Between this, Genji: Dawn of the Samurai and Wild ARMs 5, JapanStudio's late era PS2 titles showcased an unprecedented budget and mastery of the PlayStation 2 hardware as the PS3 was out on the market. The attractive maps to explore, upbeat soundtrack, and even more aggressive monkeys push Ape Escape 3 beyond what its sequel was able to achieve early into the PS2's life. The movie theming is humorous, though the monkey names didn't make it through the localization process well.

It's a shame that Ape Escape 4 never happened, but I am not sure what JapanStudio could have done as the PlayStation 3 crippled them permanently. I hope that one day, we learn what that Ape Escape tease was for the 20th anniversary alongside their canned project after Gravity Rush 2. Also thanks Konami for making sure this game never gets rereleased...

Might be the best platfomer ever made. It's either tied with Ape Escape or is better than it. Have to let the time simmer since I just beat this game (and almost 100%ed it)

Incredible levels, music, characters, story, everything. Except some chuggy framerate at parts, this is a perfect video game. A classic, an essential play. What more can I say?

For fans of living.

If I'm going to talk about this game, I'm going to have to say some things about Ape Escape 2 I might change my mind about at some point. But I think I'm okay with that. I want to give more positive reviews and takes on here too. But that takes a good amount of time and effort sometimes.

Ape Escape 2 was kind of disappointing to me, it felt like a pretty average platformer. The vibes and music weren't great, the way the game felt wasn't to my tastes (the jump and the hover gadget especially arent smooth), they made the Slingshot and RC do stun less, there's less puzzles or creative thinking with the gadgets, the monkeys are really hard to deal with, the level design was made into something really tunnely with the most basic of platforming, which makes stealth less encouraged as well...
It was just really disappointing to me. A lot of the things that made the first game special were just sapped from the second, and I felt like I was going through the motions.

Ape Escape 3 didn't exactly change the general approach in design. It stuck to being kinda similar to Ape Escape 2. But if the games were gonna be like this instead of how Ape Escape 1 was, then 3 really manages to perfect what 2 was trying to do.
The levels have a stronger identity and theme, there's a stronger and more active sense of pacing to the levels and what you're doing with a larger sense of fun, they shave off the gadgets that didn't matter (well except--...RIP the Water Cannon) but add transformations which act as gadgets all of their own and were probably a ton of fun for kids especially, the monkeys are made less strong (especially the missile monkeys), the levels are bigger but don't feel elongated...
It almost feels a bit intangible as to what makes this game better. And I do feel 2 can be more creative at times, and it also has a much much stronger final few levels. But the game is undeniably solid and a ton of fun.

To get into more specifics would be a lot though, especially for that reason. And I already make these kinda long. But there's a lot of thoughts I had about the nuances of the game in general.
Like, part of why Morphs are so fun for example is because it really doesn't feel like the game forces them on you much at all outside their first appearance, but if you want to you can almost be morphed for the majority of a stage (Not my style really). It's very freeing. But the game also puts a lot of teleborg enemies around monkeys which makes you feel pressured to use them, or else go about things a lot more slowly. Additionally catching monkeys with any of the Morph tools is a lot more reliable and quick than your time net, and it eliminates some of that thrill of trying to catch a monkey the old fashioned way, but when monkeys will just dodge your nets a lot...... All in all what I'm getting at is I wondered if I was almost forced into liking the Morphs, because otherwise I'd come up against tension and things that I wouldn't like.
Teleborg enemies can be annoying in general, but also you do get better and better at just getting them on their wind-ups that one shot them. So I feel a bit two-ways about them too.
While Ape Escape 2's gacha machine was a bit of a pain, the Monkey Stories and things were a lot better in that game. The mini-games are also slightly less creative in 3, but they're also a lot more fun (Mesal Gear Solid aside, which is. Wow. So cool).
And one last thing: The boss battles are awesome (maybe not enough health) and you can do Monkey White, Blue, Yellow and Tomoki in under 25 seconds. Princess Ace and Miracle Ninja are crazy good for most things.

It feels like to actually talk about the game in full depth, I'd have to go into a million of these kinds of things. But that's the kind of thing that is a good sign for a game or franchise being interesting.
Ape Escape 2 and 3 in general make me feel like Ape Escape has a lot of missed potential as a franchise, if I'm honest. But I had a lot of fun being able to play these games in general, and I had a lot of fun with this game! It's fulfilled something I've always wanted to do, and I can't replace that. Definitely replaying all of them, but especially 1, in the future.

