Ape Escape 3 | Smile for the Camera - AntDude

[Music] welcome back everybody to this early 2020 edition of when is Sony going to finally announce a new ape escape game slash remake on this episode I have no idea Sony was so bizarre when it came to marketing ape escape as a franchise in 2019 we got an official Twitter account that's super active with a bunch of artwork and pictures of somebody in a big old ape suit and that's it we also got some genuinely freaky shirt designs what the hell is this I'm terrified listen maybe I'm just bitter but all I'm saying is some of those weak state of play videos that Sonya was doing they would have been saved with an ape escape announcement you know I'm right alright well somebody has to keep this hypetrain going even though theoretically it doesn't even exist hashtag Apes will escape that's still the thing on social media let's keep that going last time we took a look at Apes cape - only makes sense to move on to the sequel ape escape 3 also known as wait there's a third ape escape released in 2006 outside of Japan - very minimal fanfare it's pretty interesting to me how little this game gets talked about you know maybe I just figured all this time ape escape was a bigger overall franchise than it actually was back in the day I mean let's take a look back ape escape 1 was monumental for not only having a really fun and engaging set of gameplay mechanics but it was also a great showcase for Sony's brand-new dual analog controller ape escape 2 up to the ante a little bit with some more story elements and additional gadgets to spice up the tried-and-true gameplay as well as also having the benefit of being simply more Ape Escape but on more powerful Hardware showing off jiggle physics that I am still uncomfortable with all these years later at the end of the day though it did feel like a bit too much of the same by taking a look at the whole film crew setup here on the boxart for Game three maybe we actually have something new here Ubisoft 2 dipped out of this one though clearly they were not having whatever Sony was serving good riddance I guess that means we have no more Pokemon voice acting that was weird anyway sure enough the evil monkey Specter is back it's only one tiny furball how does he keep getting out this time with the help of this extravagant fella dr. Tamaki Specter is looking to put every human out of commission by broadcasting television shows that place everybody into a mindless trance it's not as over-the-top as time travel but damn it it works if a giant laser couldn't get the job done why not take up being a film director instead I can appreciate aiming high luckily a few have managed to avoid that trance newcomers ke yume their aunt aki and the returning Natalie so now it's up to them to save the day what is this a choice of characters to play yes that's kind of cool sadly in the grand scheme of things it's not as interesting as it seems it's about as fleshed out as choosing boy or girl in a Pokemon game but with your kid of choice you go around all the film sets capture all of the monkeys and thwart specters plans once again what we have here is honestly a pretty solid premise and it allows for a lot more interesting locales to run through one stage you're running through a forest and then immediately after you're exploring a giant castle there's a Wild West inspired village a large TV studio a spooky lake with a nice Jason Voorhees reference it's pretty neat stuff we do see some specific characters and sets being referenced here there but for the most part we're seeing references to cinematic themes not so much individual movies it would be nice if we had something like Saving Private Ryan an ape escape form but hey maybe that's what neighbors skate for could be about there's a lot more personality shining through here with movie scenes often playing right in front of you and it's pretty entertaining Ape Escape too did have a few unique monkeys here or there but ape escape 3 is filled with them and the adventure is a whole lot more enjoyable because of it I also love whenever you find monkeys on a film set yeah some of them are in costumes as to be expected but alongside them are usually camera monkeys or director monkeys that's perfect and in the post game when you're going for all the monkeys you missed out on you get to go to every locations secret behind the scenes area where some of the actors are just sitting back and relaxing I'm assuming they're actually stunt doubles and hey that's brilliant it also helps that the monkeys got their redesigned to their more pleasant current appearance it's pretty minor but it's much better gameplay-wise yeah it's kinda like exactly the same thing I guess at this point there really aren't that many ways to jazz up the formula different verse same as the first you get a certain number of monkeys to go for you hit him with a stick you capture them with your net and you do that until the game says to stop it's still a lot of fun at least which is nice but I guess I did just expect something a little bit more I'm sorry what excuse me did that monkey just knock away my net you got your gadget snatched by a monkey didn't you what yeah on the surface this does seem like it's exactly the same as before well you do have to stay on your toes a lot more often third time doing this some of these monkeys are ready to fight back well except for the ones who are massive fans of you me this is the only real difference between the two playable characters you me is actually a popular Idol and some monkeys get paralyzed upon being in her presence they get starstruck it's a pretty weird way of implementing a bizarre pseudo easy mode but yeah sure okay anything that gets the monkeys into myNet a whole lot faster is okay in my book we got some vehicles popping up once again and boy they kind of suck dude this car moves so fast how am I actually expected to not drive like an absolute maniac here this is the worst and I'm supposed to run this monkey off the road yeah okay good joke i legit did the circle a good dozen times before I was able to get the monkey this isn't a hyperbole this thing sucks in the previous games as a means to spice up the gameplay these vehicle segments they were fine especially since they were an additional showcase of that dual analog set up but ape escape 3 actually introduces a handful of new gimmicks that make the vehicle segments feel pretty forced in my opinion for example the gadgets are handled way better this time the number of them that you have access to has been reduced from how many there were in game 2 which is for the best they were pretty enjoyable in that game for sure but ones like the water gun they felt pretty unnecessary now we're back to the same set as the first game - the magic punch but of course we have something a bit grander we have the brand new and awesome gimmick morphs now by pressing the R 1 and R 2 buttons