Ape Escape 2 is just so completely inoffensive; it's a bright, happy romp through various themed lands catching rogue monkeys in an electric butterfly net. It's easy to grasp and runs a very respectable difficulty curve. I'd definitely call it one of the PS2's top tier platformers.
If you recall the first Ape Escape - and I doubt many of you do, given its dicey sales - you'll find AE2 much the same. You control a young lad, Jimmy, on a quest to capture several hundred monkeys. The game's big gimmick (other than monkeys) is that you use both analog sticks simultaneously... and I don't mean one for moving and one for camera control. The left stick does control Jimmy's movement, but the right stick is for 360 degree weapon control.
For example, look at Jimmy's starting weapon ("gadget"), the Stun Stick. It's basically a glowing club you use to whack monkeys. Whichever direction to jerk the right stick is where Jim attacks, even if it's directly behind where he is facing. You're probably conditioned that characters must attack in the direction they are facing, so Ape Escape 2's control scheme does take a couple levels of practice. Once you get into it, you'll be whacking the Stun Stick in all directions.
Several gadgets are more complex than directional attacking and require you to constantly twirl the stick (simulating helicopter flight or a spinning speed hula hoop) or use the stick as a slingshot. One of the coolest gadgets is a holdover from AE1: the RC car. With the RC car activated, you drive it with the right stick, meaning you can run both Jimmy and the car around the level at the same time.
Your gadgets are assigned four at a time to the X-O-square-triangle buttons so you can quick-select at a second's notice. This unfortunately pushes the traditional jump button to the not-so-traditional right shoulder buttons. A little awkward at first, but you get used to it. The left shoulder buttons are for a first-person view and centering the camera.
Ape Escape 2 also sets up a very similar plot scenario to the first game. Thanks to Jimmy's mistake of distributing intelligence-enhancing helmets to the caged apes, they run wild over the world... led by Specter, the same megomaniacal albino monkey from AE1. The helmets aren't all bad; they all contain a siren light that visually indicates the monkey's general level of alertness. Blue means a calm monkey, yellow a wary monkey, and red a monkey who knows you're near and is choosing between fight or flight.
Jimmy is assisted back at the home base by Natalie and the Professor. They parcel out new gadgets as you go and teach you how to use them. The home lab area also lets you collect hundreds of hidden items (through a vending machine called the Gotcha Box), play some cool mini-games, save/load, and practice with your gadgets.
In the field, Jimmy often brings along Pipotchi, a baby monkey who wears an advanced version of the monkey helmet. So Pipotchi is smart without being rebellious, I suppose. Pipotchi's primary function, other than looking cute, is to help you figure out how to cross obstacles in the levels... usually through use of one of your gadgets. However, these puzzles are usually terribly obvious. As in, there's a pile of flaming briquettes blocking your way, so you have to use the water squirter gadget. Duh. Happily, Pipotchi has a much more useful function: he can resurrect you when you die without costing you a life! And, spoiler, he gets kidnapped! Damn!
The levels themselves, although generally conforming to usual platformer styles, also offer up some new ideas on those tired old themes. Yes, there is a fire world, but it is couched within a pirate-decorated level. The levels all are very unique, with no boring or repeated parts. Many worlds break up the jumping/running/exploring areas with vehicle-based paths, so you'll find yourself hopping into a snowmobile, a tank, a raft, a submarine, even a giant Pipotchi Mech. Mini-bosses are scattered about, usually in the form of a robot piloted by an errant ape. As you would expect - and as Pipotchi will point out - your various gadgets will be instrumental in finding your way through the levels.
But you're not rushing to a finish line as you are in most platformers; you're here to hunt primates. Your first time in each level, you'll be given a goal. As soon as you hit the goal - say, capture 6 of 8 monkeys - you're warped back to the lab. You can go back at any time and gather up the leftover monkeys, but many require the use of gadgets you haven't received yet. This is how we add replay to a game, folks. There are even secret rare monkeys that you can't uncover until the very end of the game, like the wizard monkey or one doing a passable imitation of Dragon Ball Z's Goku. Ah, the Japanese and their ancient monkey-based mythology!
Every couple levels you'll hit a major boss fight. Specter's lead henchmen are the Freaky Monkey Five, a Power Ranger-esque group of super-powered apes. The game's boss fights are all fairly simple. Dope out the pattern and within a few hits you wrap them up. The final battles against Specter himself are quite difficult. You can't just haphazardly bash your way through them like the initial boss sequences. Specter's fights require planning and smart strategy... and deft use of your gadgets.
If I remember correctly, Ape Escape 2 is actually a rather old PS2 game. Since the first Ape Escape wasn't that well received, Sony was hesitant to import the next-gen sequel. This probably explains some of the distance-drawing problems - you'll often see a strange waviness to the background as the screen draws itself. Also, the low-end nuisance baddie models are sadly simple. There's not that many types either, so you'll be seeing a lot of angry piggies and flying candle-owls throughout all the levels.
Once nice stylistic choice is the brush stroke effect you can see on almost all of the environments... every level has this airy watercolor look to it. It's not as bright or detailed as Super Mario Sunshine, but it's still fun and colorful.
The camera is slow. You'll be regularly centering it yourself rather than wait for it to swing around. It's not a bad camera, it's just sluggish and can often leave you in the middle of a room blindly whacking at enemies offscreen. For a platformer, it generally keeps a pretty tight view, but it does pull out when it knows you're about to navigate a series of chasm jumps.
But back to the monkeys. Since you're really just going through the platforming motions to locate more apes, they are the stars of the show. Although some monkeys are quite generic, many are dressed to be level-appropriate. There are monkeys with afros dancing in the casino, monkeys in suits of armor in the scary castle, and monkeys with laser guns in the futuristic levels. Using your helpful Monkey Radar, you can even learn their names, attacks, personality, and hunger level.
Once you catch a monkey, it goes in your Monkepedia back in the lab... and you can draft them in one of AE2's interesting multiplayer mini-games, Monkey Soccer. Each monkey has individualized soccer stats: speed, kicking, stamina, etc. In the Monkey Soccer game, you create your own team out of your personally captured collection. To continue the game's dual analog setup, you play soccer with both sticks... left to maneuver and right to kick the ball in any direction. Again, using both sticks takes some getting used to, but I found Monkey Soccer the most fun of the three hidden mini-games. Dance, Monkey, Dance and Monkey Climber are the other two. Both of those use the dual analog sticks as well.
The other items you can collect include comic strips, soundtrack songs, new RC car types, and tons of still photographs. There are even Monkey Fables, which are nothing more than multiple text screens of bizarre little stories. All of these come of that vending machine, costing you nothing but the coins you pick up on every level.
One final accolade: the voice acting in Ape Escape 2 is wonderful. Natalie is voiced by the same actor who does Misty on the Pokemon cartoon, and she does a fabulous job. Even bits that should by rights be boring and instructional have a personality and inflection. Jimmy's voice sounds an awful lot like Ash of Pokemon, although I read in OPM that it's not the same voice. I guess that would be too close: Jimmy and Pipotchi, Ash and Pikachu? Specter sounds like Vegeta from DBZ. All in all, a great example of voice acting in a video game.
Ape Escape 2 is truly fun, and I'm sure it won't get the attention it deserves since it is not a known franchise. It's definitely in the Mario mold: family friendly yet challenging for all gamers. Think Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Klonoa. I almost wonder if it wouldn't be better received on the GameCube, because I see hordes of sullen young PS2 owners totally ignoring this great title. But you'll note they did feature a monkey with an uzi on the box art.
