SuperPod Game Club celebrates Easter not by hunting eggs, but by hunting apes (in a non-lethal manner, of course) in Ape Escape 2. Released for Sony's PlayStation 2 in 2003, Ape Escape 2 is the first game in the Ape Escape series to be released on the PS2 and was used as the basis for the Ape Escape TV series on the Nicktoons Network channel back in 2009, which I had no idea was a thing.
Synopsis: Ape Escape 2 follows Jimmy, cousin to the original game's hero, who accidentally releases a new batch of intelligent, helmet-wearing monkeys upon the world while trying to deliver "monkey pants." Under the guidance of Natalie, Jimmy must travel the globe to capture the runaway monkeys and stop the evil Specter from achieving world domination.
How many total apes can you capture in Ape Escape 2? Did Tony beat this month's game? Did the voice actors of this game also work on the original Pokémon anime? Answers to these questions and more in this month's edition of SuperPod Game Club.
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Ape Escape 2….am I the only one who liked this game? Everyone else here has gone on and on about their hatred of a game where you capture apes. Like guys, c’mon. The controls are clunky, platforming is gross and the level design can be so-so at times, I agree with all that, but this game was just pure vibes man. The charm radiating off the screen was so infectious, it did some wonder on me. It represents a Sony I miss. One that wasn’t all about Sad Dad sims, pathetic live service slop and Horizon. It was one that gave us such gems like Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper and Ratchet & Clank. It’s no masterpiece, but I rather enjoyed my time playing this one. It was a breezy 6 hrs with just the right difficulty curve. Seriously, how did you fucks struggle on the bosses? I don’t think any took more than one death for me to beat. This game may have made me a fan of the series, not gonna lie.
Oh Ape Escape, one of those game series from my childhood that I've always had a soft spot for whether it be nostalgia or a genuine love for the franchise. So when it came time to revisit the second game I was very curious to see how it's held up over the years.
Ape Escape 2 is honestly a very fascinating game being a follow up to a game originally designed to showcase Sony’s DualShock controller for the original PlayStation acting as a bit of a tech demo of sorts in the form of a collect-a-thon platformer. Being a series designed around the controllers dual analogue sticks, gameplay takes a bit of adjustment to get used to featuring a very unorthodox layout, which is very much a love it or hate it aspect of the game. Although core gameplay aside, Ape Escape 2 notably sees some other improvements over its predecessor, featuring updated graphics, a more streamlined progression system, and the addition of proper boss fights, something that the original game was notably lacking. With everything tied together by a spectacular soundtrack and an amusing story (interestingly featuring the voices of Ash and Misty for the main characters in the North American version).
Now what are some of the games plus sides?
Gameplay aside Ape Escape 2 has some very fun and unique stages featuring a number of different themes. With another plus being the overall charm particularly with the many different monkeys you capture during the adventure, each featuring unique characteristics and descriptions. Another positive addition is the new powerups which adds new gameplay puzzles and challenges, along with a number of unlockable extras.
Now for the negative sides… I won’t lie as nostalgic as I am for this game and series, I can't deny that this game has its flaws. As said earlier the gameplay is very love it or hate it and at times can lead to frustration with some more awkward segments. With one particular negative aspect being the game's bosses which range from underwhelming to downright infuriating. Not helped by the game's archaic lives system, compounded with a pretty annoying system for acquiring additional lives involving a random chance vending machine.
So all in all Ape Escape 2 is a good game held back by some minor design issues, but honestly for what it is the game is a fun and unique platformer that you will either like or dislike. And as much as I would like a new entry in the series at some point, I understand why it is unlikely we will ever see one. It is truly a series that was very much of its time, and that's perfectly ok.
Ape Escape 2 is the second entry in the moderately popular franchise, in the game you have to capture 300 sentient monkeys that are causing havoc and take down their leader Specter, who is once again up to no good. The game came out during the time era where developers were still experimenting with different ways to use the dual analog sticks, as a result the controls can be make it or break for some people. The left analog moves the character around and the right analog uses whatever gadget you have equipped, which can be rather perplexing if you are only accustomed to modern control schemes. The camera can still be controlled with the D-Pad if needed, but it’s as unintuitive as it sounds and still isn’t much help when the camera is stuck in an awkward position.
The gadgets you get could’ve probably just been regulated to a single button press, or combined into different abilities, instead of having to swap through them all the time. For instance R1 and R2 are both used to jump and one of them could easily have been the regulated net button, the helicopter could have just been the triple jump and the water blaster should’ve simply been an upgrade to the sling shot. This would’ve helped alleviate having to switch between as many gadgets and made the gameplay feel a lot smoother.
