Nor did I remember how fun Castle Frightmare was, with its banana researching versions of Jekyll and Hyde monkeys. I honestly didn’t remember how lovely Ancient Greece was under the rich, night sky blue. The locations in Ape Escape 2 were a mixed bag but better than I expected. But Pipotchi is ultimately useless, and later, a weak plot point in a game that needs no plot points or driving forces to encourage players to go out and catch monkeys. He does, however, provide bonus life-giving cookies to Hikaru if gets knocked out (a first time, anyway), and helps him up onto ledges. Honestly, he’s a less invasive version of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword’s Fi. But he is still paraded around as this cutesy little mascot, when he is not.Īnd worse, he is a tutorial for Hikaru, just in case players couldn’t figure out where to go. Oh yeah, sure Pipotchi seems happy to be wearing a newly made Peak Point Matrix helmet (the sort that sent the monkeys into disarray for increasing their intelligence, and the same that caused the stresses of the second game). The game introduced Pipotchi - a baby monkey enslaved by the Professor, Natalie and the game’s new protagonist Hikaru (Jimmy). Replaying Ape Escape 2 highlighted that it missed some of those marks but it also stays true to the silliness of the series, in some ways. And sneaking around to achieve heroism against hard punching monkeys was definitely fun. Some monkeys were more loveable than others. Utilising the full capacity of the Dualshock controller was fun. All of the destinations were probably simplified representations, warped further by monkey antics…but it didn’t matter back then!Ĭatching the monkeys was fun. Some of the trips were best guesses of what the past looked like, with woolly mammoths lumbering in the Ice Age and dinosaur-filled jungles of the Prehistoric Era. Visiting different time periods was a cultural trip to faraway lands I knew nothing about. The only way to stop the monkeys from doing exactly what humans did when we dominated the planet, was to send a spiky-haired fool with a time net to hunt and return the monkeys to captivity.įor as uninteresting and unoriginal as that sort of sounds, Ape Escape was a heck of a lot of fun for the little details it employed. Havoc, in this comedic game, meant fashioning the world in their likeness. Maybe?), and with their new found awareness, the monkeys unleashed havoc on the world throughout various periods in time, lead by Specter - a vastly intelligent monkey bent on world domination (of course!). Seems like a plot we’ve seen once or twice. The original Ape Escape had a weird premise: helmet technology increased monkeys’ intelligence (not so weird, actually. That’s the excuse I came up with when Ape Escape 2 proved me wrong - at least partially. But I recognise that memories are funny things, and tastes can change. When the PlayStation 2’s sequel recently got re-released on the PSN, I wanted that notion to be proven right. Ape Escape 2, on the other hand, I’ve always remembered as being significantly less fun. Until my nostalgia is proven wrong, I’ll keep on with that belief. I hold the first Ape Escape in high regards.
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