Review #811: Ultra Street Fighter IV

 Greatness born out of laziness.

 I loved Street Fighter X Tekken, despite its garbage DLC practices which played a huge part of why the game bombed so hard. But if Capcom knows one thing it's how to be lazy and sell you a recycled product, so they grabbed all the Street Fighter assets, Rolento, Poison, Hugo, Elena as well as its six stages, they also repurposed Cammy's model to make Decapre and then resold Super Street Fighter IV AE as Ultra Street Fighter IV. Love it or hate it, Street Fighter IV rekindled the mainstream interest in Fighting games, making it a legendary game alongside Street Fighter II. This game came out at a time I was falling out of love with the Fighting genre, no longer watching every Evo and every other Tournament that came out, so I ended up skipping Ultra.

 Truth be told, there are more novelties to the game other than the new characters and stages. Now you can pick a third option when picking your Ultra: W Ultra Combo Double, which nets your character access to both Ultras, albeit a bit weakened to make up for the added tools. There's a new focus attack, Red Focus, which can tank any amount of hits instead of only one. Lastly, there's delayed wake up, to play tricks with your opponent. Nothing to mindboggling, but they are good additions. There are no new offline modes, which kinda suck considering Street Fighter IV was already pretty lacking there, but now you can play Versus matches with Edition Select, letting you pick any SF 4 version of whichever character you like. If you download the free dlc, you also get wacky Omega versions to pick from.

 Included with this game was every piece of DLC released up to that day, this means veteran characters get 3 DLC costumes, Super and AE characters get 2 DLC costumes and the newbies get none. You still need a Street Fighter IV savefile if you want access to colors 11 and 12 for the pre-AE characters, something I found out since my PS3's HDD got murdered a few years ago and didn't have a SFIV save file. Oh, and the last nine new characters(AE plus Ultra's new comers) still don't have Trials, which is ridiculous since they shouldn't be hard to implement, nor do they get Rival cutscenes, making them stand out from the rest of the roster. Remember how every iteration of Street Fighter IV up to now came with very beefy instruction manuals? Nope, not this time, Capcom had to follow their time-honed tradition of cutting corners.

 As far as the new characters go.... I really didn't care about the SF X T newcomers. I guess Hugo is so huge he is fun to fight, but that's it. Surprisingly, I really, really liked Decapre, the lazy model repurpose. She's like a much cooler version of Cammy and isn't wearing a glorified bathing suit.

 While I've got nothing but criticisms about Ultra Street Fighter IV as a product, there's no denying that underneath it all you've got Super Street Fighter IV, a classic through and through. The game is an absolute blast to play, it's always been. That said, I understand why I skipped this game back in the day, I didn't really care about the new characters and the new gameplay mechanics were but a few small nuances to an already spectacular set of mechanics so I never saw any need to get the new update. That said, anyone who is this late in getting into Street Fighter IV should undoubtedly pick up this final version, and someone that never made the jump from Super to AE might find 9 new characters a much more enticing offer.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #810: Blazing Chrome

 Part Contra, part Metal Slug, all metal.

 Believe it or not, I actually kinda like Contra, even though the only games I owned were Contra Force(I know), Alien Wars on the Gameboy and Shattered Soldier. That said, I'm always up for some Metal Slug. Blazing Chrome borrows a little from Metal Slug and a lot from Contra to produce an original 2-D shooter for a modern audience ironically borrowing very '80s aesthetics.

 At the beginning of the game you can only pick between Doyle, a robot punk, and Mavra, a human soldier, who must then go through 6 stages to fight the invading aliens. The first four stages can be played in any order, while the last two must be played one after the other. The game took me little less than an hour to complete on the Easy setting, which is a bit short but is just fine for a game like this, lasts just enough not to get boring. Beating the game unlocks a Boss Rush(Who plays those anymore?), Mirror mode(Move left to right instead of right to left) and Raijin and Suhaila as playable characters, which is a fair amount of extras. If you are braver and better than me, you can finish the game on Normal an unlock Hardcore difficulty.  It's a nice assortment of extras, and the fact that there's an easy mode so that terribads like me can brute force their way through the game is pretty nice. The game can also be played with another player in tow.

