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
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