If you want to transcend...the spirit of the monkey.....within you.......so that you can go, wherever you are, on Earth or on the planet of the monkeys, to be able to reach the "bananirnana".....then I say to you......play Ape Escape 3.

The ape has escaped for the third time.
The first...was memorable, the second escape... good.

But the third... the third... was glorious. A real monkey show.

I can say that the third escape... left the monkey mark... a solid monkey mark.

Peak Monkey Game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t17KDr5M37A

Sort of a nostalgia ranking but I've gone back and replayed it a few times and I've always been struck by how well this game holds up. Probably one of the best 3D platformers I've seen. The biggest thing that will always stick out to me is the soundtrack, the spacy poppy synthy beats in this game are iconic and I have nearly all of them tucked away in my head somewhere. It's hard for me to even listen to that music nowadays, it gets me caught up in my feelings remembering what it was like playing this game. Fun worlds, tight controls, generally bouncy fun game with a ton of content.

I can look past the performance issues to see that Ape Escape 3 is Japan Studios at top form in terms of their presentation and gameplay variety. Pure, unadulterated fun with the only concession being a frequently dipping frame rate. For a game that looks this good running on such aging hardware for the time I'm rather impressed for what Ape Escape 3 manages to achieve on a content scale while looking as good as it does.

In terms of gameplay mechanical changes/additions, mini-games, and overall content scale, Ape Escape sees its peak here; by far the best entry of the series in totality. I still have a soft spot for the mostly breakcore-esque soundtrack of the original.

After hitting creditd at 54%, I'm immediately diving back in to hit 100%! I'll flesh out further thoughts, then.

As good of a refinement and expansion to AE2 as you could get. It's working with a very similar balance of minimized platforming in designated catching areas, but is now lead by an even more quirky and creative setting, backed by some banger tracks from the returning Terada. But the coup de grace by far are the costume morphs; they're so damn fun to use and can superfluously fit your tastes of the fly. There's no Nintendo bullshittery of 'this monkey can only be caught with this one' - just pick what you vibe with and fire away. That's not to say there aren't mandatory costume puzzles and said costumes are all balanced, but basically nothing holds you back from tanking through the game as a cowboy if that yees your haw.

Honestly the worst thing I can say about it is the localization? It's well-acted by the VA's, but some of the cutscene dialogue flow weirdly. Also, the US release's monkey names all seem to be directly romanized from their literal JP translations, most of the time. So about 80% of the monkey names are some variation of 'Ukki' or 'Mon', whatever existing JP puns they used didn't translate over, and opportunities for US-specific puns are completely missed. It seems like this isn't an issue for the PAL localization though.

Also the protagonists suck. Kei is somehow more dripless than the average male pokemon protag, and Yumi is kinda just transparently designed by a pedophile - not inappropriate per se, but if you've been in twitter fandom art circles, it checks the boxes on very specific design kinks and flourishes that are SUPER fucking common with lolicon artists. Bleeeehhhhhhhhh.

By no means is this a perfect game, the vehicle controls are somewhat questionable (why can't I turn normally with a joystick?) and the camera can be a bit fiddly since your main tool used to refocus the camera is L1 (or the Dpad if for some reason you can be bothered to use the Dpad while moving). Also, some of the platforming can be a bit imprecise since grabbing ledges didn't always work for me. That said, this is perhaps the best dumb game I have ever played; the premise is based around an army of monkeys brainwashing humans with television reproductions that are so stupid, that they cause them to become entranced, and it's so fucking good. Messing around with all the different gadgets while foiling the monkeys' plans in various parody worlds is a blast, and hunting down all the monkeys isn't an issue at all thanks to the Monkey Radar and tons of different morph abilities to make capturing them easier. All in all, it's yet another great gem of the 2000s era, and Sony really ought to make more Ape Escape games (or at the very least, remaster these games that are desperately in need of love).

So. Ape Escape 3. Third time around, which means it's fair to pose the question: what should an Ape Escape game be?

The way I see it, you have three pillars. The first Ape Escape game was made to show off the DualShock and explore some of the possibilities only it could bring to the table. So, an Ape Escape game is meant to show off innovative control schemes. Second pillar: collectathon. There's monkeys, you gotta get them. Getting them should be fun, varied, interesting. And finally: frustrating, but in a fun way. If you didn't play Ape Escape on launch, it was a crash course in teaching your hands to do new things in a space you probably weren't used to. It was 3D, there was a new stick, jump was on a bumper. It was your mom looking down at the controller when you tell her to press A. Mix that in with the primate antics and you get an entertaining bit of scramble as you try and get them in your net.