 Doyle and Mavra play exactly like you'd expect, being able to jump and shoot their infinite ammo assault rifles, as well as lay down into a prone position and roll from it(By pressing Jump while crouching). Tapping the shoot button next to an enemy will produce a melee attack, just like in Metal Slug. Lastly, you can hold down the R button to root yourself where you stand so that you can aim anywhere without moving. One touch is one death in this game, so learning how to deal with the enemies coming your way is paramount to your victory. To help you achieve that you can arm both heroes with more powerful weaponry: The Laser whip that deals a constant amount of damage as it hits enemies, a Grenade gun that's very slow but deals a ton of damage and the Laser gun that can be charged for more powerful shots. Once you get a weapon its yours to keep and switch between the others, but if you die while you have one of these optional weapons equipped...it's gone until you find it again. You'll also lose your weapons when you use a Continue. There's another type of power up: The bot. They are little assist drones that either speed you up, grant you two extra hits or grant you more speed.

 That's all fine and dandy... until you unlock Raijin and Suhaila, because these two offer a completely different playstyle. Instead of a basic, unlimited assault rifle they get short range sword/arm slices, and they can't equip other weapons.... but they can charge up their basic attack into a powerful, piercing wave that goes through every enemy in its path. They also get an aerial dash. They have their own benefits and drawbacks when compared to the original two characters, but having characters that play so unlike the others is a pretty great bonus.

 The stages themselves offer a nice amount of variety. Besides the usual run and gun you also get Contra inspired bike segments, as well as the occasional armored mechs you can pilot, which are a bit more Megaman X than Metal Slug to be honest. A few times I wished the game tried being a bit more original with the things it did, but at least what it did it did well, and considering the official Contra game we received was so lackluster.... I'll gladly take a great homage.

 Blazing Chrome is a great option for anyone that enjoys these 2-D run and gun games. It lasts as long as it should and the extras are a nice cherry on top. The Switch version of the game is lacking a few effects, like the bullet casings dropping from your gun, but it plays quite well. I read that the fifth stage had some slowdown but either I didn't notice it or it got fixed for the limited physical release. Regardless, I'm sure a little slowdown isn't enough to dampen this fantastic game.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #809: Oddworld Abe's Oddysee - New 'n' Tasty(Vita)

 What's old is tasty again.

 Alright, so I wasn't the biggest of Oddworld's fans when I decided to purchase Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New 'n' Tasty!, y'see, I used to own the original version on PC and I didn't really like it. However, Limited Run Games had just started and I wasn't about to miss an opportunity to own a limited release game I was somewhat familiar with.

 Oddworld is a 2-D cinematic puzzle platformer kinda game. You play as Abe, a creature known as a Mudokon, who finds out the company he is slaved to is planning to produce a new kind of treat, a treat made out of Mudokon. As soon as he finds out, the game starts with Abe setting out to free his kind, all 300 of them. If anything, the world of Oddworld is very odd, there are all sort of ugly-cute creatures populating its world. Most of them want to hurt you. While it plays strictly in 2-D, the entire game has been remade in 3-D, for good or bad. A few details were lost in translation, but overall, it looks decent enough. I never got too far in the original, but for what little I did... it seemed quite faithful, although the screen-by-screen format of the original was traded for a camera that scrolls alongside Abe. Plus, I've read the developers admitting to changing a few of the puzzles, so it's not a 1:1 conversion, even if it feels quite similar, and, while the puzzles may have changed, the overall plot and Abe's adventure didn't really change, so it's like a slightly different take on the same game.

 Abe can sneak, run, jump and climb on to ledges in order to move through the environment. I felt like a few jumps required pixel perfect timing, but it might've been due to the framerate. That said, prepare to die quite a few times since you didn't jump at the right spot. Some stages, particularly the ones that have you riding the Enum, can be particularly bad about it, since they have a lot of jumps between checkpoints. Along the way you'll also find a few items you can throw, such as meat to distract a few aliens or grenades to, well, kill them. Grenades are a bit more interesting since you have to cook them before you shoot them, since you'll want to kill plenty of floating enemies with them, enemies that will prevent you from chanting.