I enjoyed Ape Escape 2 for what it was and it is an improvement over the first game, although there were still a few points of frustration. The controls can make things more difficult than they needed to be and some of the level design was questionable, especially a specific set of jumps in the final level that gave me more problems than I’d like to admit. I also didn’t care for most of the boss fights, most of them went on for entirely way too long and the final showdown with Spectre in particular was frustrating enough to make almost rage quit a few times. The game does ooze with personality, there are a large variety of wacky monkeys to capture, every level has its own unique gimmick that makes them fun to revisit and the game soundtrack has some real bangers. It’s enough to make up for some of the more glaring flaws and I do look forward to eventually checking out Ape Escape 3.
Émile Borel once posited that if you were to stick a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters, and give them an infinite amount of time, they will almost surely eventually come up with The Complete Works Of Shakespeare. I guess Sony thought having them type up something that already exists is stupid so they had them make the Ape Escape games instead.
I can't think of any other reason why these games are the way they are. I didn't own a PS1 in the moment, but I did read magazines, and a bunch of them hemmed & hawed about how you would need this newfangled “Dual Shock” controller to play it. Surely this would mean you'd use the second stick to operate the camera while you assign 4 of your ape-catching-apparatuses to buttons, right? That would make sense. But no, somehow we have to use those 4 buttons to equip items, then use the right stick to actually use the items. Maybe you're supposed to get used to it. In fact, I'm sure some of the other people in this barrel of monkeys playing along this month will tell you in their own entries it's like riding a bike and it feels great after a while.
Well for me, not really. Remember in the Wii era when certain games had “fake” motion controls? Games where you'd waggle the Wiimote and go “this should have been a button”? This is the Ape Escape 2 experience. There's nothing you're doing with the right stick that shouldn't be done with a button instead. And this just persists through the whole game. It even mocks you by letting monkeys evade the net for reasons I guess. Fuck no, I had you, the camera's bad enough as it is since I can only use the left shoulder buttons, please give me something to work with. Then the game ends but masochists will tell you no, you gotta get all the monkeys first. Maybe if this was one of the only games I had like DK64 back in the day, but life's too short for that kind of monkey business.
I agree with Thrak that this game was pretty fun! As weird and hard-to-get-used-to as the controls are, it came naturally to me after a few hours and felt great to use. I loved that some monkeys required a little more strategy and brainpower to capture than just "run over to that ape and snag him", which greatly helped the game stay fun for me. I also like the variety with the gadgets and that almost all of them stay very useful into the late-game. OH MY GOD the soundtrack to this game is incredible too. Ape Escape 1, 2, and 3 have excellent soundtracks that you should definitely purchase physical copies of and support those composers.
I like the world variety and the amount of fun gimmicks and platforming available, but I found myself struggling with the camera pretty often. You can rotate it using the d-pad, but that would require you to take your thumb off of the left stick which means you have to stop moving to rotate the camera, which defeats the goddamn purpose because moving in another direction will mess-up the camera again. Thankfully you can snap the camera behind the player character using the L1 or L2 button (I forget which one exactly) and that sorta helps alleviate the problem, but not always.
That gripe aside, this game was addictive and fun as hell.
I’ll preface this by saying I did not manage to finish the game, I played about half of it before life got really busy and I was not able to find time to go back to it before the month was out.
I do not regret being unable to finish this game at all. In theory it should have been a game I’d adore, I grew up playing the PS2 and I can usually find some enjoyment playing these early platformers from that era. It was not the case here, the controls were unusual and annoying, and the camera might just as well have been set up on Uranus with how useless and out of whack it was. I found it to be a really unsatisfying experience overall with constant need to menu to switch out the numerous gadgets on the 4-slot hotbar, capturing the monkeys itself was not really fun either when spamming the capture net randomly in their general direction was enough for most of the monkeys I caught. I have a slight recollection of there being very mediocre boss fights…. Nope I must’ve imagined that, they’ve not stuck in my brain.
This is much more negative then I wanted it to be, but I came in with high expectations, I have seen numerous praises online and I have a few personal friends who have praised this series (said friendships are currently under review) heavily, plus I wanted to believe that there was no bad PS2 game in existence. Still it was not all bad, I did enjoy some of the platforming and the soundtrack had some real bangers I enjoyed listening to while playing.
Score: Ape/10 I will never touch this game again
When Sony Computer Entertainment first introduced the concept of the Dualshock controller in 1998, Sony entrusted one of their first-party developers, JAPAN Studio, with the task of releasing a gameplay experience that revolved entirely around the use of its two trademark analog sticks. These folks, mind you, already had a “Murder’s Row” of hit software that fully capitalized on the strengths of the PlayStation hardware with wildly innovative conventions, like Jumping Flash!, PaRappa the Rapper, and Wild Arms. If anyone was equipped to find a fun and creative use for these futuristic twin-sticks, it would surely be the development house that released I.Q.: Intelligent Qube into the world.
