Ape Escape Games Ranked
Just ranking da Ape Escapes
7 Games
The absolute peak. 3D platformers plateaud at Ape Escape 3. A sublime soundtrack, incredibly strong level design, tight controls, and the Morphs absolutely own. One of my favorite games of all time.
1
I like Million Monkeys a lot. The idea of recontextualizing the core mechanics of Ape Escape into an action game is novel, and it's executed fairly well. It also weaves the themes of previous entries into this one and sheds a new light on Specter, giving him some more nuance we haven seen of him up to this point in the series. It also has comfortably the best gamefeel in the series, a hypnotic flow comparable to the best action games.
2
After coming off of a recent playthrough, this game still rips. The level design is nice and compact, the music is great, and Specter has character in this game.
3
It's another party game, but it is much closer to the original style of the series, lending itself to some fun minigames. It also has ridiculously good gamefeel for something of this nature.
4
It's just a bunch of forgettable minigames with no real structure to speak of. Really not much to say.
5
The Move game is definitely worse than Ape Escape 2, at least from a gameplay perspective, but I feel it has way more to offer in terms of music and writing compared to 2. I especially like how Specter's handled in this game.
6
You already know how I feel, but yeah, this is without question the worst Ape Escape. The music sucks, the level design is far too bloated for what little content is there, the boss fights are pitiful, and I don't like what they did to Specter, sacrificing even the smallest bit of nuance for just a generic villain.
7