Game #1241: Ape Escape 3

'sssabout time we open up a Zoo with all them monkeys! 

 In an attempt to prove that you can never have too many Monkeys in your videogame, Ape Escape 3 was created, and this time, they are going Hollywood!

 Not much has changed since the last game, as Ape Escape 3, as this is yet another 3-D platforming game in which you must collect monkeys, and the game makes use of both analog sticks for your actions, the left one moves your playable character and the right one uses whatever gadget you've selected. The game has changed very little, to the point that not much is new, and it retains everything that worked in previous games... as well as everything that didn't.

 In this new entry, Spike and Jimmy, the heroes from AE 1 and 2 respectively, are out of commission, so you get to pick between Kei and Yumi, a boy and a girl. They are pretty much interchangeable and most differences are negligible. Although a few monkeys 'like' Yumi, so they won't attack her. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the monkeys went Hollywood in this one, so you'll occasionally finding aping movie scenes, but it didn't necessarily affect gameplay in any major way, it's just more monkeys doing silly things that you must capture.

 The overall inventory has been reduced, most of the gadgets AE 2 added were removed, as this game features the same gadgets from AE 1 minus the boxing glove. Most of the puzzles too are stuff you have seen already in the previous games. This might be a good thing as there isn't as much inventory shuffling required, although they added a new quick-swap feature, double tapping a face button will start shuffling the assigned tool with the rest of the available gadgets, which made the game a lot more comfortable.

 There is one new addition, however, Transformations. As you go through the game you'll unlock the ability to wear costumes, such as the Knight, which can block flames, the Ninja, that can run on walls and over ropes, as well as a few others. Their use, when it comes to obstacle clearing, is pretty limited since transformations are temporary and run on an energy gauge, so they couldn't expect you to have access to them at all times. It's a bit of a shame, as they could've had more fun coming up with different obstacles that required costumes to make up for the reduced amount of gadgets.

 Costumes do come in handy to handle the monkeys, as they are more aggressive than ever before, they can even knock out gadgets from your hands and steal them for themselves! Yeah, it's very annoying(Not in a bad way), but monkey can't take away your transformations, and transformations tend to have overpowered capture abilities.

 Sadly, as I mentioned previously, what didn't work in previous games hasn't been addressed. The camera is still rather unwieldy, and since this game has tougher and faster monkeys, it actually turns into a hindrance. Some boss battles are needlessly tough because the camera can't keep up with you or the monkey, and pressing L1 to set it behind you doesn't always work correctly, specially when doing things such as strafing with the Cowboy Transformation. The game also had a fair amount of frame rate issues, they didn't ruin the game, but they were there.

 But worst of all, just like before... every new stage has a quota of monkeys you have to capture before the next level opens up. Problem is... maybe you want to capture every monkey? Well, no dice. Back to the game's HUB, if you want to capture every monkey you have to return to the stage and get back on track, which sometimes means going through puzzles or platforming sections again. This means that getting every Monkey requires visiting every stage at least twice. Oh, word to the wise, don't revisit stages when you get new gadgets, for you see, after beating the game for the first time, every stage gets a 'hidden room' with 4 monkeys you have to find. You also have to fight every boss again, and the fights are identical to how they played out the first time around. It felt a bit cheap, to be honest.

 Ape Escape 3 is another excellent entry in the series. Honestly, the biggest thing it's got going against it is the fact that most of the game is pretty much identical to the previous entry, warts and all, luckily, the entire series, at least the numbered entries, are fantastic games. If you ask me, I still think the second entry is the overall best in the series, but this one is no slouch, I just wish they would've worked on ironing out the series glaring camera issues.

 8.5