ape escape is one of the most creative and innovative games i've ever played, it has so much heart and love in it and it does so much that i've never really see another game do that it's secured itself as being one of the best platformers i may ever play, there's very little i can see topping this, it's a masterpiece and one of the best games for its system, flat out. there's so much to talk about here that i don't even know where to start, i guess with the controls? the game was made as a showcase for the duelshock controller and it exists to showcase why duel analog controls were the future in sonys eyes, it was something the other systems didn't really have outside of some n64 games which used two controllers at once in a similar style and to do this they packed in as many uses for it as they could, from swinging a net, controlling a tank, using a radar and rowing a boat, there's so many uses for it that i never even considered, it even features what could be one of the first ever twinstick shooters in the form of one of its minigames, galaxy monkey, it even has a fully fleshed out ski minigame in the form of ski kidz racing which can take hours to fully master and a cute little boxing minigame that reminds me a little of wii sports. it more than showcased just how useful duel sticks could be, all of the gadgets were super fun to use because of this, hell the RC alone could be its own game if they wanted it to be and the propeller is another favourite that i loved using and it's weird to me how it used them in ways that you almost never saw it used again, which is a shame, but also it did almost pioneer a lot of uses for this that would be mainstays in the future, like that twinstick control and the stick melee of the bat which was used in games like rise to honor, death by degrees and too human. there's even some stealth options you can use, though i never found them all that useful compared to just rushing in and bashing things.

the rest of the game around this creativity is also great too, it's a collectathon where you have to catch the escaping apes, the apes themselevs are so cute and i love them, i even have a little sticker of one next to my TV and i think they add a lot to the actual gameplay, like the fact the collectables do not want to be collected and will run away and attack is a cool change to a formula that doesn't often change and they can be super hard to catch! they even have their own unique personalities and quirks, like flying in ufos or shooting at you, no collectathon can boast having as much charm in its collectables as this game can and the sheer variety in the 204 apes is amazing. the levels are great too, it's more focused on the search for the apes than really big platforming gauntlets, which is good i think because i'm not a big fan of the jumping controls and honestly it works better for the game anyway, but all the levels are great, it has a time travel theme so you get a ton of variety, jurassic era jungles, ancient ruins, frozen ice age stages, the inside of a huge monster (which is horrifying and gross) and even some historical locals like the great wall of china, temples and huge castles, you even have some modern day levels later on like a town, a theme park and a tv station! i don't think any of them were bad at all, every one was a delight to explore and they were super pretty too! the water looks great and you can even swim in it and theres tons of moving stuff in these levels, like ridable dinosaurs and enemies you have to deal with, there's even some bosses that are really fun to fight! the game isn't overly difficult thankfully, just to beat it normally its a nice breezy fun playthrough and you can even use a monkey radar to find them if you start to struggle, you don't even need to get every one in a level for the normal enidng, but if you want thaat true ending you'll be hunting down every monkey, but its a fun time using your gadgets in levels where you didn't have them before so its well worth going back for the true ending, which even has its own, super fun, final boss! if you want the 100% there's one other main collectable here with the spectrecoins, these are much harder to find but only 40 of them are needed for the unlockables behind them, but some of these are just far too hard to find, a guide is almost required, but most are a fun hunt because you can't find these with the monkey radar, its all on you. the last real thing to mention is the buzz levels, or jake levels in america are fast rushes along an obsticle course to the end, with the winner getting a coin out of it, they're fun! but there's not many of them and they're very short and not super difficult.

it's a fairly long game too which is surprising, about 4 hours for your first run and another 2 or so if you want that 100% with a time attack mode if you really want to replay it for a third time, it goes by very fast though and if you play on current gen you even have trophies, the plat is quite easy, and save states to make things go by even faster! you should absolutely give it a try i think, its cheap and fairly common and you have a bunch of different ways to play it including the original ver, a psp remake ill talk about later and the current gen version which is even free on higher ps plus tiers! if you do play it you'll get a lot out of it, the story isn't super prominant but the characters are all fun and it has real shonen anime energy with the buzz scenes and spector is an amazing villain, especially if you do chose the english dub, he has david bowie vibes and he's super well designed and memorable, the whole cast are really, the art, which is done by multiple people, Takamitsu Iijima (of wild arms, kung fu rider and knack), Hiroki Nishi (of everyblue 2, seven samurai xx and many recent bamco titles like tales of hearts R, code vein and SAO lost song) and Taichi Ogawa (who mostly worked on the sequels, knack and ff14), is really cool looking, especially the monkeys which all look distinct and i just, god i love all the apes :) they seem like friends.

it's a beautiful game with the rest of it too like i said, honestly one of the best looking 3D games on the system, the levels all feel alive and even if the draw distance isn't amazing, the game just has so much style to it that what you can see looks really nice, it's just so colourful and nice looking! the ice levels were my favourite looking, especially the mammoth level which actually does have a huge mammoth that looks amazing and can even attack you, but the snow here stole the show, it's just such a cozy area to stay in and i loved exploring it, the later snow levels even have cute little lakes to swim in and huge caves to explore, one is even a huge hot spring! the audio is also some of the best on the system, while the voice stuff is a little weird since it has multiple english dubs, one british and one american, with the american one sounding a lot better to me because i found the british one felt a little out of place, it's not bad either way you play and you can play either easily since the ps4 ver has both dubs you can switch between in the emulator menu! the ost is where the audio shines though, easily not just one of the best jungle osts in a game, one of the best game osts period, this is above top tier and it has no bad osts, the only jungle osts that can even match this are ridge racer type 4 and if i'm making a comparison like that you know it has to be an all time great, it's composed by soichi tarada, easily one of the best talents in the japanese electronic scene, he's done a bunch of fantastic osts, some for sony, some not, you might have heard his work in fantavision or, if you're really cool, fantavisions multiplayer expanded version, fantavision no futari as well as games like wangan trial, the cool monster arena arc the lad spinoff and many of the sequels to this game, even including the eyetoy game!.

the game had quite the legacy too, tons of sequels and spinoffs and even a mcdonalds themed demo disc and multiple anime projects, some mainline games like ape escape 2&3 seem fantastic, there was a psp remake that seems very cool, albiet missing the gimmicks that made this feel so special, lots of spinoffs both localised and not like ape quest, the academy games and platformery titles like million monkeys, the apes have even appeared in a ton of other places like metal gear solid 3, everybodys golf, astrobot and ratchet, spike was even playable in PS all stars alongside some ape escape stages! the last game released was the cool seeming ps move game for the ps3 in 2010. some of the people that worked on it also went on to make some absolute classics, the games director, Masamichi Seki has had an absurd career spanning the likes of gran turismo, granstream saga, legaia, fantavision with this games composer, alundra 2 and even games like bokunatsu and chase the express, more recently he's worked on games like resonance of fate, dragons crown and some game republic titles like clash of the titans and dragonball origins and the studio behind the game, japan studio has such an absurdly good track record that i don't even need to go to in depth, you should know their name if you're browsing sites like this.