I wanted to go back to my roots and play a fun monkey game. After experiencing Ape Escape, I don't think I've played a game that accomplished everything it set out to do so perfectly since Celeste.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.
Ape Escape is so fun and it's full of that old school ps1 charm. The premise is super unique and the art style is great and just fills you with that warm feeling of comfort that you can only get from a chunky ps1 game. The goofy voice acting comes around to being great and just makes the game all that much more enjoyable.
I don't think I've ever played a game that took as much advantage of the controller as Ape Escape either. It's obvious the game was designed with the dualshock in mind and the game does a great job of utilizing every feature of the controller without making it overly complicated.
The structure also feels unique compared to other 3D platformers. Going in, I was expecting it to play like a
collect-a-thon platformer, but I was surprised by how unique it felt. The gameplay style is hard to describe, but it feels like it's halfway between a 3D collect-a-thon and a more typical 3D platformer and it was very refreshing.
Each ape serves as a unique puzzle that has multiple different ways of approaching it, depending on the gadgets you like to use or the type of movement/approach you like to take which helps replays stand out.
It's not a perfect game, but my issues with it are so small they're just nitpicks. For example, I never fully got used to the menu UI. It's hard to describe, but the menu options default to undoing what you just selected, so for example, if you want to load a save and select that option, the first option in the subsequent menu is to go back to the previous page instead of confirming you want to load the save. This just really messed with my muscle memory from playing other games.
I'm also not a fan of how the time trials are tied to 100% completion. Time trial modes don't really appeal to me in general and in games like Ape Escape, where there is no reward for 100% completion, making the time trials contribute to the completion requirements just feels like padding.
Ape Escape has always been one of those bucket list 3D platformers for me and I'm just so happy that it lived up to the hype. It's not one of my favorite games at the end of the day, but it accomplishes everything it sets out to do so perfectly and is just so fun and unique that I can't help but give it 5 stars.