It's really hard to put into words what exactly makes Ape Escape extremely charming and fun, but I'll try anyway as someone who just beat it for the first time.

Despite being what's essentially a showcase of the (at the time) new DualShock, there's a number of creative ideas, setpieces, and even recurring tools usage and ESPECIALLY the use of numerous personality and short bio reads for each individual ape makes the loop of finding and capturing them a fun process to do, no matter how long or short your runs are, all rounded up with the visuals and the sound design being some of the best of the PS1 era. I'll even add that I grew to legitimately like the American Dubbing, despite its obvious issues like lack of proper lip syncing and some poor deliveries, since a number of the performances were genuinely fun to me (especially the VA for Specter and Spike).

And that's just in terms of design and aesthetics, even in the control department this is a blast to go through. From jumping, turning, and the previously-mentioned gadget uses, the game uses a lot of the twin sticks and four face buttons, and there's not a moment where I felt the game's age was showing itself. The camera itself was the closest it got, mostly due to it being a Claw Hand effect, but even then there's a reset button available on L1 that sets the camera back to your behind with ease, and it doesn't REALLY become an issue until the last few levels of the entire game.

So yea, fantastic game overall, and something I highly recommend to any platformer fan, or even someone new to the genre as a whole. There's no way you can go wrong with this title.

I really wanted to like this game. It's got some B-movie cheese, sexy samurai ladies, and it's super bloody. This game is right up my alley, but there are so many issues that seem to be ever-present that cannot be ignored, and really undermine the entire experience.

1) All the enemies, but especially bosses, are far too damage spongy.

2) Sometimes a boss has set moments/frames where they simply...do not take damage? Even though there's nothing to indicate that they're nullifying damage. Sometimes they're just kinda standing there for a second while you wail on them and no damage is taken by them. It's baffling.

3) You cannot interrupt boss attacks, at all, ever. I'd actually be fine with this is if weren't for the following issue:

4) The window for doing a slow-mo/perfect dodge is seriously screwed up, and almost NEVER lines up with when you think you actually should perform the dodge. So instead of avoiding damage you just take it and wondering why the hell you didn't avoid that attack. For example, one mini-boss has a stomp attack where he jumps in the air and slams onto the ground. Now, normally, you'd think to time the dodge JUST before he hits the ground (and you) right? NO, it has to be the INSTANT his feet make contact with the ground, and even then it only works SOME of the time. It's like this for almost every single enemy attack, boss or non-boss.

5) Zombies with guns. Yes, there are zombies who wield pistols and shotguns. And they LOVE to be just off-screen where you can't see them, so you get to take a lot of blind damage from a random direction because you can't see where you're getting shot at from.

6) The camera is really wonky. If you're locked onto an enemy, it jumbles and jolts around following the enemy 100% instead of being a general focus. And as a result of this, it's all-too-easy to get hit off-screen by something you had no way to anticipate because of how focused the lock-on is. When the camera ISN'T locked on, it does mostly okay, but you kinda need a lock-on system for the tougher enemies and bosses, but with how it's implemented, the camera is going to be a pain whether you use the lock-on or not.

7) The in-game unlockables are pretty sub-par/not that interesting and I just know this is done this way so you are steered into buying the DLC costumes. I don't have a problem with extra outfits/cosmetics as DLCs, but there are a TON of them for this game. The biggest offense here about this is that some of them are even seen in some in-game cutscenes, but you can't unlock them in the game, you have to buy them.

I hate that this game suffers like this. This game is really stylish and fun when the stars align and it works smoothly. The slo-mo you get from doing critical attacks is SUPER satisfying when it happens, and some of the combos are really badass and give you a nice dose of dopamine when the screen lights up in a bloody tornado of limbs, viscera, and samurai ass. Sadly, these nuisances occur far too frequently to be waived off. I wish this game didn't suck.

Persona 5 is a pretty good game, they've really ironed out every kink or bit of tedium involved with combat and the dungeon structure and while it can occasionally be kinda easy, it still feels really good in a way the makes combat never feel like a chore. I wish I could say the same for it's story structure. P5 unfortunately feels too mired in P4's structure and tone. It never really breaks free from those trappings and because of that it's story loses some gravitas and it's characters can feel weak in ways the P4 cast never suffered from despite the change to moving their social links to side content. It has some high highs but I wish P5 felt more consistent in it's writing quality.