 Chanting is Abe's other main ability, which he can use to open up portals for his people to escape and to open up secret areas or.... to possess enemy Sligs, the yellow aliens that carry machine guns. As a Slig you can communicate with other Sligs, to open up areas and what not, as well as to kill other Sligs. Although, if there are Mudokons nearby, you might want to order them to stand down before any shootout begins, lest they die in the crossfire.

 Another big part of the game is communication. Abe has access to four different 'words' he can use to communicate with fellow Mudokons: "Hello" and "Hello All", which will make any Mudokon on the screen pay attention to you, and "Follow me", in order to make them follow you, or "Wait" to have them wait. The game's main objective, besides getting to the end, is rescuing all 300 Mudokons, and if you want the best ending, you'll have to safely guide them into portals. Which is easier said than done, since Sligs are very trigger happy if you don't do things the right way. Holding the Triangle button will change your words into other sounds, such as whistling and, well, farting, which are mostly used to clear Simon-says puzzles.

 While I think the game as a whole is alright, I mean, these slow-paced platformers really aren't my cup of tea, at least the Vita version is a bit buggy. The game soft-locked twice when using the main elevator on the very first stage, since the assets didn't load when the elevator stopped so I had to reset the game. Another time, when I got to the Scrabanian temple, the game got semi-stuck on the loading screen, so the audio for the cutscene played while the loading screen flashed over the previous level. When the 'cutscene' 'stopped' it didn't load, so I had to reset. Oh, and the final Zulag stages? It felt like the game would get locked every two loading screens, it wasn't even funny.  At least the game autosaves very frequently, so I never lost much more than a few seconds worth of progress. Speaking of the game's performance, framerate on the Vita isn't so hot either, but it's playable.

 It's alright. I mean, I really dug the world of Oddworld, it has a lot of interesting creatures inhabiting its world. The game's premise is very interesting as well. That said, I've never been too big on these slow-paced platformers, so I know I'm not able to appreciate it as much as other people. As far as the performance of the game, I wasn't too mad at the frequent freezes because the auto save is so generous so I never lost much progress. All in all, as someone that barely scratched the surface of the original, this felt like a decent remake and a decent game.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #808: Mortal Kombat(Vita)

 Vitality!

 Mortal Kombat is, in my opinion, the most important game in the franchise because it's when the series finally got really good. Like REALLY really good. Abandoning most of the silly element from the 3-D era of Mortal Kombat, they went back to their 2-D roots with a sequel reboot, one that was billed as one instead of the Final Fantasy VII Remake switcheroo, that did everything right and put Mortal Kombat back on everyone's radar... for a good reason.

 Let's get the elephant out of the room first, this Mortal Kombat never looked good. The character models were ugly, the faces, the figures, everything. Males, like Liu Kang have the most awful faces and weird looking arms, while the females have bodies with huge shoulders and tiny waists alongside the same giant breasts on every single lady in the cast. Their heads are really weird, like they have too much depth, and Kitana is one of the ugliest characters ever made. And while Netherealms Studios finally started getting good at animating... there are still some very, very ugly animations in here. There are some very good ones, but some truly awful ones.  It was an ugly game, and on Vita it looks like a very sharp Playstation 2 game. I had to check, so I ran Tekken 5 on the PS2 and it looks miles better than this game, from the models' complexity to the textures.... this is not a good looking game. And I can live with that, because the game excels everywhere else. To make up for that we get about 13 new costumes, mostly retro costumes for the Ninjas and female Ninjas, as well as an entire new 200-floor challenge tower as well as new Test your Swipe and Test your Balance minigames that use the Vita's features. Test your Swipe is particularly amazing because it's a Fruit Ninja clone but with heads instead of fruit! Its only shortcoming is the fact that it always plays the same, the same power ups and bombs will show up at whatever time they first showed up, so it ends up being very predictable instead of random, which would've been WAY more fun.

