Ape Escape | Review

Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Studio

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Reviewed on: PlayStation

Available on: PlayStation

Released on: May 31^st 1999

Ape Escape is a series of 3D collectathon platformers I've always been fond of but one which I've never properly delved into all that much. There are three main series games, the first of which was on the PS1 and the two sequels were released on the PS2. I've only ever completed Ape Escape 3 which I remember being very good, though I've not played it for a long time.

I had a demo of the first Ape Escape and this made me want to try out the full game but until relatively recently I had never gotten around to doing so. Exactly why this is I have no idea but it could have something to do with the fact that the PS2 was released quite soon after Ape Escape's release, so I had simply moved on to the new system by the time I would have gotten around to playing it.

I did play the remake of Ape Escape on the PSP (called Ape Escape: P in Europe and Ape Escape: On The Loose in America) but I fail to remember if I completed it or not. Putting all of that aside, I now have a copy of Ape Escape on PS1 so I can play the original version as it was intended.

Looking for a game with monkey abuse? Look no further!

A strange thing I noticed straight away about Ape Escape is how difficult it is to play the darn thing. It doesn't work on PS3, PS2 or by emulating it on PC (or at least I couldn't get it to work using that method) so the only way of playing it is to have an original PlayStation and do it the way nature intended. Luckily I have an original PlayStation, so this wasn't a problem for me. I haven't tried using the PS2 Slim model or the original versions of the PS3, so I can't say if it works on those, nor can I say if the backwards compatibility issues exist with NTSC (American) versions of the game.

What separated Ape Escape from other games at the time is that it actually needed the Dualshock controller to function, you couldn't play the game without it (using an original PlayStation controller would result in getting stuck on the title screen). Because of this, the controls are substantially different from other PS1 platformers but I'll go into the specifics later in the review.

For now, lets talk about the story of Ape Escape. The game begins with the most popular monkey at a zoo (called Specter) putting on a helmet (called the 'Peak Point Helmet') created by a Professor who must be running some kind of experiment to see what the helmet is capable of.

Unfortunately (as the name of the game suggests) the experiment goes wrong. The helmet makes Specter's intelligence increase but also warps his mind turning him into an evil villain. Specter somehow reverse engineers the helmet and mass produces them, handing them out to all the other monkeys in the zoo. With Specter's help all the monkeys escape and head straight to the Professor's lab where they activate a time machine and begin to alter the future of humanity by destroying it's past. Terminator style.

Specter is distinct from the other monkeys because he's white, him being so different from the others is probably why he's the most popular monkey at the zoo.

You play as a young boy called Spike who (along with his friend Buzz) visits the lab to discover the chaos that's ensued. You rescue the Professor and his assistant/granddaughter (Katie) but not before getting trapped by a blast coming from the time machine and being whisked away to the Prehistoric Era. Luckily, the Professor is able to send you gadgets which have been built to capture the monkeys and stop them from changing the past.

Later in the game Specter brainwashes Buzz (Spike's childhood friend) to become his evil sidekick and uses him to test Spike's abilities. He also creates an even more powerful version of the Peak Point Helmet which makes him even more intelligent than before.

After a while of traveling through time, Spike eventually finds himself in the present day again. Only, things aren't the same as when he left. The monkeys have successfully altered time to the point where they run wild through the streets and advertisements have been replaced with images of Specter in a dictator-like fashion. Spike rushes to the lab to regroup with the Professor and Katie but finds a videotape of them being kidnapped and taken to the city center by a gang of monkeys.

Spike eventually rescues the Professor and Katie from a modified theme park re-purposed as a prison by Specter. He also fights the brainwashed Buzz and wakes him up from his trace-like state before telling him to head back to the lab so he can find and defeat Specter once and for all.

This right here is the expression of absolute horror.

Upon finding Specter he attempts to brainwash Spike like he did with Buzz earlier in the game, but it doesn't affect him because his willpower is too strong (main character cliches 101), they then engage in a battle in which Spike is victorious. Specter retreats and Spike is left to go back to the lab with his friends. He is then directed by the Professor to go back through time again and completely fix all of the damage the monkeys have done (by catching all of the remaining miscreants). Meanwhile, in the present, a citywide clean-up has begun to revert everything to the way it was before Specter took over.

