amongst our primates. Even so, Spike still finds help through his friends. The Professor reports observations of the shifting timelines you're moving through and the implementing changes being developed by your opposition. They'll also brief you on the gadgets being sent to you. In terms of story, the game pulls a fairly standard 'we screwed up' affair which places you in a situation to sort it all out. Character development and dialogue is pretty low or nonexistent. Still, the story stays out of the way and is alright when it intervenes briefly; the apes in particular add humor to a scene just the right way that it feels creative.
As is with the typical platformer, Spike is instructed to travel to various levels and catch so many of the wreaking population of apes. To my chagrin, as soon as Spike captures enough apes, he's immediately beamed back to his teleport base without the option of you to continue exploring. However, no level can be fully completed the first time you go at it; but when you come back, you'll start at the beginning of the level even when there were apes you could've clearly caught on your first run. He also collects energy chips, t-shirts, and cookies too boost his respawn count and health (interesting collection of healing items to say the least). This all sounds as traditional as possible in terms of 3D platformers but there are mini-games you can unlock by collecting these huge Specter coins. Spike can also climb up trees to get better viewpoints. There's also a hub world that isn't as large as other hub worlds in these types of games; but it's this game's ideal. Individual areas allow you to save and load your game, select any environment you've already been to, retrain with gadgets, and access the mini-games.
The camera is alright but there have been better designs before; the camera is immediately centered behind you with the tap of a button and the d-pad can steer the camera, or look freely from a first-person perspective. The default camera programming works well, except when you've adjusted the camera to focus in on something particular and then it re-corrects itself which diverts from what you originally positioned the camera for! Hopefully you're good at steering your jumps because you'll sometimes need to do this to catch every ape. The first-person viewpoint is also useful; but it's extremely tepid about being used in confined areas, making me use this option only half as often as I would have.
So, now that Sony has convinced you to by this analog controller, what does it do for the game? A lot, in fact the game gives you a highly precise degree of control and does this without feeling like the control is overly responsive. With the analog sticks, you can move in any precise direction as well as switch between walking and crawling (depending on how far you move the stick) with the left nub. The right stick is used for gadgets and weapons; intuitively, these are personally assignable to the face buttons (X, O, Triangle, Square) and there's a decent number each with highly different utilizations. One is a multi ammo slingshot where you lean the nub back like a sling to get a precise shot; when you're aimed up, you release the nub just like with a slingshot. Another is a 'monkey radar' where you steer the nub around to find a hiding ape; however, the range on this device is limited. When you pick up a target, you'll get a vibrating, blinking icon, and you can see the ape's stats. Likely your go-to tools are your 'stun club' and 'monkey net'; the stun club is designed like a sword and can be struck in any direction with a flick of the analog stick. It can also be swung 360 degrees by rolling the nub around in a circular manner. The net is similar in its control maneuvers, but the trick with the net is you now have to capture the apes with it when they're KO'd or unaware.
Now, in the world of Ape Escape where apes have travelled back in time, there is no limit to where, when, or what they've occupied and this makes levels very interesting. You'll see an array of different environments and they'll quickly throw you into every type of level design platformers have attempted thus far and a few others too. You'll get to fly, swim, speed run, and man vehicles all from time to time. Additionally, levels are intuitively designed; navigating multi-tier levels with open designs, hidden areas, and challenging (but fair) jumping environments or mini-bosses simply is Ape Escape's standard and not the exception. This level of design makes you wonder just what's gonna happen next when you hit a button or interact with something peculiar and just makes you wonder what else they've conjured up.
The helmets these apes got their paws on raised their IQ by a significant degree and usually make them at least a simple challenge to overcome. Each primate has 3 different stats, a name, and might also be armed with a weapon or vehicle. The stats revolve around the ape's speed, attack, and alert. You may have noticed something there, 'alert' means stealth and this element is optional but yes, some monkeys are hyper sensitive to your presence and some are as lazy as Fatman. You can tell by the colour of an ape's siren, what degree they are aware of you; this can deviate between not knowing, cautiously uneasy, and full blown aware. The mastery of stealth largely comes from learning the core mechanics of the control behavior and patience – gadgets may help you in these cases but they aren't exactly necessary. I've admittedly been talking about apes being the enemy at large but there are other levels including giant electric fish, birds, stone statues, and some other very out-of-this-world designs. They also add to the experience especially because there's nothing really like with what I've seen in terms of enemy designs that's like this – Pokémon is maybe a distant comparison with some of these designs.
It's very interesting in terms of visuals for a game like this, compared to competitors; Ape Escape looks fair (maybe a little basic) in terms of polygons and yet everything it does with those polygons make for environments that are incredibly attractive. The animations are lively, the colours span a wide range, texturing is pretty clear, and the designs have a wonderfully foreign look to themselves. Knowing this Japanese development retains most of itself probably is the reason for all of this from the trees and stages that change with time periods to each level having something particularly otherworldly. This also all applies in general for the sounds and tunes that have been smartly conjured and are technically strong. The music brims with the whole theme of going out on an unknown adventure and encountering all sorts of events. The music changes constantly and carries along with Ape Escape's sometimes hectic pacing; in fact depending on how you move (running, walking, or crawling), the music will become more or less present with Spike. As for the acting… yeah, it's pretty mediocre and Spike's one-liners are god damn lame; I know acting in the 90s wasn't anything good but this can sound unnecessarily bad.
Ape Escape's length lands for most at about 10 – 12 hours – that does include the time you spend in tutorial stages. It's an okay length especially when every level virtually insists that you come back when you've got more gadgets for all 200 or so apes. You should do this but I don't think your interest will extend as far as the number of apes to collect. Ape Escape is a grand endeavor that justifies the tech it sells and the game it backs that tech with. In spite of a few small design issues and some mediocre VO, all of this just ends up being nitpicks. Ape Escape provides an innovative, foreign, and familiar but also unapproached concept to 3D platformers; the result is something that knocks the brazened competition back at least a whole tier and probably more for the genre. Ultimately, Ape Escape takes things to the next level and any fan of games should be riding the wave of a game that does that; so, go ape and enjoy it.
+Stellar level design
+Sharp degree of control and controller integrations
+Pleasantly foreign audiovisual atmosphere
+Challenging, tricky, and varied enemy designs