Excellent game. As someone who thinks Ape Escape is the bets platformer of all time, I am glad I played this game because it is fantastic.

Caught all monkeys and it was a blast. Lot of variety in the levels, unfortunately only a couple of new gadgets, only 1 of us which was fun to use (the magnet)

Music was great, graphics and performance were great.

Only reason this is a 9 and not a 10 for me is because this felt like more of the same of the 1st game but not as grand, and the story was not as personal-feeling as Spike's story. Whole thing felt like a big expansion pack which was a slight letdown but I still had a LOT of fun with this one. Love what you unlock for getting all monkeys, worth maybe another playthrough sometime soon for that alone.

See you on Poinie's Poin.

Ape Escape 2 is pretty much a better, more fluid Ape Escape 1.

The jump from the PlayStation to the PlayStation 2 is really noticeable, the game looks really pretty and has so much variety in environments and many vibrant colors all around!
The voice acting (at least in the American English dub) also saw a massive boost in quality, and featuring some 4Kids voice actors as well, that's nice.
The soundtrack isn't as good as the first game, but there were tunes that I liked, it's just that nothing really stuck out to me unlike last time.

When it comes to the gameplay, not much has changed. There are some new gadgets you receive, and they're fine, most of them situational, and seldom used when you reach the final stages.

The swimming controls have been slightly altered, for the worse, I'd say, because now whenever you accelerate with the R1 button, you automatically go up. Thankfully, swimming is less emphasized here than before, but I still wonder why make those changes.

Outside of that, even though the game has the same number of stages as before, there are now way more monkeys to catch in each, which makes it seem like it's gonna be a longer game, but in reality, a lot of monkeys are close to each other, in groups. There's also a lot of monkeys that blend in to their environment, wearing specific clothes themed around that stage, like a Monkey wearing a lab coat in a lab, for example.
This adds a lot of personality to characters that already had plenty, which I appreciate.

And speaking of monkeys, this game introduces the Freaky Monkey Five, a group of monkeys Specter commands that act as bosses, before you get to Specter, and I very much appreciate their inclusion, since we didn't have many bosses last time, and these are all pretty fun to fight!

Lastly, there's Pipotchi, Jimmy's companion throughout most of the game. He doesn't make much of a difference on gameplay, and sometimes you won't have him in certain stages, for various plot-related reasons, but he can save you in a pinch, whether you're almost falling down a pit or if you ran out of health, and I appreciate that.

Before concluding, I want to briefly comment on the story. There's not much to discuss, as it's kinda similar to last time, just without time travel, and more "Specter being very intelligent by making a laser that makes people not want to resist monkey leadership".
What I find funny is that the whole reason why the story kicks off in the first place... is because Jimmy's a dumbass. Fascinating.

All in all, Ape Escape 2 is, in my opinion, a better, more solid version of Ape Escape 1, even if it didn't had that much to the overall formula.

A best friend of mine visited me earlier this month before he headed back to America (this was before the pandemic got very serious around here), and he gave me his Japanese PS2. Now with the ability to finally play PS1 and PS2 games, I hurried to the resale shop near me that I knew had this game and picked it up, since I've been wanting to play it for months. I'd never played the Japanese version of the game before, but it's a game I've 100%'d at least twice in English many years ago, so this was very much a trip down memory lane. It took me about 7 or 8 hours to capture all the monkeys and beat every stage (the English localization uses "ape" and "monkey" interchangeably, despite them clearly being apes, so I'm gonna do that as well here :b).

Ape Escape 2 is the second main-line game in the Sony-published and produced platformer franchise. It's a 3D action platformer collectathon that has two main gimmicks: monkeys and the dual-shock joysticks. Gimmick #1 is that the "star" equivalents are the monkeys themselves, whom you need to hit with your net to capture them. As you go through the game, they have ever more sophisticated methods of both hiding and then defending themselves, and if you collect enough of them in a stage, you'll complete it and be teleported out. The game has a sorta Mario Odyssey feel to it, to compare it to something more recent, in that there's a kind of linear path (or two) through each stage, but only once you get enough of the collectible do you actually leave it. You don't need to restart it each time. There are even some extra monkeys that repopulate levels once you beat the game as an incentive to go back and get other monkeys you missed, also a bit like Mario Odyssey (although nowhere near as many new things in old levels as that game), and getting all of those unlocks the true final boss.

