(This is a little under a month old now, but I didn't see it posted anywhere so here we are.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1U-S_S44k
Final Recommendation: Complete It (a.k.a. 5/5)
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I friggin' love this game, personally, and it was one of those games where you grow up thinking only you really played it until you find a whole bunch of other fans out there as well. Hard to believe it's still considered niche or cult when you consider it pretty much invented mandatory and fully-implemented dual-analog control schemes as we know them today. This was the game that really got me looking at controllers and what you could do with them due to how unorthodox its controls were for the time (I mean, the right shoulder buttons to jump? Madness!) Of course, one thing that makes it notable even today is that it's not just "right stick on camera" like modern games; the camera was still controlled by the D-pad in a way more reminiscent of single-stick games of the time, like Super Mario 64 with the N64's C-buttons. Definitely made the camera clunky at times (which Jirard notes), but it also meant that you're actually using both sticks to do stuff. The sticks were the "primary" inputs on both sides of the controller, which you usually don't see outside of console shooters (and even then, it's just aiming/camera again).
To this day I still think Ape Escape's controls are absolutely genius, and it was definitely a big cultural influence in my house growing up. My older brother was the one who actually owned all the PlayStation stuff and therefore this game (I took over the Nintendo stuff from him and my younger sister was SEGA), and I know it was his favorite game of all time for over a decade until it was finally dethroned by Portal 2. Hell, he's a musician nowadays and you can still hear its soundtrack's influence in his work. And aside from a kickass soundtrack, it's surprising how much even its graphics hold up nowadays, even compared to other cartoony games from Gen5 such as indeed Super Mario 64 (impressive, considering it was on the weaker PS1). Voice acting was definitely "mid-'90s dub" quality, but it had its charm - notably, the US and UK had separate translations with different voice casts and character names, and there's also a hilarious goof in the US dub where Jake's victory/defeat voice lines for the duel levels got mixed up, so he'll taunt you when he loses and whine when he wins.
Also, Ape Escape is notable for being one of the few - if not the only - first-party PlayStation IP that is truly made in-house at Sony themselves and not a subsidiary studio like Naughty Dog or Polyphony Digital. I know it got a few proper mainline sequels in Ape Escape 2/3 for the PS2, as well as a sub-series in the Pumped & Primed/Million Monkeys duology for the same, plus few spin-offs across various PlayStation systems. I never got any of those besides Pumped & Primed (Million Monkeys was EU-only), which was basically a multiplayer-focused game that felt like a cross of a 3D Super Smash Bros. and Mario Party, all with the series' iconic control scheme; good fun but also surprisingly creepy at times (whatever you do, do not watch Casi's bonus videos while sleep-deprived). There was also plans for an Ape Escape 4 for PS3 at one point, but it's been in development hell (if not outright shelved) for over a decade now - no doubt it'll have been moved to the PS4 if we ever finally see it at all. On that note, Jirard mentions wanting a Crash-style remaster of at least AE1 for the PS4. The game did already get a remake once in the form of Ape Escape: On the Loose for PSP, but It sucked - the PSP's limited inputs meant they had to seriously butcher the control scheme. I wouldn't mind seeing a modern remaster myself, maybe of the entire main trilogy - I know the later two had some interesting gameplay additions.
I'll go up against you any time you want.
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