at the same time while this meter is full you can transform and gain a bunch of new abilities become a knight wielding a mighty shield and capable of dealing more powerful blows become a ninja nimble enough to walk over tight ropes and run across walls become a damn superhero firing lasers and flying through the air like you're straight out of an anime or donna monkey first suit and boy sign me up this mechanic is so much fun and it was always enjoyable seeing just how long I can stay in the form at any given time when you activate it you only have 30 seconds to use it but you can constantly get these items that give you more time and I was able to maintain some of these forms for upwards of five minutes and it felt really satisfying to do so that being said though I feel like this idea could have been expanded upon a little bit more they sort of feel like copy abilities in a Kirby game very rarely are you required to use them but hey if you do want to use one just go for it it's all in good fun after all and oh oh the theme for the fantasy night is a jam it's worth transforming into that for the theme song alone the transformations become the most useful during the boss fights against the returning freaky monkey five and boy what a downgrade they are from the last time partially because the morphs are slightly overpowered partially because they simply don't put up that much of a fight these battles were a whole lot easier than last time and they usually just consists of pushing through and spamming them with the text until they go down super simple oh and I yeah you remember how disturbing yellow monkey was an ape escape - well no worries he's worse now he shoots shura canes out of his nipples and he giggles the whole time this is why we're not getting an ape escape trilogy remake nope nope nope don't don't like that one bit outside of the main adventure there have been some quality-of-life upgrades regarding the extras and unlockables Ape Escape - had that weird toy machine that would give you goodies randomly which was pretty annoying but now we have an entire shopping district so you can choose what you want to spend your money on which is nice there's just not really much to mess with though concept art short stories monkey astrological signs okay according to this my look is as good as home what does that mean you can also check out some of the monkeys theatrical masterpieces I can sense an up-and-coming popular youtuber here I can just feel it and then we have the minigames and while I would say the nape escape 3 is overall a pretty underrated game the minigames in particular this is something people are more familiar with two of the three minigames here are whatever one-on-one karate combat and hammer toss Oh with another monkey humorous for maybe 20 seconds and that's about it but then we have Missile Gear Solid this is incredible for whatever insane reason we have a massive crossover between Metal Gear Solid and ape escape presenting us with an entire miniature campaign where you essentially play Metal Gear Solid but with monkeys and I suck at it conversely there was also an ape escape minigame in Metal Gear Solid 3 on PlayStation 2 I'm honestly not big on Metal Gear as a franchise but you can't deny this is pretty fantastic and while there were a couple of additional character references in the main game some of them unlocked by cheat code I'm pretty surprised this ape escape referencing other Sony game idea was never taken further uncharted but everyone's a monkey think about it but alright let's wrap this thing up after taking out the freaky monkey 5 as well as dr. Tim Oki who really doesn't put up much of a fight he's a pretty unnecessary addition to the plot honestly he just sort of shows up makes a few weird lines and then you beat him up and that's kind of it he does this thing where he like sacrifices himself at the very end of the plot and then he's alive so yeah what was the point of him I don't know I don't understand eventually though you make your way to specters massive headquarters you fight him in his giant mech which hey you know the first two times didn't work out surely this third time will and it doesn't and then you go back to all the previous levels get the monkeys that you missed out on fight Spectre once again and another pretty easy fight and then boom credits I know I made a joke about this whole ending sequence because honestly it's pretty underwhelming it's just far too similar to the previous two it matches a lot of the same story be that by the time I got to Spectre I just didn't care the adventure of getting all the monkeys was still a ton of fun though when you really look at the whole picture here ape escape 3 is more of the same but the few additional tweaks make it stand out a whole on more than game 2 which is nice but when you look at the entire trilogy it's hard to deny that these games are just fantastic yeah there are elements of each one that feel a little bit undercooked like some of the extra gameplay elements that were forced in or some of the story elements that don't really matter at the end of the day but just based on purely being a super fun experience this entire trilogy comes highly recommended and after that that's it sony hasn't necessarily forgotten about ape escape but they've definitely treated it with less respect than it deserves the way I see it unless they thought putting spike in playstation allstars was enough the franchise would also give us a few spin-offs got a couple of them right here and there are plenty that never left your pants so maybe this could be an interesting topic for another day maybe I'll talk about it when we're close to that new game or remake finally releasing it's never gonna happen is it I'm really just screaming into a void at this point the fact that many evil got a remake before ape escape they talked about anything with that still blows my mind at this point we're probably gonna get a remake of Glover before we get anything ape escape and you know what I would actually be okay with that but I'm still men [Music] you [Music]

Channel: AntDude

Views: 246,496

Rating: 4.9685674 out of 5

Keywords: AntDude, Review, Video Review, Game Review, Ape Escape, Ape Escape 2, Ape Escape 3, Ape Escape Remake, Ape Escape Remaster, Ape Escape PS4, PS2 platformers, Ape Escape review, Ape Escape 3 review

Id: BqzqN2hjEX4

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 05 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/CaptainServiceMan]

This Game is much my childhood, Got me not only into Ape Escape but Metal Gear as well, and now I am a huge fan of both, would galdly pay full price for a new game or even if they just remade 3 for PS4, I am guessing it would be a licensing nightmare because of the Metal Gear stuff. But even if they cut that out I would probably still by it...it's not the same but I would still love it because it's Ape Escape ^{w^}