Gimmick #2 is the dual shock, as this was a game series born on the PS1 more or less to show off the new DS1 controllers. You move with the left joystick, but the face buttons don't do anything but change your weapon. Actual attacking is done with the right stick (swinging in a particular direction, rotating it to spin up a propellor, etc.), and then you jump with R1. It can take some getting used to, and it honestly sometimes feels more like a contrived gimmick than a genuinely needed element for a few weapons, but it's gives the games a unique play style that is more good/novel than it is bad/frustrating.

The plot is as silly as the nature of the adventure describes. Due to a mislabeled shipment of monkey pants getting mixed in monkey helmets at the monkey park, the evil supergenius monkey Specter is able to once again get back his super intelligence, give all his mischievous buddies better smarts as well, and escape from the monkey park. You as Hikaru, whose fault this more or less is, are tasked with going out there to the various places and times the monkeys have run off to to re-capture them. It's all a very light-hearted and silly affair that doesn't take itself too seriously. While I do certainly have a soft spot for the English voice acting (I don't really like how Specter sounds like a kid in Japanese), the Japanese VA is also very fun, especially the Monkey Force Five who are all similarly campy and fun in their own ways in both English and Japanese.

As far as regional differences go, between my memory and the very small page for it on tcrf, there's very little differences between the English and Japanese aside from the VA and a nature around of the monkey's pun names. The only noteable ones are the English version technically having more monkeys out of the box, as 3 special event monkeys in the Japanese version are just wrapped into the main game seamlessly in English and don't require any special action on the part of the player to go and catch. Granted, that's 3 monkeys out of a total of 300, so it isn't exactly a mind-blowing amount of extra content, but the English version does technically have more to do. Then the weird thing I cannot imagine the reason for the English version lacking is the faster ability to change weapons by double tapping that face button to cycle through them. I mean it isn't a perfect system, as you have 14 of the things so going past the one you want can suck, but it's far faster and more fluid than going into the pause menu to change them every time like the English version forces you to. Perhaps they thought it was just a bit too fiddly to impose upon the international release of the game.

The presentation of the game is very Japanese without being explicitly so, and I think that speaks to just how little of the game was changed for the localization. It's very upbeat, very colorful, and has good music (although not anything particularly MP3-player-worthy, in my opinion), but it's all still grounded within its own logic. It's still fairly 'anime' in its style, but it's no Stretch Panic or Incredible Crisis.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is one of my favorite games on the PS2, and one of my favorite franchises of Sony's. I love the presentation, the characters, the gameplay, and the level design. If you like action/platformer games, this is absolutely a game worth checking out.

I've played 1 and 3 when I was younger but this is my first time playing 2, and I can pretty confidently say it's probably my least favourite out of the 3. Don't get me wrong it's a solid game! But I think it falls a little flat or could've been improved in certain areas.

Not having Soichi Terada for this game's OST is one of it's disappointments to me but the new music isnt bad at least. The levels feel a tad bit blander than 1's, and doesn't have any interesting theming like 1's different eras and 3's TV sets. The new gadgets aren't at all interesting and feel way too useless aside from the puzzles you specifically have to use it for. The magnet in particular kinda pissed me off because it was the main star of the most unfun platforming segments of the final level. Speaking of which I did not like that final level or the final boss!!! The level itself was just so boring for half of it and the final boss was honestly frustrating. Not hard, just frustrating. Also is it just me or do I feel like I constantly have to fight the camera, even more so than the first game.

