[Mini-Review] Ape Escape Academy
No wonder the monkeys can't take over the world; they train with crap like this.
Published: January 23, 2006
The Good
Ape Escape Academy starts off promisingly enough: you're given a chance to play as the bad guys, assuming the role of a monkey in Specter's training camp. After a few simple stills with some voice acting ladled over them sparingly, you're turned loose as one of the henchmen for the Ape Escape series proper's main badguy.
After picking a name and some shorts that also determine eyewear, your monkey begins participating in a series of mini-games chosen at random and then thrown onto a 3x3 tic-tac-toe board. Buried under three squares on the board are coins that allow you to try your hand at a special mini-game, but you'll have to complete the challenges on the squares they're hidden under to unlock them. Completing these challenges nets you an O, and failing locks in an X. Complete a row or more, and you'll pass that grade in the academy, while the later grades start adding more rows.
This simple premise is the best part of the game. Seriously.
The Bad
It's the execution that hurts so. For one, most of the games are fairly boring stuff. There are indeed a few legitimately fun ones, and a few less horrible ones, but by and large it's very humdrum activities you'll be participating in. You'll seek out ninja monkeys with shurikens, swing on ropes, climb out of a pit with closing walls, guide a teetering stack of monkeys to the finish line, participate in a 1.00 meter dash, dive for treasure and so on.
The biggest problem? Nearly every single time you'll never have a clue as to what you're supposed to actually do. That's not an exaggeration, the game simply does not arm you with enough info to pass a given challenge. This means you fail it, and the first couple times in a grade you'll have a tic-tac-toe board pockmarked with Xs. It literally becomes a matter of trial and error, and through it all you're locked into playing all these games without being able to quit out and start over, all while watching endless loading screens.
All this loading would be understandable if not for the fact that the game doesn't look terribly good. All of the games are presented with a simple graphical appeal and a decided lack of sound effects variety. This is not the kind of game you would hope for from the creators of the PSP hardware.
The Verdict
Ape Escape Academy suffers from poor design, a complete lack of documentation when it comes to the games, excessive loading screens, sub-par graphics and sound and a multiplayer experience that's not even worth mentioning. Everything about it feels like a cheap attempt at a Wario Ware clone, but it lacks most of the inventiveness and grace.
Ape Escape Academy starts off promisingly enough: you're given a chance to play as the bad guys, assuming the role of a monkey in Specter's training camp. After a few simple stills with some voice acting ladled over them sparingly, you're turned loose as one of the henchmen for the Ape Escape series proper's main badguy.
After picking a name and some shorts that also determine eyewear, your monkey begins participating in a series of mini-games chosen at random and then thrown onto a 3x3 tic-tac-toe board. Buried under three squares on the board are coins that allow you to try your hand at a special mini-game, but you'll have to complete the challenges on the squares they're hidden under to unlock them. Completing these challenges nets you an O, and failing locks in an X. Complete a row or more, and you'll pass that grade in the academy, while the later grades start adding more rows.
This simple premise is the best part of the game. Seriously.
The Bad
It's the execution that hurts so. For one, most of the games are fairly boring stuff. There are indeed a few legitimately fun ones, and a few less horrible ones, but by and large it's very humdrum activities you'll be participating in. You'll seek out ninja monkeys with shurikens, swing on ropes, climb out of a pit with closing walls, guide a teetering stack of monkeys to the finish line, participate in a 1.00 meter dash, dive for treasure and so on.
The biggest problem? Nearly every single time you'll never have a clue as to what you're supposed to actually do. That's not an exaggeration, the game simply does not arm you with enough info to pass a given challenge. This means you fail it, and the first couple times in a grade you'll have a tic-tac-toe board pockmarked with Xs. It literally becomes a matter of trial and error, and through it all you're locked into playing all these games without being able to quit out and start over, all while watching endless loading screens.
All this loading would be understandable if not for the fact that the game doesn't look terribly good. All of the games are presented with a simple graphical appeal and a decided lack of sound effects variety. This is not the kind of game you would hope for from the creators of the PSP hardware.
The Verdict
Ape Escape Academy suffers from poor design, a complete lack of documentation when it comes to the games, excessive loading screens, sub-par graphics and sound and a multiplayer experience that's not even worth mentioning. Everything about it feels like a cheap attempt at a Wario Ware clone, but it lacks most of the inventiveness and grace.