 While the game is missing VS CPU, there's an enormous wealth of content to go through. First, the Story mode. It's a bit gimped by the fact that it's divided into character, so, for instance, you play as Johnnie Cage first for four fights, then as Sonya for four fights, then as Cyrax for four fights, and so on, this means that a character loses most of their relevance after their chapter, and the story only pushes forward from the viewpoint whatever character you are playing as. I also disagree with Sub-Zero's fate, stop doing my boy dirty, yo! It uses cutscenes from the console game, so these look really good... even if it can be a bit jarring when it switches to the Vita graphics. Then you've got the Arcade Ladder mode, as well as a Tag Arcade ladder, because this game also had a pretty neat, if barebones, tag mode! Lastly, you get a 200-floor challenge tower, as well as a new, bonus, 200-floor challenge tower. The new tower puts the spotlight on the DLC characters and on the Vita's features, so expect a lot of tilting, touching, swiping and shaking. I tend to hate everything that isn't a button input, but since this is a bonus, I'm perfectly OK with it. The bonus towers did have a few too many fights against Shao Khan which I didn't really enjoy since they are very unfair, and when you are forced to use him... he feels so clunky and you can't really spam moves like CPU SK can. The new tower also has you playing as Tremor one time, and fighting him another... and it kinda sucks that they didn't turn him into a new bonus fighter for the Vita.

 The game was fantastic back then, and it still does. You have four attack buttons: Left and Right punch, as well as Left and Right Kick, although the game calls them Forward and Back because a character's stance can change. There's also a block button. The game uses a mixture of pre-set attack strings, like Tekken, but also uses input special moves, like Street Fighter, and it works really well. You have a three-tier energy gauge that you can use to pull of EX special moves, with extra damage and/or effects or Kombo breakers to break away from your opponent. You could also use all three tiers to perform a brutal X-Ray moves that remove a huge chunk of health... if they land. That said, on hindsight, I was into this game back when I was really into the FGC and would watch every single tournament of every single game, and not just EVO. Regardless, knowing how competitive tournaments used play, as well has having played the game extensively back in the day, I can clearly see that the game can very easily turn into a keep away game, because most characters have at least one projectile, and they are very easy to spam and not many ways to go through them.

 Mortal Kombat is a pretty decent purchase for the Vita. The graphics took a huge hit, but it plays just as well as its big console counterpart, plus, the exclusive extra content is really nice. Far from the best Fighter of its era, but even all these years later, Mortal Kombat 9 is still a fantastic fighting game that makes up for its shortcomings with a meaty amount of content. It's not a fighting game that you play just for its gameplay, but one that you play for its lore, for its story mode, for all the silly challenges you can find on the Challenge Towers. It's the whole package and then some.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #807: Dark Void

 Nolan North strikes again.

 During the HD era, under Keiji Inafune's misguided approach, Capcom tried outsourcing their games to Western developers, as well as publishing a few titles overseas, like Remember Me and Dark Void. Most of these endeavors failed miserably, which is kind of a shame, because what I've played so far... wasn't so bad.

 Dark Void takes place sometime before the second World War, and pits you as Will, pilot for hire. The client is Ava, a long lost flame, and what was supposed to be just another flight through the Bermuda's Triangle ends with Ava and Will stuck somewhere outside America. No, this isn't Kansas anymore. In these new world natives worship the Watchers, robotic enemies that Will doesn't take too kindly too, and soon finds himself embroiled in a war between a Resistance group and the Watcher trying to enslave humanity by substituting humans, such as the president of France, with their own brethren doubles. All of these while fighting over the Dark Void, a place so high you can't see below the clouds, not to worry, as Will comes equipped with a jetpack! Y'know what? I liked the setting. I liked the plot. It's nothing new or fresh, but it's decent. That said, the plot does have a few elements that aren't properly explained. As a matter of fact, the tool tips during loading screens give away a lot of plot points before they actually happen, and in a way, it's the only explanation you'll get about certain things. The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful, it's very 80's and very grandiose, really fits the overall theme and setting.