Still, I think the rest of the game was still a good time. The monkeys have even more personality now, and there were so many visual gags in the level so I often just took my time observing them. They feel a little more fleshed out and improved gameplay-wise too. Also Jimmy and Pipotchi are the cutest protags in the series I love them.

I feel really conflicted on this one. For everything it improves over the first, something cancels it out. It's a better controlling, better structured game but one that never feels as fresh as the OG, whether that be the levels, story beats or anything else. Also, the music is a downgrade in every way and that's something that really made the 1st game stand out to me, so it's kinda a shame on the downgrade.

All in all, this is the better game to play but Ape Escape 1 is the more unique experience of the two, so in the fabled "gun to head" situation, that game would probably be my pick even despite the improvements on offer here.

The sequel to the only PS1 game I remember who demanded me to use the second analog stick for an experimental control scheme that somehow made sense. While improving mechanically and graphically from the original, it also features more varied scenarios, boss battles, minigames and a prominent gacha box which ends up being a double edge sword.

On the flip side, it can give you concept art, easter eggs, comic strips among other stuff that give the monkeys and characters a lot fo personality, something the main plot doesn't do much. However, for a good while it's the only way to earn extra lives and they are very rare to drop.

As a result, for a good chance of the game forgetting to save before a level where a monkey KOs you by any number of reasons (the monkey, surrounding enemies, the camera, the stage) can lead you to some pretty annoying game over. Nonetheless, once you get to a stage where you could easily find one there you're good to go.

Finally, the time trials are mostly achievebable, some requiring a lot of precision from an otherwise imprecise in nature game. Thankfully, aside from the boss fights, they don't last as much as one would expect.

PS: the soccer minigame sucks, some monkeys dribble worse than yours truly IRL.

There's something about Ape Escape that's so charming and fresh. I'm a massive fan of the original, which makes my opinion on the sequel slightly harsh.
While the gadgets here are better than in the original, I think AE1 is a much better game. The levels, the music and the overall quality of the game is consistent throughout.
That's not to say that the above is bad in AE2, it's just that AE1 set such a high bar that I feel was quite difficult to follow.
The voice acting for Jimmy and Natalie (voiced by the same actors who portrayed Ash and Misty in the English Dub of Pokemon) give the game a very "Saturday Morning Cartoon" feel which makes it all the more nostalgic, and takes you back when games were quirky and videogame companies weren't afraid to take risks.
The Dual Analog control scheme makes a triumphant return in this game as well, and I'm an extremely big fan of how the game controls; it just makes sense. Nothing beats flicking the right stick to knock an enemy, prompting a satisfying sound effect or capturing a monkey and getting that 360 camera pan.
Some problems I had with the game is that I felt it leaned more towards a traditional platformer than 'Ape Escape' at times, and that the overall difficulty was quite low.
The game is great to plow through in a sitting or two, but I highly recommend you check out the original first!

Ape Escape went on to be met with massive praise and success on the Playstation in 1999. Like all massive successes, Playstation wanted to capitalize on this opportunity to follow up with a sequel that would hopefully keep the ball of profitable sales rolling. With the rampant success of the Playstation 2's launch, Playstation wanted their iconic platformer to have a follow up title that would show off the power of the upgrades the Playstation 2 can provide to such a platformer.

Pros
- Complete overhaul of graphics and mechanics (character models, environment architecture and gameplay mechanics/animations all upgraded to PS2 level specs)
- Improved voice acting
- Several new gadgets have been added to increase variety in level & puzzle design
- “Ape personality” color mechanic further expanded on and introduces multicolor, special apes

Cons
- Dialogue can sometimes stray too far from the semi-serious plot (even for a children’s game)
- Introduction of strange gag character, Monkey Yellow
- Second trip of rounding off levels for the true ending tends to feel like padding due to imbalance of monkeys needed to be captured during the first trip (I’ll touch on this further)
- End game difficulty spikes are apparent and somewhat imbalanced (still completable, given you have patience)

