Collection essentials #345: Ape Escape (PS1)

As I said in my previous post, Sony had a ton of third-party developers making games for their console and largely rode that to huge success. They weren’t as prolific at being developers themselves as Nintendo and Sega had been in the previous generation. But that doesn’t mean Sony didn’t occasionally pump out a hit of their own, such as today’s game.

The original PlayStation controller only had a d-pad and no joystick or analog stick. The problem with this is that d-pads typically can only register button presses in eight different directions, and in three-dimensional games, you often want a wider spectrum of movement than just eight directions. After their competitors released controllers with analog sticks in 1996, Sony introduced one of their own in 1997, the “DualShock”. Most games at first had optional analog stick support and were still made under the assumption that some gamers would only have the d-pad to use. But in 1999, Sony came out with this game, Ape Escape, which was designed around the analog sticks and could not be played without them at all.

Ape Escape is a 3D action platformer which is about trying to catch a large number of small apes that are on the loose. They don’t have tails, so do NOT call them monkeys! These apes all wear a special helmet that glows in a way that reflects their mood, making them a little easier to spot. As the main character, Spike, you must traverse the levels, avoiding enemies and hazards, and using your gadgets to help locate and catch the apes. The most important gadget is the net which is used to do the actual catching when it’s time. Some gadgets like the Stun Club are used as weapons, while others perform non-combat functions like the Sky Flyer which lets the user gain air and hover to access hard-to-reach places. 

A normal 3D platformer often uses the right analog stick to control the camera and the face buttons for basic actions like jumping and performing an attack. But Ape Escape goes for a really unique control scheme. Actions performed with your gadgets exclusively use the right analog stick! The face buttons switch between gadgets, the d-pad moves the camera, and shoulder buttons are used to jump and switch camera modes. The gadget analog stick controls are really creative and fun to use! For example, to use the Sky Flyer to hover up, you rotate the right analog stick, almost as if you’re turning the propellers. It feels good!

The game is obviously very well-made, with good graphics for the time, voice acting to improve the presentation, and quality level design along with plenty of postgame stuff to do for people who want to go for 100% completion and catch every single ape.

Ape Escape received critical acclaim and, as you can see in the photo, sold well enough to gain a “Greatest Hits” rerelease (characterized by the bright green label). However, perhaps surprisingly, it wasn’t a huge console-defining best-seller like you might expect a quality first-party platformer to be. And so the series did not come anywhere close to being the “next Mario” or “next Sonic”, though it did spawn a series and see respectful success. You certainly can’t blame Sony for not trying, because they certainly put in a good effort with this game.

I believe I was first introduced to this game through my cousin Eric who got the game a few years after its release and told me how great it was as he was playing through it. It wasn’t until many years later, in my 20s, that I wound up playing through it myself. It is indeed one of the finest PS1 platformers, and a deserving essential. Somehow I left it off my initial list of games I planned to cover, then I noticed it on my shelf and was like, “Wait, was I crazy??” I guess I had gone bananas to almost leave it off like that.