After capturing all the monkeys (204 in total) that are still loose the Professor contacts Spike revealing where Specter is hiding. Upon finding Specter once again, he shows some compassion asking how the breeder at the zoo is, Spike asks if he wants to go back but Specter, being the stubborn monkey that he is, doesn't want to admit he misses the zoo and proceeds to fight Spike.

Spike defeats and captures Specter and as the credits roll we see Spike, Buzz and Katie carrying Specter (now without the Peak Point Helmet) to the zoo where he reunites with the breeder. In the post credits scene Spike realises they are late getting back home and the three friends rush away leaving Specter in the hands of the zoo breeder.

The story of Ape Escape is actually quite detailed for a 3D platformer. Normally they consist of simply rescuing someone and while there are elements of this, there's also a lot more going on with the betrayal by Buzz, the situation where Specter actually succeeds in changing the future (albeit temporarily) and how your friends are kidnapped part way through the game adding a bit of tension. While it's not an example of exceptional story telling, it does keep you wanting to know what happens next. I feel like the relaionship between Specter and the zoo breeder could have been built on a bit more, that relationship is only mentioned near the end of the game and it could have been more hard hitting to learn Specter actually misses him if he had been mentioned before.

I have to say, the European voice acting for Specter is so much better than the American version. He doesn't have anywhere near as much personality with the American voice acting.

The gameplay of Ape Escape is similar to that of a typical 3D collectathon platformer. You explore open levels in search of different collectibles which unlock new stages and progress the story. Where Ape Escape throws a twist into the formula though is in the way that the collectibles are the enemies. The main objective in every level is to catch a certain number of monkeys using your Time Net gadget and after doing so you will have fixed that era of time and be able to move forward to the next era.

Other typical collectables are also present, like a t-shirt which grants an extra life, cookies which restore your health (you have 5 hit points before you lose a life) and Gold Chips are Ape Escape's equivalent of Super Mario's coins (collecting 100 of these grants you an extra life). Also scattered across the levels (normally hidden away) are Specter Coins which unlock different minigames but I'll talk about these minigames later in the review.

One of the main things you'll be given to help you in your journey are different gadgets which can be used to traverse terrain and capture monkeys in different ways. You start the game with a Stun Club and Time Net which allow you to hit enemies and capture monkeys respectively. Later in the game you'll have access to quite an arsenal of gadgets, from a Water Net, Monkey Radar, Slingback Shooter, Super Hoop, Sky Flyer, R.C. Car and Magic Punch. All of these items are very versatile and are used in multiple different ways throughout the game. For example the R.C. Car can be used as a weapon by driving it into enemies, it can activate pressure pads allowing you to move freely while keeping it pressed and it can be used to lure monkeys out of hiding spots. This makes the gadgets feel special and rewarding when you gain access to them. Not only this but it opens up backtracking opportunities because certain gadgets are needed to navigate certain obstacles or defeat certain enemies seen earlier in the game.

This monkey is just chilling out on a beach until you show up to ruin his day. Who really is the bad guy here?

Every single one of the gadgets heavily utilises the right analogue stick in some way, while it's weird to think of an analogue stick as a gimmick, back then it wasn't common for controllers to have two analogue sticks. Ape Escape was the first game to utilise these two analogue sticks and show off what was possible with them. I'll go into the controls in a bit more detail later on, but one thing that impresses me about Ape Escape is how, yes, the controls are gimmicky, but they also work intuitively and add a lot to the gameplay.

The game progresses by completing three levels, each with their own theme, then moving onto the next set of three levels. Sometimes between these sets of levels you'll encounter a sort of boss fight with Buzz, but rather than being a straight forward boss fight it's more of just a race to make sure you've properly learned how to use your gadget abilities and how to combine them. While this is a nice change of pace, I would have rather had actual boss fights, and it's not like they didn't know how to design a good boss either because towards the end of the game you have several encounters with Specter and each one is quite a good fight which requires mastery of a certain gadget and has a bit of puzzle solving and tests your timing to work out how and when to hit him.

