Getting this set up was a pain. Toilet kept unwinding and coming undone, so I had to tape it. My roommate came home to find me in the living room, rolling a toilet roll around like a fool. "Yes I did spend $5 on a toilet paper platforming physics game, thank you very much."

It's fun briefly even though the physics were wonky and hard to get just right. It gets old quick, especially with having to fix the toilet paper constantly. There are some cool new mechanics that are introduced gradually: the fans, wobbly fall -through beams, the portals, lasers, moving spikes, bounce pads, fire, etc. The ending was a little funny. I think I would have enjoyed it way less if I didn't cheat and just roll in around in my hands to finish the last 12 levels. Also the background music can go to hell. Only 1 track for 32 levels?! I had to turn the sound off to save my sanity.

Hours played: 5
Gameplay: The camera movement was atrocious in Ape Escape. Blocks your view constantly and doesn't pivot quick enough. It made navigation difficult, especially on tight walkways. Falling off ledges was a common occurrence. The character movement is kinda slow. I enjoyed hunting down monkey initially. Exploration just wasn't that fun and getting knocked over constantly by enemies and apes became tedious and annoying. Having to switch which gadgets were active was also tedious. Too many instances where you only use them once in a level.

Music and visuals
The music was fine and not notably good or bad. Visually I enjoyed the saturated colors and streamlined world design. I think I big problem was that each area didn’t feel distinct enough and lacked character. This game could really use a remaster. I think if the visuals were improved with more particle effects, better textures, more detail in general, I would have enjoyed exploration more. There’s a fine line though because too much detail can become distracting and overwhelming.

The Minigames
I only played the skiing and boxing mini games. Both are unwieldy and irritating. They could be fun with a friend though.

I had to abandon this one because of the gameplay issues. Platforming movement is slow and doesn’t feel good, the gadgets are annoying to keep swapping in and out, the apes are irritating to capture, and the camera keeps getting in the way.

A simple but satisfying puzzle platformer with light combat sections. It starts slow but builds the difficulty of its platforming puzzles over time. I think they did a great job with keeping the gameplay novel and introducing new puzzle mechanics over time. I really enjoyed the one-off segments such a riding a mechanical monster, working together with a different beast to solve puzzles, the enemy rush combat sections, etc. You play as 3 different characters and a secret late game 4th one briefly. There's an extremely brief 5th character, that most people will play as.

There are some pretty challenging moments platforming-wise, especially these boss chase sections. Does get a little annoying with the sparse checkpoint system before these difficult moments. But not too troublesome for me.

Really wonderful and novel art style. Reminds me of The Longing and the Rusty Lake series. There are some especially breathtaking backgrounds with these dormant and hulking wooden guardians. I loved all the boss and enemy designs. Not many repeat enemies and I can’t remember any bosses being repeats. Most of the boss fights were enjoyable and challenging.

Took me nearly 5 hours to complete it. I wanted to get all the collectibles, which requires a little bit of sleuthing, but the majority are in plain sight. If you find all 5 you get the second ending, which is better than the basic ending. Both aren’t that satisfying unfortunately and feel rushed. I wish things weren’t left so vague.

I think in general the story was too vague. There’s this meta narrative about stories, narrators, and protagonists, and how these different elements function in their world. Especially if the protagonists develop self-will or the ramifications if the narrators go off script. That was fine but underdeveloped. Similarly the world was not fleshed out enough. I wish there was more development around The Smiling Islands, saviors, radiant herons, the surrounding environs, etc.

For some reason a lot of the lackeys of the main baddie are given names and then immediately killed. I thought they would be more important to the story, but they never were.

There was this one brief animated cutscene that was incredible! Happens near the halfway point and was a bit letdown that it was the only one in the game.