Kei and Yumi take the lead as the new heroes. Their quest is to capture all 400 monkeys. You control either Kei or Yumi. The gameplay involves using various methods and weapons to catch them all. The game has many levels with different themes, such as a Haunted Castle, a Racing level, Jungle settings, TV studios and other settings. You can slow the animals down with various objects such as a stun club or a slingback shooter, and then you can capture them with a net. New to the series are the morphing abilities, eight in all. You can morph into various characters, like a knight and perform a powerful attack or a gun fighter and shoot em up or a ninja and run along walls. You can also vehicles such as a race car to knock down the monkeys. Other features are the familiar Monkeypedia and the unlockable Mesal Gear Solid mini-game (a Metal Gear Solid spoof).
Also in series
Reviews View More
APES
i forget if this is an 8 or a 9, gonna have to replay soon
best game in d world actually
they managed to do a better metal gear game than kojima
I don't particularly like 3d platformers in general but of the ones I played and liked this is one of the best.
If I'm going to talk about this game, I'm going to have to say some things about Ape Escape 2 I might change my mind about at some point. But I think I'm okay with that. I want to give more positive reviews and takes on here too. But that takes a good amount of time and effort sometimes.
Ape Escape 2 was kind of disappointing to me, it felt like a pretty average platformer. The vibes and music weren't great, the way the game felt wasn't to my tastes (the jump and the hover gadget especially arent smooth), they made the Slingshot and RC do stun less, there's less puzzles or creative thinking with the gadgets, the monkeys are really hard to deal with, the level design was made into something really tunnely with the most basic of platforming, which makes stealth less encouraged as well...
It was just really disappointing to me. A lot of the things that made the first game special were just sapped from the second, and I felt like I was going through the motions.
Ape Escape 3 didn't exactly change the general approach in design. It stuck to being kinda similar to Ape Escape 2. But if the games were gonna be like this instead of how Ape Escape 1 was, then 3 really manages to perfect what 2 was trying to do.
The levels have a stronger identity and theme, there's a stronger and more active sense of pacing to the levels and what you're doing with a larger sense of fun, they shave off the gadgets that didn't matter (well except--...RIP the Water Cannon) but add transformations which act as gadgets all of their own and were probably a ton of fun for kids especially, the monkeys are made less strong (especially the missile monkeys), the levels are bigger but don't feel elongated...
It almost feels a bit intangible as to what makes this game better. And I do feel 2 can be more creative at times, and it also has a much much stronger final few levels. But the game is undeniably solid and a ton of fun.
To get into more specifics would be a lot though, especially for that reason. And I already make these kinda long. But there's a lot of thoughts I had about the nuances of the game in general.
Like, part of why Morphs are so fun for example is because it really doesn't feel like the game forces them on you much at all outside their first appearance, but if you want to you can almost be morphed for the majority of a stage (Not my style really). It's very freeing. But the game also puts a lot of teleborg enemies around monkeys which makes you feel pressured to use them, or else go about things a lot more slowly. Additionally catching monkeys with any of the Morph tools is a lot more reliable and quick than your time net, and it eliminates some of that thrill of trying to catch a monkey the old fashioned way, but when monkeys will just dodge your nets a lot...... All in all what I'm getting at is I wondered if I was almost forced into liking the Morphs, because otherwise I'd come up against tension and things that I wouldn't like.
Teleborg enemies can be annoying in general, but also you do get better and better at just getting them on their wind-ups that one shot them. So I feel a bit two-ways about them too.
While Ape Escape 2's gacha machine was a bit of a pain, the Monkey Stories and things were a lot better in that game. The mini-games are also slightly less creative in 3, but they're also a lot more fun (Mesal Gear Solid aside, which is. Wow. So cool).
And one last thing: The boss battles are awesome (maybe not enough health) and you can do Monkey White, Blue, Yellow and Tomoki in under 25 seconds. Princess Ace and Miracle Ninja are crazy good for most things.
It feels like to actually talk about the game in full depth, I'd have to go into a million of these kinds of things. But that's the kind of thing that is a good sign for a game or franchise being interesting.
Ape Escape 2 and 3 in general make me feel like Ape Escape has a lot of missed potential as a franchise, if I'm honest. But I had a lot of fun being able to play these games in general, and I had a lot of fun with this game! It's fulfilled something I've always wanted to do, and I can't replace that. Definitely replaying all of them, but especially 1, in the future.
Ape Escape 2 was kind of disappointing to me, it felt like a pretty average platformer. The vibes and music weren't great, the way the game felt wasn't to my tastes (the jump and the hover gadget especially arent smooth), they made the Slingshot and RC do stun less, there's less puzzles or creative thinking with the gadgets, the monkeys are really hard to deal with, the level design was made into something really tunnely with the most basic of platforming, which makes stealth less encouraged as well...
It was just really disappointing to me. A lot of the things that made the first game special were just sapped from the second, and I felt like I was going through the motions.
Ape Escape 3 didn't exactly change the general approach in design. It stuck to being kinda similar to Ape Escape 2. But if the games were gonna be like this instead of how Ape Escape 1 was, then 3 really manages to perfect what 2 was trying to do.
The levels have a stronger identity and theme, there's a stronger and more active sense of pacing to the levels and what you're doing with a larger sense of fun, they shave off the gadgets that didn't matter (well except--...RIP the Water Cannon) but add transformations which act as gadgets all of their own and were probably a ton of fun for kids especially, the monkeys are made less strong (especially the missile monkeys), the levels are bigger but don't feel elongated...
It almost feels a bit intangible as to what makes this game better. And I do feel 2 can be more creative at times, and it also has a much much stronger final few levels. But the game is undeniably solid and a ton of fun.
To get into more specifics would be a lot though, especially for that reason. And I already make these kinda long. But there's a lot of thoughts I had about the nuances of the game in general.
Like, part of why Morphs are so fun for example is because it really doesn't feel like the game forces them on you much at all outside their first appearance, but if you want to you can almost be morphed for the majority of a stage (Not my style really). It's very freeing. But the game also puts a lot of teleborg enemies around monkeys which makes you feel pressured to use them, or else go about things a lot more slowly. Additionally catching monkeys with any of the Morph tools is a lot more reliable and quick than your time net, and it eliminates some of that thrill of trying to catch a monkey the old fashioned way, but when monkeys will just dodge your nets a lot...... All in all what I'm getting at is I wondered if I was almost forced into liking the Morphs, because otherwise I'd come up against tension and things that I wouldn't like.
Teleborg enemies can be annoying in general, but also you do get better and better at just getting them on their wind-ups that one shot them. So I feel a bit two-ways about them too.
While Ape Escape 2's gacha machine was a bit of a pain, the Monkey Stories and things were a lot better in that game. The mini-games are also slightly less creative in 3, but they're also a lot more fun (Mesal Gear Solid aside, which is. Wow. So cool).
And one last thing: The boss battles are awesome (maybe not enough health) and you can do Monkey White, Blue, Yellow and Tomoki in under 25 seconds. Princess Ace and Miracle Ninja are crazy good for most things.
It feels like to actually talk about the game in full depth, I'd have to go into a million of these kinds of things. But that's the kind of thing that is a good sign for a game or franchise being interesting.
Ape Escape 2 and 3 in general make me feel like Ape Escape has a lot of missed potential as a franchise, if I'm honest. But I had a lot of fun being able to play these games in general, and I had a lot of fun with this game! It's fulfilled something I've always wanted to do, and I can't replace that. Definitely replaying all of them, but especially 1, in the future.