Between each level you'll be teleported to the Time Station where you can run around and access minigames, a training area, save the game and go to the level select screen. Think of it as being Ape Escape's version of the Warp Room from Crash Bandicoot 2 and 3.

In the training area you can replay the various tutorial stages that you have to go through when given a new gadget.

Upon completing a level for the first time you'll see that it now has a 'Clear' marker above it on the level selection screen, however, if you go back later when you've acquired a new gadget, you'll be able to find hidden areas of the levels with new monkeys to catch. This basically means you'll have to play through the game twice to fully complete it, because you need to catch every monkey to defeat the final boss and get the true ending. Even though this may seem like a cheap way to extend the game time, I actually like the way this is implemented. Because you are playing through sections of the same levels again but with new gadgets, you get a real sense of progression because you can now whizz through sections that would have taken a long time to get through before and because the secret areas can sometimes be so big it doesn't even feel like you're playing the same level a lot of the time. After collecting all the monkeys in a level it will display an 'All Clear' marker on the level select screen and show a Specter Coin icon (if you've got them all) which adds to the sense of satisfaction when you're going for 100% completion.

One of the things that gives the game a lot of personality is how you can use your Monkey Radar to scan for the locations of the monkeys (a very helpful tool) but it also lets you see them living in the wild with a camera feature, it shows you their stats and it displays their unique names and descriptions which can sometimes be quite funny. While a lot of that is useless from a gameplay perspective it just adds that bit of charm and makes the monkeys even more likable.

Even though the monkeys are cute and appear non-threatening, they can actually pose quite a big threat. At the start of the game they will simply run away from you and try and flail their arms in a desperate attempt to make you back off. Later in the game though they will become more aggressive and start using their environment against you, they'll ride dinosaurs while throwing bombs at you, they'll drive UFOs around and shoot you from afar and they'll even get inside a tree and use its branches as makeshift arms to swipe you away. They'll also arm themselves with sub-machine guns and rocket packs in their attempts to destroy you.

The rocket pack monkeys are particularly hard to catch because they just continuously shoot unavoidable missiles at you.

Depending on what stats they've been given they will be wearing different coloured shorts which is a handy way of quickly identifying what monkeys are going to cause you problems. You can sneak up to the monkeys who pose the biggest threat and catch them before they even know what hit them using a very basic stealth system. Some monkeys will have weapons, some will be fast, some will be aggressive and some will be an easy catch, so keeping your eye on their stats using the Monkey Radar and what colour their shorts are is a good strategy.

There are some vehicle sections scattered into the game, all of which use the dual analogue sticks as a gimmick in some form, but like with the gadgets, this isn't overbearing and doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. These sections are fun, but they're over before they've really started, and when you go through the levels a second time you probably won't even use the vehicles because you have access to better gadgets which can achieve the same thing the vehicles can. I think the vehicle sections could have been fine tuned slightly and made into more of a focus, but as it stands they are a nice little distraction that are sprinkled in some of the levels but never really expanded on like they had the potential to be.

Upon collecting a certain number of Specter Coins you'll unlock three different minigames, all of which can be played in a simultaneous two player mode. These minigames are a very very good reward for going out of your way to collect the Specter Coins and I wish more collectathons had rewards this brilliant. First off you unlock a skiing mini game called Ski Kidz Racing, which uses the analogue sticks to replicate how you would position your skis in real life, then you unlock a boxing game called Specter Boxing which I feel like I'm just really bad at because I always just end up swinging my arms around randomly to do any damage I possibly can but normally hurting myself in the process, but I think it would be really good if you got into it. Then finally you unlock Galaxy Monkey which is easily the best minigame and I actually found myself playing this for quite a while, it's a simple twin stick shooter (which unlike the PS1 version of Robotron: 2084 actually uses the analogue sticks) that's about as bare bones as it gets, but it's very responsive and there's something quite addictive about it.

The highlight of the minigames in Ape Escape is the twin stick shooter Galaxy Monkey. It's simple but fun!

