Richard Horvitz voicing Spike in the US/NTSC dub couldn't save this one, I'm afraid.
I've long heard tale from other people of the Ape Escape remake that sucked, and...yeah, they were right. I will be nice to this clunky adaptation and say that I actually prefer the button taps for Sky Flyer and Dash Hoop over twirling the second control stick, but I can't shake off my "look at how they massacred my boy" gut reaction for this remake. Valiant effort to make this portable! Wish it wasn't trash!
It's still a version of Ape Escape, so the skeleton of a banger game still exists, but hot damn they ruined most of the gadgets. It's bad enough that the Stun Club and the Time Net have their movement severely limited from "move second control stick freely and gracefully" to "tap button once to do the same pathetic swing over and over with zero variation", but they seriously expect me to control the RC Car with a D pad?! Why not ask me to rub my ass with sandpaper while I'm here?
This game also makes the interesting choice of making the graphic and sound design somehow worse than the PS1 original. The graphics are your traditional "upscale the PS1 polygons but somehow making the colors muddier in the process" fare of the 2000's era of remakes, and the music is mostly left intact with the occasional Interesting Choice (Crumbling Castle, this is about you), but the sound mixing is where things get really fucked. Great idea to give Spike the loudest footsteps in all of gaming and have his footsteps sound wet somehow. Even better idea to have the explosion noises go from "too quiet" to "WAY TOO FUCKING LOUD".
Great game to give to an Ape Escape fan if you absolutely despise them. You can even say "What's wrong? I thought you LIKED Ape Escape?" as the twinkle forever leaves their eye during a failed net swing that would've been completely doable on the PS1.
At least you can Platinum this game on PS Plus Premium at a mere 60% completion on your save file since there's absolutely no "catch all the monkeys" trophies. This is a blessing in disguise.
I've long heard tale from other people of the Ape Escape remake that sucked, and...yeah, they were right. I will be nice to this clunky adaptation and say that I actually prefer the button taps for Sky Flyer and Dash Hoop over twirling the second control stick, but I can't shake off my "look at how they massacred my boy" gut reaction for this remake. Valiant effort to make this portable! Wish it wasn't trash!
It's still a version of Ape Escape, so the skeleton of a banger game still exists, but hot damn they ruined most of the gadgets. It's bad enough that the Stun Club and the Time Net have their movement severely limited from "move second control stick freely and gracefully" to "tap button once to do the same pathetic swing over and over with zero variation", but they seriously expect me to control the RC Car with a D pad?! Why not ask me to rub my ass with sandpaper while I'm here?
This game also makes the interesting choice of making the graphic and sound design somehow worse than the PS1 original. The graphics are your traditional "upscale the PS1 polygons but somehow making the colors muddier in the process" fare of the 2000's era of remakes, and the music is mostly left intact with the occasional Interesting Choice (Crumbling Castle, this is about you), but the sound mixing is where things get really fucked. Great idea to give Spike the loudest footsteps in all of gaming and have his footsteps sound wet somehow. Even better idea to have the explosion noises go from "too quiet" to "WAY TOO FUCKING LOUD".
Great game to give to an Ape Escape fan if you absolutely despise them. You can even say "What's wrong? I thought you LIKED Ape Escape?" as the twinkle forever leaves their eye during a failed net swing that would've been completely doable on the PS1.
At least you can Platinum this game on PS Plus Premium at a mere 60% completion on your save file since there's absolutely no "catch all the monkeys" trophies. This is a blessing in disguise.