I have to say, playing Ape Escape 2 for the first time was a refreshing experience. Seeing all of the changes from Ape Escape being implemented into its sequel on newer hardware, you can tell that Playstation had a lot of ideas that they had been fleshing out in the 3 years time it took to produce a sequel. This time around, there’s a lot of improvements to level layouts and smoothness to mechanics to make getting around the 3D environments easier. A lot of the systems introduced in the first game have been expanded on by an impressive amount. Vehicle sections have returned now with a few different vehicles and controls being a bit more streamlined. Our apes, now officially referred to as monkeys, have gotten an update in design to look closer to the modern design the franchise is well known for, as well as improved AI that makes catching them more varied and somewhat more challenging. Moving from Playstation to Playstation 2, Japan Studios was successful in giving the growing franchise a major facelift for the, at the time, new generation.

The premise of Ape Escape 2 remains the same as its original dna. Specter, an albino monkey with heightened intelligence, has again attained the Pipo Helmet, raised an army of havoc creating monkeys, and is trying to take over the world. Instead of the helmet mysteriously being found by Specter in his enclosure at Monkey Park, like in Ape Escape, the situation is a lot less engaging. I think the writers had in mind to bring in new young players and so the game is written with lighter tones and more obnoxious type humor than its predecessor. The Professor has gone on vacation and left our new protagonist, Jimmy (Spike’s cousin), the task of using the lab’s teleporter to send new shorts to the monkeys at Monkey Park. He gives Jimmy a warning saying to make sure he does not put too much weight on the machine or there will be some catastrophic consequences. Jimmy, voiced by Kathleen McInerney (the voice of Ash Ketchum from the first eight seasons of the English dub of the Pokemon anime), is best described as a child who doesn’t understand the seriousness of certain situations. Jimmy goes on to pack the teleporter with not only shorts for the monkeys but he also includes Pipo helmets and overloads the teleporter. Natalie, the Professor’s granddaughter and assistant from the first game, rushes into the lab to witness Jimmy’s fatal mistake and sees Specter appear on the monitor. As she comes to realize the damage that’s been done, the teleporter overheats and explodes destroying the lab. Natalie, voiced by Rachael Lillis (the voice of Misty from the first eight seasons of the English dub of the Pokemon anime), is flustered and irritated with the mess that’s come of the situation and questions Jimmy on what he was thinking sending the Pipo helmets to Monkey Park. Jimmy, excited and cheerful, exclaims that he thought the monkeys would look cool with the helmets on, unaware of the fact that he had just spelled the doom of the world yet again.

Compared to the first game, the writing has taken a turn to being more wacky to supposedly allow kids of younger ages to be engaged with the plot. Ape Escape had a lot of heavier tones that contrasted with the colorfulness of the game and even with the amateurly recorded voice acting, the dialogue would actually portray how high the stakes were with Specter taking over the world. In this game though, the plot has points of depth that are hard to stay focused on because the dialogue repeatedly leans into the exaggerated humor category. Even with the bias of being a Pokemon fan and enjoying the fact that the protagonist essentially is Ash Ketchum, it’s distracting when Jimmy just “doesn’t get it” when dealing with an army of chaotic, super intelligent monkeys that have equipped themselves with weapons of mass destruction.