If you're aiming for 100% completion you will also need to finish the Time Attack mode which unlocks after capturing every monkey on a particular stage. Upon starting this mode you'll have to go around the level capturing all the monkeys in one run (something you were unable to do before) as quickly as you can. You get graded how quickly you complete the levels and are awarded either a bronze, silver or gold medal. You'll need all the gold medals to achieve 100% although doing so doesn't give you an extra reward so it's really just for bragging rights.

My main critisism of Ape Escape's gameplay is that the levels don't stand out from each other very much. Most of them play exactly the same regardless of what theme they have and this is slightly disappointing. Level gimmicks are used like with the vehicle sections but they don't do quite enough to add a good enough level of diversity.

My favorite gadget in the whole game is the Air Flyer, just something about having that extra jumping power is appealing to me.

The graphics in Ape Escape are great, you can tell it was a first party game, it's colourful and there can be a lot of things happening on screen which makes the world feel alive. It doesn't look quite as good as Spyro the Dragon or the later PS1 Crash Bandicoot games but it looks appealing nonetheless.

The character design is great, the monkeys in-particular are very expressive and funny, simple touches like making them sneeze and go to sleep when you aren't nearby gives them so much charm and despite them being evil, they are so likable it's insane. Spike and the other human characters all look great too, Spike's animations are smooth and even though the graphics are obviously dated, the characters are all capable of showing emotion with basic facial movements and with their gestures.

Despite the main enemy design being fantastic, the other enemies are very unmemorable, they all consist of very basic shapes and it's a bit unclear as to what a lot of them even are and what they're doing there. This can be forgiven somewhat though just because it's obvious the monkeys were the focus of the game.

As stupid as it may seem, this is probably the best designed enemy besides the monkeys. What even is this thing?

You don't need me to tell you that this game is very zany, it's a game about catching time traveling monkeys. The visuals perfectly reflect the games zany premise, one level even sees you going into a dinosaurs mouth and traveling into its body to catch the monkeys. Everything is over the top and there is quite a lot of attention to detail like how the monkeys wear coats in the Ice Age levels. More monkey costumes would have been fantastic and given them even more personality than they already have.

My biggest complaint with Ape Escape as a whole comes down to the first few level themes being quite similar (the Prehistoric Era, Cenozoic Era and Primitive Age), they could have put something a bit more varied in, it feels like these three themes are all the standard grass levels you see at the start of every platformer and you're left for a long time waiting for it to change. But for the rest of the game, each theme is unique, going from the Ice Age to the Recent Past to Present Day. The first half of the game can begin to look very samey though which is a shame.

You won't be finding extra lives very often so you had better collect as many Gold Chips as you can.

The controls for Ape Escape are extremely unique and may take some time to adjust to if you've never played one of them before. Despite the learning curve though, the controls aren't bad at all and it's obvious a lot of thought was put into them to make them work fantastically with the Dualshock controller.

The left analogue stick will move Spike around just like it would in any other game but the right analogue stick is used to attack or use a gadget, this means your attacks are directional, so pressing the right stick up will make Spike hit forwards, pressing it back will make him hit behind him, etc. Other gadgets work very differently, like the slingshot which you will need to hold back on the right stick to ready a shot and let it go to release the shot, or the Air Flyer which you'll need to rotate the right stick rapidly to make it spin in Spike's hand and lift him up. Despite the gimmicky nature of the whole thing I actually really like the controls, they are very responsive and after a while it all feels natural, using the right stick also adds a bit of a kinetic feeling to the whole thing that feels better than pressing a button but not as extreme as using motion controls.

The PS1's face buttons are used to switch between your many gadgets, you can have four equipped at a time and can quickly assign others by pressing Select and navigating through a menu. This keeps the game fast paced because switching between your four selected gadgets is instant and snappy, it even makes a nice sound effect to give some extra audio/visual feedback.

At the start of each stage you'll be given a brief rundown of what you need to do in the level before being thrown into it.

One issue I do have with the controls is that platforming can feel slightly stiff at times, Spike feels quite heavy and it's difficult to readjust your movements when you've committed to a jump, making precise platforming harder than it should be. The implementation of the double jump and Air Flyer gadget help with this but it's still an issue, but by no means game breaking.