 At its core, the game is your average modern third-person shooter. Heavy on taking cover and your always trusty regenerating. There are only six different guns in the game, which is a bit skimpy, and you can upgrade all six up to two times by finding techpoints from hidden enemies or stashed away in secret locations. The weaponry felt a bit boring. You have the assault rifle, which was the first weapon I upgraded and never regretted it since it became so useful, a magnetic gun that makes enemies float for a bit, a "Desintegrator" which is a cross between a shotgun and a rocket launcher, with very little ammo capacity, a sniper rifle, an alien assault rifle and a continuous-energy gun. You can also melee enemies with the circle button, which is an instant kill on most enemies, but it initiates an overly-long animated sequence during which you can still get hurt and killed, plus, it wasn't very responsive. Sometimes I'd just mash circle in front of an enemy and it wouldn't trigger.

 And then you get the jetpack and things get more interesting. At first you can only use it to double jump-into-hover, which did open up a few more alternatives in battle. By this time you'll also get introduced into the vertical-cover system, which seriously didn't get enough use in the game, basically, you can take cover from below or above certain objects and/or rock formations, something that enemies can do as well. It's a bit gimmicky, yes, but it's a rather interesting idea, and it was relatively well pulled off, I mean, as I said before, I wish the game would have had more of these sections. If anything, I was annoyed at the fact that sometimes Will would lose his grip when jumping above/below levels and you'd have to mash a button. QTEs are (almost)never fun.

 And then you enter Episode 2 and get introduced to the Jetpack, by pressing triangle you'll turn you jump into a forward-propelled flight. And you get full freedom of movement when using it, which is why most shootouts thereafter take place in very open arenas. You'll also get some intense dogfights against enemy ships, which you can hijack... after a QTE. A few times I'd initiate the dull sequence only for the enemy ship to crash onto a wall and KILL me. If you've got allies, you can also seamlessly get into or out of their ships, no QTE required. These aerial shootouts were a bit tough until I realized that you are expected to pull evasive maneuvers by hold R3 and using both analog sticks to barrel rolls and the such.... and until I realized the jetpack has infinite missiles with L2. You're welcome.

 Dark Void is fun. It's nothing to write home about, that's for sure, and it's hard not to praise it for trying to do something different. If anything, I think the slow-paced vertical cover system clashes a bit with the more fast paced free-flying system of the Jetpack, because one is pretty much the antithesis of the other, which is probably why the vertical-cover segments were so scarse after the first episode. Regardless, it's a fun, if short, time.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #806: Ray Gigant

 Does wonders for my gigantphobia.

 Part anime, part visual novel, part Evangelion and part first-person dungeon crawler, that's Ray Gigant in a nutshell. This is one of those games that not many people talk about, heck, there are no guides you can reference and discussion on both GameFaqs and Steam is pretty much dead.

 The game is made up of 19 chapter, in a world were giant enemies, Gigants, have appeared. The only people fit to fight them are teenagers, because Japan, and they come in two varieties: Originals and copies. The originals are the three chosen by the Yorigami, gods in artifact form, Ichiya, Kyle and Nil. Copies are other teens that exhibit the strength to wield weaker copies of the Yorigamis. The first six chapters you'll play as Ichiya, as he adapts to his school life as a Gigant exterminator. The next six you play as Kyle and his group of pricks, while Ichiya and his buddies take a supportive role as hostages. This was the part of the game I hated the most, because Kyle and his friends are incredibly unlikeable and I couldn't wait for this chapter to end, although his party becomes a bit more tolerable by the end. The next four chapters follow Nil and her island life with her sisters, and the reason her part is so short is probably because she is a mage and thus better suited in a support role. The next three chapters have Ichiya, Kyle and Nil, y'know, the guys on the game's cover, team up in order to fight Gigants. Overall, the story is not bad, but it's pretty forgettable. It has a few Evangelion tropes here and there but they do their own thing with them. All the story bits are very visual novel-like, lots of reading, decisions that amount to nothing and anime portraits galore. The game takes about 20 hours to complete, and upon completion you unlock God Mode, New Game+, Hard Mode and... you also unlock a new boss and ending for New Game+. I liked the story enough to want to see it, but not enough to want to play through the game again, sadly, since nobody knows this game there's no Youtube videos covering the extra bit. Lame!