Dialogue aside, this game shines in a ton of ways. The level design has taken a step up since the last time we were running around, catching monkeys. Level themes have taken a step back in terms of cohesive thematic groups, now each of the levels seem to take on their own identities based on real world locations. You have snowy mountains where monkeys are skiing and you have to chase them down on a snowmobile, beaches with underwater caverns to explore, you can even catch monkeys on gondolas in Italy, and the closer you get to Specter's base, the more militaristic and industrial areas you’ll come across. More gadgets have even been added to the game to add variety to puzzle solving and even traversing levels having to use specific gadgets to activate certain switches, stick to walls, or even access areas you previously couldn’t. Collectibles have even been expanded. In Ape Escape there were two collectibles you could get in a level, triangular gold coins and Specter coins. Gold coins would grant the player an extra life for every 100 coins they collected, Specter coins, however, would unlock the minigames that could be accessed in the mission hub after a certain amount was collected. In Ape Escape 2, only gold coins can be collected in levels. This time though, gold coins can be deposited into a gacha machine that is accessible in the mission hub. Every ten coins you deposit will allow you to strike the machine and it’ll pop out a prize at random. Prizes can range from many things including concept art, developer photos made with character models, humorous stories called Monkey Fables, extra lives or even cookies to refill your health. Although it’s great that players have more reason to collect coins, sitting at the gacha machine swinging at it aimlessly until you’re out of coins can be both exciting and also redundant. Out of the 15 hours it took me to complete the game I’d say maybe two of those hours was me cashing in my coins in between each level hoping to fill in my missing collectibles or to heal Jimmy as the levels tend to not have many health items that can be found, adding to difficulty.

Progression in the game proceeds the same as it did in the first. You play as Jimmy going into each level and catching a set amount of monkeys that is lower than the total amount you can find. Once you reach the end of the game and confront Specter, you’ll face the boss and Specter will get away. You’ll then retrace your steps through each level to catch the remaining monkeys now equipped with more gadgets to access areas you previously couldn’t, knowledge on level layouts, and plenty of practice and experience in monkey catching. Experiencing this progression system again wasn’t a problem and was even enjoyable with some aspects of the game feeling like a metroidvania. My only gripe this time was that it became apparent that the required amount of monkeys to catch in the first round is too close to the total monkeys in each level. For example, a mid level stage in Ape Escape may have 10 monkeys total and require you to capture only 5 of them during your first visit, meaning you’ll have to catch the other 5 on your second visit. In Ape Escape 2 this margin is a lot thinner. Out of the 10 monkeys that can be found, your first trip may require you to capture 7 or 8, meaning only a few of them will be remaining when you revisit the stage. This creates a lot of imbalance in the stages during the late game due to the stages being a lot larger. You’ll often find yourself in quite a few stages running around an empty layout for 10 minutes just to reach one monkey at the very end of the stage.

Imbalances aside, the stages are full of additional content, new bosses, minibosses, several enemy types and greater fleshed out monkey types. I know I’ve been going on about how this series is pretty wacky being about a kid who has to run around catching cute and very dangerous monkeys, but I assure you the situational difficulty can be pretty cutthroat. This game can be moderately hard with the various platforming segments having hazards that take a lot of quick thinking to maneuver unharmed. Cleverly though, the developers reward the player after they’ve traversed dangerous heights, valleys of lava pools or, piranha infested waters with cookies that’ll refill some of your health at the end of some of the most difficult segments. There are many minibosses across stages that range from large enemies that take a bit of focus to take down and even monkeys in various suits of armor, space suits, mechs, ufos, if you name it they probably have it. Monkeys are even more difficult to capture, often staying near enemies that need to be defeated first. The AI pathing and behavior behind the monkeys is a lot more advanced with them changing routes on you and being more aggressive. Monkeys have an added mechanic that works with rng (random number generator) when capturing them, meaning even a well placed swing of the monkey net (officially named the Time Net) can still be dodged. This adds a new level of excitement as each encounter tends to feel like a battle of wits. The color coded behavior system has been improved with more divide in the monkeys’ personalities and a new category being added, specialty monkeys. These monkeys come in a large variety of different thematic costumes based on their levels and have behaviors that are not in congruence with the other monkeys. These monkeys have a wide range in difficulty as well. Some of them are easy to capture because they pose like statues of art, others are very hard to capture because they’re minibosses or one of the seven different bosses (Specter 1 and Specter 2 being included). One notable specialty monkey that I consider to be a miniboss is named Tommy (the Magician). Admittedly I’d say Tommy is more difficult to catch than any other monkey in the game aside from Specter, the final boss. He wears a magician’s costume and uses a staff to repeatedly spawn enemies in threes in his arena. When you approach him he’ll simply teleport away. This monkey alone killed me about 5 times and took over 10 minutes to capture. I got him though.