The camera is good overall but there are some issues with it (as there are with most PS1 platformers). You have some good manual controls, being able to move it freely with the D-pad and being able to center the camera and go into first person view with the click of a button and for the most part the automatic camera is actually really good at pointing where you want it to go. There are sometimes sections when the camera will lock into place in order to show you something important in the background, like what a switch is interacting with. Unfortunately the D-pad camera control is inverted on the vertical axis and cannot be changed but you'll rarely find yourself needing to use that anyway.

I appreciate the amount of control you have with the camera, but it does (rarely) get stuck on walls or position itself awkwardly.

The sound design in Ape Escape is great, like the visuals and everything else about the game, all the sounds are over the top and cartoony. Hitting enemies will make a bouncy punch-like noise and collecting any of the items scattered throughout the game makes a satisfying sound that is subtle enough that it doesn't get annoying and the game never sounds empty. By far the best sound effect is when you catch a monkey and it makes an electronic blast before a quick teleporting noise that just sounds so satisfying.

The voice acting (which is different depending on if you're playing the American NTSC version or the European PAL version that I'm playing) gets the job done but it sometimes comes across as being a bit awkward. Spike and Buzz sound like they actually are kids whereas Specter has a great over the top typical English villain vibe which contrasts with him constantly throwing tantrums creating a funny juxtaposition. I feel like the way certain lines are delivered is a a bit too kid-friendly (despite it being a game aimed at kids) like when you finish a level and Spike says “well done!” it just comes across as a bit patronising. This game doesn't feature brilliant voice acting by any means, but it's also nowhere near as bad as some other PS1 titles.

The music is good and it desperately tries to make itself stand out from other games with it's own style, but I find it a little bit unmemorable and it just sort of exists in the background. Lots of the track are just remixes of the main theme which, to give credit where it's due, is an amazing theme song, but when a lot of levels reuse the same melody it becomes a bit boring. The music mostly consists of Japanese influenced techno which is really good in some levels but because most of the game uses this same sound it lacks variety from a music stand point.

I really appreciate the nice touches done with the music though, like how it fades when you're underwater and how it loses a lot of it's layers when you're being stealthy and crawling across the ground.

Not only does the sound effects make catching monkeys feel satisfying but the visual effects add to this too, the explosion of energy and the way the camera spins around Spike is awesome.

Overall Ape Escape is a great game and one which I recommend playing if you haven't already. I suspect that many people haven't played it because of the awkward backwards compatibility problems and the fact you needed a Dualshock controller to play it. But if you have the means to play it, I would say this is an absolute essential PS1 game for your collection. In terms of quality it's just below the later Crash Bandicoot games and the Spyro the Dragon games. This is a series that doesn't get the respect it deserves, it hasn't had a new game in the main series for ten years now. Ape Escape 2 has recently appeared on the PS4 store as a PS2 classic and Ape Escape 3 has been confirmed to be getting a port to PS4 too, so maybe there is hope for the series yet.

Ape Escape features some great and unique controls, good graphics, a good story (for a 3D platformer) and has some fantastic character designs and tons of charm. The only things that heavily let it down are the first few level themes being very similar and the music being trapped in the background and not being varied or memorable enough.

Pros

- The story is actually fairly complex for a platformer, not simply being about rescuing a princess and more about stopping the creation of a dystopian future and even somewhat failing in this task towards the end of the game.

- The gadgets offer a sense of progression and create an interesting backtracking mechanic where you can now open up entirely new sections of older levels by using a gadget earned later in the game.

- The graphics aren't mind-blowing, but they are good and keep your attention through the whole game.

- The monkey designs are great, they are a very memorable enemy and have tons of personality reflected in there animations, noises and varying designs.

- Fantastic reward for collecting the Specter Coins in the form of the minigames (particularly Galaxy Monkey).

Cons

- It could be considered to be quite easy, but it has a couple of challenging sections thrown in.

- It's quite short and a lot of the game is padded out by backtracking earlier levels, even though this is done very well.

- The music hardly changes style and struggles to make itself memorable, apart from the main theme which is extremely catchy.

- The first few level themes are pretty much repeats of each other and this is a problem considering there aren't that many themes in the game.

- The vehicle sections scattered throughout the game are quite under utilised.

- It should have had more boss battles rather than the race sections with Buzz.