 When characters stop talking you'll be able to enter a dungeon. For the most part, the game is divided into pairs of chapters: The first chapter you'll go through a multi-leveled dungeon and fight a smaller, Gigant Type-II enemy, and the next chapter you'll enter a short dimensional rift-dungeon and then fight a proper giant Gigant Type-I enemy. Dungeons start off simple enough, but by the end there will be one-way corridors, ladders that go up and down, teleporters and hidden walls. The latter are particularly annoying because some of them are needed to progress, and there are no hints besides leveling up a characters Technique skill enough. For the most part I was able to use my intuition and find them by myself, but still. The final dungeon is incredibly bad, because it mixes every single type of trap and annoyance, in addition to a few floors in which you can't track your position on the map. So... yeah, I'd say most of the game is quite fair, but the Final Dungeon was more annoying than anything

 Random encounters are not random encounters, because you can see them on the map and they remain static. They come in three colors: Blue, Yellow and Red, signifying their AP Cost, blue means its halved, yellow is normal and red is double the cost. AP is what governs your actions. Each party member can take up to five different actions per turn, however, they all share the same 100-max AP pool. AP can be regained depending on which actions the enemies did on their turn, as well as when your characters use the Wait command, which can only be done once per turn. Your HP is restored to full after each fight, but you can only revive characters by exiting the dungeon. Talking about HP, there's Parasite Mode to contend with. Whenever a battle goes on for more than one round you'll build your drive by 10%, once it's full your attacks will no longer cost AP but will start costing HP. This builds over different encounters too, and there are three ways to bring it down: Entering Parasite Mode, Using Slash Beat Mode or using a Skill Seed. Once all three main characters converge you'll be able to freely enter Parasite Mode at will with the L button. Slash Beat Mode is the final ability which can be used when your SP is at 50 or at 100. SP builds by 1 after each fight or by action taken during boss fights, you can the press the R button to enter a rhythm minigame mode in order to deal tons of damage.

 At first you can only have 3 different battle skills per character, but after the first chapter you'll be able to have 2 sets of three different skills. One skill has to deal damage, one has to be defensive and the other one can be anything you like. There's a decent variety of skills, different elements and enemy types(Undead, Aquatic, Flying) to contend with, although having a basic, non-elemental attack command is always useful... as long as your equipped weapon isn't weak against a certain type. It sounds very deep, but the game is very easy. On another note, you do not need to waste resources on your non-Yorigami party members, because they won't be selectable after Ichiya, Kyle and Nil join up. For Ichiya, I beat his chapters just fine, with Kyle I had to give a few level ups to his pal, Conner, in order to tank some hits and heal the party with scones during his final battle, and as for Nil... I didn't need to level up the others. That said, you could probably have an easier time if you leveled up the other party members, I just didn't feel like it was worth it.

 Leveling up and getting equipment is very weird. After each battle you'll get Materia, Breed and maybe Force. Materias are used to level up a characters item box, be it their weapon, armor or item(which works as a limitless battle skill) boxes, then you can use a Breed on that item box to get an equipment piece or item that matches the box's level. Force is a bit rarer and is used to unlock skills, both passive as well as battle skills. The last kind of item are the Seeds, which can be found exclusively on item boxes or from bosses, and these are used to level up a character in either: Power(Health, defense and strength), Magic(Magic defense and power) and Technique(Speed and... hidden wall hints). At first every character caps at level 15, but you'll unlock level 99 during the final chapters, not that is necessary. I had Kyle and Nil at a comfortable level 40 and 30, while I had Ichiya with 70 levels on Power, wrecking and decimating everything. I level up the other characters' boxes up to level 20, but kept Ichiya's beyond level 40 and that was enough to beat the game quite comfortably.

