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.
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.