Enter Ape Escape, one of the premier games made exclusively for the Dualshock controller, less than a year later, is a spin on the collectathon-styled 3D platformer formula where players will need to navigate intricate set-pieces with the use of unique gadgets that solely utilize the input functionality of the dual analogs, with the goal of capturing rambunctious monkeys. The titular MacGuffins of the game, unlike Power Stars or Jiggies, however, present an entirely new puzzle element around the trial of nabbing them to finish the stage. The trick to seizing a troublesome chimp can be a unique, and often, multi-layered struggle in and of itself that will ask players to figure out the right gadget for the job, and challenge their ability to outsmart (or in some cases, physically outmatch) the simian trickster into their clutches.
This unique premise, coupled with fantastic visual design and a banger soundtrack, resulted in an incredibly charming exclusive for Sony’s 32-bit platform that really bolstered the PlayStation brand, especially as the system was entering its fifth year on store shelves.
The following year, Sony had leaped into the 128-bit era with the PlayStation 2, a platform that surpassed its predecessor in every way. This new machine boasted the power of its trademark “Emotion Engine,” which was capable of rendering up to 16 million polygons at once, and was supported by its expanded DVD-based media technology, capable of holding four times the data of a standard CD disc. With this immense scale of new technology at their disposal, JAPAN Studio could surely deliver a worthy follow-up to one of the most successful games they’ve ever made, right?
Right? You’d think?—well, as Scottish poet, Alexander Smith once put it, "A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."
2002 sees the release of Ape Escape 2, and as a sequel, it’s a disappointingly pedestrian affair that steers towards the “Eagles” route, and essentially offers players more “Hotel California”, only now it’s in stereo or some shit. Like, I really don’t want to poo poo on the game, but imagine this; you’re going to see your favorite comedian, and you’re hoping they has some new material for their new act, only for them to tell a slightly longer version of a familiar joke that takes a lot longer to get to the punchline—that’s what playing Ape Escape 2 feels like in the time that you spend with it.
Even if you were a fan of the first game, the novelty of playing a prettier version of the Ape Escape formula will start to wear thin after spending the initial few hours with it. All of the previous gadgets from the first game return, along with three new gadgets that admittedly do introduce some new gimmicks to experiment with, only with the same tired applications of the analog sticks that are already in play with the other tools of the game. The other two big factors that set the sophomore release from its 32-bit sibling is the larger emphasis on its boss-battle encounters feature super primates known as the “Freaky Monkey Five,” a Mötley Crüe of apes that are far more dangerous than the garden-variety chimps players normally contend with in stages. These enhanced boss fights are designed with a lot more spectacle and character in mind, and possess a level of pageantry that’s on par with the game’s Big Bad, Specter. Although these skirmishes added some needed variety to the experience, I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that not all of the Freaky Monkey Five are equal in their entertainment factors, as some of them are just plain annoying with their patterns and fight length (I’m looking at you, White Monkey, yeah, you, you stinky piece of shit.)
This leans into the other new addition, and frankly, an underwhelming addition to the familiar gameplay dynamic of Ape Escape 2, your occasional sidekick helper, “little guy” baby monkey, Pipotchi. The winged spud of a chimp will occasionally ride on the hero's shoulder in various stages to provide limited support for the skill-based obstacles of Ape Escape 2’s platforming dynamics. The adorable companion does this by randomly triggering various support actions when the situation calls for it, like offering players a teensy bit more hang-time in the air on the off-chance their double-jump wasn’t enough to clear a gap, for instance, or an emergency ration of health if players suffer a fatal hit to their health bar. Again, this little quirk is neat, but it’s nowhere near the scope of reinventing the wheel, and is again, another symptom of the overall issue with Ape Escape 2—it’s just Malibu Stacy with a hat.
Despite the blandness, there’s still a great time to be had here, especially when you factor in the presentation of the game being tent-poled by 4Kids Entertainment’s involvement with the localization of the North American release. Hearing Veronica Taylor voice the new protagonist, Jimmy, Rachael Lillis voicing the Professor's aide, Natalie, and Dan Green as the voice of the professor created this surreal Elseworlds scenario of what you’d imagine Ash Ketchum and Misty Williams would sound like working together to catch monkeys instead of Pokémon, and all for another irresponsibly absent-minded professor who just so happened to sound like Yugi Muto doing an impression of his grandpa.
Ultimately, Ape Escape 2 is an underwhelming sequel to a better game, but it’s still an otherwise solid game in its own right, and is certainly worth a look for those looking for a challenging 3D platformer, as it’s definitely a good degree harder than the original, thanks to the more aggressive baddies and scarcity of its health recovery items.
Thank you for reading!
Come back next month and see what we have to say about May's game - Earthworm Jim 3D.
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