 While animation during battles is quite minimal, the sprites are quite gorgeous, so even though it's barely animated it still looks very good. The static character portraits look quite pleasant as well. That said, when you use Slash Beat Mode you'll get a very brief, but very good looking anime cutscene in which your Yorigami turns into their Kamibito form. On the other hand, the dungeons are very rudimentary and reuse a lot of assets, which makes them feel like an afterthought.

 I'd say Ray Gigant is a decent way to pass the time when you've nothing better to play. The story is decent enough to keep you interested and the gameplay is quite serviceable. That said, it's understandable why the game never managed to get a following, from its mostly digital release(Unless you got your LGR copy, like myself) to its more niche visual novely appeal.
 6.5 out of 10

Review #805: Ape Escape

 Worth going ape for.

 Ape Escape was more than just another platform-collectathon game, it was a proof of concept of what could be done with a second analog stick. Gimmicky as it may have been, its design was strong enough to produce a series. While I played Ape Escape 2 in my younger years it's never too late to revisit the classics.

 In the game you play as Spike, a boy who sets out to capture Specter, a white monkey that has brainwashed his best friend Jake as well as a ton of monkeys who are now doing his bidding. Surprisingly, the game has a time travelling theme, though the levels barely reflect that. Be that as it may, the game is made up of 6 worlds with 3 stages each, as well as a final world with a single stage, each one having a different amount of Monkeys and Specter Coins to capture and collect. The latter are used to unlock minigames, although only 40 of them are needed. The three minigames can be played in multiplayer, and a surprising amount of attention went into them: Ski Boys is a racing skiing minigame that has multiple characters and tracks, Specter Boxing is a boxing match between two monkey, and, finally, Galaxy Monkey, an asteroids clone. Same as with the main game, all minigames involve using both analog sticks. All in all, it's a very meaty game. If there's anything to complain about is that it goes the Mario 64 route of exiting you from levels before you got 100% of the collectibles, so you'll be making two trips at bare minimum if you are willing to complete the game.

 As mentioned before, the game's main selling point is its heavy use of both analog sticks. The left analog stick is used to move around, R1/R2 is used to jump, L1 sets the camera behind you, although you can use the directional pad to move it around, the face buttons are used to select your gadgets while the right analog stick actually uses the selected gadget. There are four face buttons and 8 gadgets, so expect to visit the gadget menu quite often, although it's not too bad, just a press of the select button. Gadgets are earned as you play through the game, and these tools are your keys to capturing every monkey. Monkeys can only be capture with the net, but it's so slow that it's not a bad idea to first knock them out with the baton before going in for the capture. Other gadgets include a Radar, a Hoola Hoop that must be spun in order to boost your speed, a helicopter-rod to reach high places, an RC cart  and even a slingshot.

 The game is quite fun, and the game makes decent use of its gadgets. That said, and it might be unfair, but I think the sequel does everything this game does but better, heck, a lot of the gadgets are reused and, in my opinion, put to better use. For instance, the Hoola Hoop's use in this game is quite scarce, while the second game made it mandatory to go over inclined surfaces. And remember, I'm not saying this game is bad, au contraire, it's just that the sequel would expand and polish everything this one did.

 As fun as the game is, I felt like the camera was a teenie tiny too zoomed in for my liking, and the framerate can get laughably low at times. Thankfully, the latter never got in the way, it's just a minor inconvenience. I found the game's overall look to feel very Nintendo 64ish, even if the rough, sharp graphics are undeniably Playstation's, so I'd say the presentation is pretty darn great. Colorful, fun and very endearing.

 Ape Escape's biggest problem is its own sequel, it does what this game does but so much better, it probably helps that they recycled many stage themes and gadgets in that game. That said, Ape Escape is still a top-notch platform/collectathon game that managed to build a fantastic game out of a gimmick.
 8.0 out of 10