Alright then. Ape Escape 2, first on the PS2. New system, new sequel to a popular game. Makes sense. but: no new control scheme. So what do you do? Sony chose expansion. A few new (mostly bad) gadgets, more monkeys to catch. A collectathon first and foremost and an effort that generally felt more like Ape Escape 1.5 than a true follow-up. Not bad, not mindblowing. And then: 3. Same system, no new controller. Less justification for existing than before, so the bar is a bit higher.

It doesn't quite clear it. Up front: it's a good game. Fun, chill. But it feels like a mediocre Ape Escape entry despite trying something new. The transformations are the new core system, and to be honest, they're a great idea, a wonderful replacement for the gadgets after 2 demonstrated that there just wasn't much room left in that space. Except... the gadgets are still here, and take a back seat in both capturing and environmental puzzles. There's little need for them unless the level specifically demands their use, and even less so in general circumstances. And even when they are needed, the transformations themselves can often replace their function.

That's where the rub is. A great idea, but sharing the stage and thus not fully fleshed out. Better that transformations had been a new home for old gadget functions, expanded on so that they were more robust, the old tools put out to pasture. Instead, transformations are the dominant mechanic, sometimes fun and always overpowered. Let's talk about that.

That third pillar was frustrating fun. And there's some new tricks here to help that along. Monkeys are generally harder to catch, dodging more, stealing items. Great stuff, needed since there's no new control scheme to trip the player up. But the problem is those transformations, each with incredibly strong, easy capture options and powerful attacks. There's no dodging a successful hit from a transformation capture. In the monkey goes, and out goes the frustration. You could choose to ignore the transformations, but then why even bother with a new game? Especially when the game itself constantly showers you with morph energy, clearly wanting you to use your new toys.

This could be forgiven if the monkeys were, at least, tricky to find and make capturable. But there's nothing new here. You've seen it all before, and in better form. Most monkeys are just sprinkled about. Sometimes you hit a button. Sometimes you use the slingback. But mostly, you walk around levels that seem quite a lot like levels you've seen in previous entries, scooping up monkeys, moving along. That level variety is a particularly sore spot. The premise this time is that Specter has invaded the airwaves, but instead of going into TV programs to fight back, you... go to their sets. So many fun, inventive possibilities, mostly squandered. Instead you'll get lukewarm parodies that, once again, you've seen before, all the way down to the finale sharing the same theme as the one in 2.

So the frustration is gone, which leaves, at best, a competent collectathon with a charming bubblegum pop infusion to its music, soft visuals and great character designs. But with no new control scheme to build new gameplay around and a core mechanic that begs you to ignore it to get back to the fun irritation of stuffing monkeys into nets, it puts itself on the same shelf as Super Castlevania IV by just... missing the point entirely. A game that was made because a sequel was due, and little more. Better to have held it for the PS3 and its Move controller, or even the gyro-enabled PS4.

This is by far the best Ape Escape game, it really does everything I would want an Ape Escape game to do perfectly. This game also made me really dislike the second game because it made me realize how many issues 2 has. The weapons are much better and more focused in this game, with the main focus being the morphs, which I absolutely loved, and the level design is way more interesting in 3. Controls are also much improved.

The levels here are great, every level feels refreshing and unique, not just in this series but in the 3D platforming genre as a whole. The story is goofy as usual, along with the voice acting, but that's part of what makes Ape Escape so fun. All I can say is that if you didn't enjoy the second game like I did, don't let that push you away from Ape Escape 3, this is one of the best 3D platformers out there.

Honestly, feels like a more polished and refined Ape Escape 2, that LEVEL VARIETY LADIES AND GENTS, 2 and 3 just knock it out of orbit with that, it just hits all the spots, 2 got a little something something that i cant put my finger on i aint gotta explain myself, they pretty much equal.

Some of the most creative platformers that got some type of joyfulness I ain't feel from the newer generations. Quite literally, a PS2 game.

Oh yeah final thing, only problem with these games is that the last 2-3 levels got me fidgeting in my seat wondering when we gonna wrap up but other than that, nothing but greatness.