Just finished playing this for the first time and I gotta tell you, I liked it as much as the first game, so weird most fans consider it to be tedious. In fact I'd even say it's the best PS2 platformer, holy shit these games are truly underrated. Really looking forward to playing 3 now. Do you guys like Ape Escape 2?
I don't own a copy but I had fun playing it at my friends house. We used to play monkey soccer all the time. I think it's a great game from what I've experienced
I played way too much monkey soccer when I was a kid. Something about it was addicting.
I played through the main trilogy for the first time last year. I loved them all. I thought 2 was a solid sequel overall, and I wasn't aware that people consider it to be tedious.
Which one did you like the most?
The original was probably my favorite overall. I liked the darker more saturated color palette and the ost.
1>3>2
British dub>American dub
bong dub sucks spector is a dork
I played through Ape Escape 2 for the first time earlier this year too and really enjoyed it.
I wonder of some people didn’t like it as much because it is pretty reminiscent of the first game. The best new gadget is the magnet because they do quite a bit with it in the final levels. And the boss fights were fun. The true Specter battle was quite tough.
I mostly prefer the American dub, as that’s the one I played, but I love the British Specter voice. He sounds so unhinged in that one.
I remember that monkey in 1 being so annoying to catch too when I first played Ape Ecsape this past January. I think it took me like 20 minutes. There’s also the one messing around with the two switches and the fans that was annoying.
1 is my favorite too, especially your points. Just a different atmosphere compared to the sequels.
>I remember that monkey in 1 being so annoying to catch too
What monkey are you talking about guys, I don't remember having trouble with any of them. 1 is a pretty easy game, 2 was way harder for me personally. There's a very important detail that no one talks about, I hate how in 2 you can't rotate with your monkey net on the ground in 'catching position', this shit was REALLY helpful in 1. Like if you miss a monkey by an inch or so you can still quickly adjust your net to its position, it takes less than a second so you can still catch it before it runs away. In 2 Jimmy just swings the net sideways if you quickly rotate the stick after failing to catch a monkey and his swings fricking take forever
Yeah AE1 looks amazing, the way the stun club emits light combined with this game's dark environments is amazing
I think those other anons are referring to the monkey that runs around a square course in dark ruins. I cant remember his name, but that was the most difficult part of the game for me.
OOOHH, right
This fricker. I vaguely remember sneaking up on him, I got really lucky and managed to catch him relatively fast
aren't you supposed to wait until you get the speed hoop ramstun and to catch that one?
that being said ape escape 1 has an impressive soundtrack and great level design / scenery. the great wall and castle levels are weird.
That does help, but I still think it's relatively difficult, especially since bumping into a wall with the speed hoop typically sends you into the water.
3 will probably blow this shit out of the water for you (as it should)
3>1>2
i played them for the first time last year. 2 and 3 kind of blend together and i liked them equally. 1 i liked a tad less than 2 and 3. some parts were tediousm chasing that monkey around the inside of a temple in an early level especially sucks
i have no desire to do time trials
Glad to hear that 3 is so good, shit I want to start playing it right now actually but I need to take a break. Part of the reason why I enjoyed 2 so much is because I played 1 in December
>i have no desire to do time trials
The difficulty of them in 1 and 2 is all over the place. Like 90% of the challenges can be done on your first try, especially if you have all the gadgets, and then the rest are fricking rage inducing. I did 100% both games but honestly I don't know if it's worth it, I hate time trials in games (doing those relics in Crash 3 made me go insane) and neither of the two games reward you for full completion
>2 was a godsend if anything given that you could see more than 20 feet ahead of you on that alone.
Yeah, also 60 FPS. It also has that smooth art style that makes it look great even in 480i on my shitty modern TV
I enjoyed the whole trilogy, don't know why 2 has such a reputation. I made sure to just play the games with no spoiling of content and opinions so it was all my own perspective.
2 was a godsend if anything given that you could see more than 20 feet ahead of you on that alone.
It's one of those "Zelda 2" games. You know, games you heard that people apparently dislike, but no one actually does. The whole trilogy is great, the one thing that knocks points off 2 is not having Soichi Terada do the soundtrack, but that's fixed with 3.
>It's one of those "Zelda 2" games.
Exactly, I think of Zelda 2 every time I'm experiencing these
>wait, is this supposed to be bad?
moments. I was honestly waiting for the game to start going to shit after every level but it never happened. I enjoyed every minute of it, except for the times when you had to use the magnet, that gadget was kinda unnecessary
Played it some years ago, never got why it had such a reputation. My only qualm was it could have used some real QoL features like being able to continue a level after collecting the monkey count so you can collect every monkey in a level on one go. Having to collect every monkey for the true final boss is annoying with having to revisit each level, resulted in me in leaving the earliest monkeys in a level alone since that would mean less time going through the level on a second playthrough of it.
>resulted in me in leaving the earliest monkeys in a level
Lmao yes, I tried doing this too. But you know how it actually went for me? Not counting the time trials, I actually revisited each level THREE times. Because of the damn additional monkeys that 'appear' after you beat Specter for the first time. When I'm playing collectathons I like collecting as much shit as possible before moving on, my inner autist tells me to. It felt like shit when the monkey counter of each level went up by 1 or 2 after the credits. Though deep down inside I knew something was wrong because there were metal boxes and shit that I couldn't break
What's the rope minigame from Ape Escape 2? That shit was kinda crazy