Last but not least, we were introduced to a new set of foes under Specter’s rule, The Freaky Monkey Five. All of these characters are “super” monkeys that Specter created by feeding them “Vita-Z” bananas. They each have heightened abilities that go with their personalities and serve as our main bosses prior to confronting Specter. They go by the names of the following colors: Biker Monkey Blue, Popstar Monkey Pink, Sumo Wrestler Monkey Yellow (a very weirdly written character), Scientist Monkey White, and their leader, Western Wrestler Monkey Red. Each of their fights serve as a self contained stage and they use their environments to make for some really fun boss fights. Monkey Pink will be up on her aquatic themed stage and you have to traverse over lily pads, dodging enemies and sound waves to strike her. Monkey Red has a fairly simple wrestling ring in the middle of a jungle where he tries to attack you with flashy moves and will even jump out of the ring, grab a dinosaur( which were apparently still in existence in 2002), and suplex the dinosaur into the ring in an attempt to harm you. These boss fights were a delight to come across throughout the story and didn’t create any hard stop roadblocks due to their cohesive difficulty. The final boss being Specter was enjoyable as well and in the same fashion as the first game, he will get away from your first encounter and have to be faced later as a true final boss after you’ve caught every other monkey in the game. His true final boss fight is respectably the most difficult fight in the game given that he floats around the arena on his throne and fires a lot of variously difficult to dodge attacks at you. This fight has a very low rate of spawning health items after each of his barrages of attacks so it’s pretty common that you’ll have low health and even die a few times.

Overall, after 15 and a half hours, Ape Escape 2 is a pretty great experience and follow-up to its Playstation predecessor. With all of its pre-established features being expanded and improved upon, along with quite a few new features, its shortcomings aren’t really anything to hold a grudge against. As an added bonus, after completing the true ending, you can play as Spike, the protagonist from Ape Escape and Jimmy’s cousin, if you hold down the L1 button when selecting a new game. Similarly to the first game, there are unlockable minigames that are honestly a bit better than the ones provided in Ape Escape. I believe Ape Escape 2 is a solid sequel that, at the time, was finding its proper footing on the Playstation 2, and for that I believe it deserves a solid 3/5 stars.

Thank you for enjoying my review,
Shaun Warrior

more monke

It's more ape escape, which considering how much I liked the first game really isn't a problem whatsoever. The core gameplay of using the dualshock sticks to catch various monkeys is primarily the same, as well as the tools and gadgets also mostly being the same, it's all-around a pretty safe sequel.

The game still has its signature level of wacky style to everything, I particularly like the new boss troupe - the Freaky Monkey Five, as both a goofy exaggerated sentai parody and as a set of boss fights. There's also a gacha machine that gives out collectibles ranging from goofy dev screenshots to bizarrely morbid fairytale parodies. There's even full 16:9 widescreen support, which is crazy for an '02 PS2 game. My only gripes with the game is that some of the later levels can be a bit too long and linear for the type of collectathon this series tries to be as well as the fact you basically HAVE to replay every level if you want the true ending as the post game adds bonus monkeys to every level like its mfin green stars from mario galaxy 2.

From the way everything is designed and presented, it really felt to me like the devs were having a lot of fun making the game. Like the first Ape Escape, the game wears its Japanese origins with pride to make a good time. (sidenote: kinda strange how the ape escape series is like the only largely talked about jpn-developed 3D platformer for the playstation brand, you'd think there'd be more from the PS1 and PS2 era). The game doesn't really reinvent the banana, but it didn't really have to in the first place.

Also the USA localization of the game is deadass dubbed by the same voice directors and cast as the 90's Pokemon anime, guess ash and misty can add monkeys to the things they have to catch all of