Ape Escape Academy – PSP – Review

Ah, monkeys, who
doesn’t like them? Personally, I feel that adding monkeys to various situations
just make things even better; I mean who doesn’t want to see monkey figure
skating or monkey ice hockey? Thankfully there’s the Ape Escape series
that has been keeping monkey fans more than satisfied on the PlayStation and
now, finally, on Sony’s PSP. In an effort to bring us a wide variety of
monkey-themed mini-games, Ape Escape Academy is here. Schools in so bring
plenty of bananas.

Last year’s
Ape Escape: On The Loose for the PSP introduced a few mini-game challenges
fit for up to two-players. While the main game was a passable experience, it was
fun diving into such mini-games like simian boxing, ping-pong and snowboarding.
Ape Escape Academy, though, is all about the mini-games so if you’re
expecting to see the usual monkey-catching antics of Spike you’re in for quite a
surprise. You see, you’re a monkey who is enrolled in an academy started by
Ape Escape villain Specter in order to perfect a more efficient army of
monkeys. In these halls of academia, you will go through a series of challenges
across four semesters.

The game’s main
mode, Academy Mode, starts with a series of training exercises that introduce
that game’s controls as well as tests your reflexes and trust me when I say
you’ll need to be quick with the button pressing in most of the challenges
you’ll encounter in the game. So what does it take to graduate with monkey
honors in this academy? Your first instructor (you get both a red and blue
simian instructors) will introduce a grid with the picture of the series of
events that you’ll compete in during a semester. The images will flash
continuously until you press the X button and that mini-game will start. If you
complete a challenge an O will appear and if you fail the challenge and X will
appear along the grid. If it looks familiar that’s because you’re playing
tic-tac-toe on said grid. When you complete them all, the game seeks out each O
so if you have a horizontal or vertical row of Os the game will reward you
points for each row completed. Then you’re free to move on to the next semester.

The mini-game
challenges in question vary in difficulty and quality and this is both the
Ape Escape Academy’s strength and weakness. The good news is that there are
a nice number of mini-games (forty-two in total) and you can always find new
ones by revisiting past semesters you might have completed or go back and
complete a challenge you might have failed the first time around. The bad news
is that various mini-games range from dull to annoying to really quite baffling.
Here’s a quick run-through of many of the mini-games you’ll encounter in this
game.

There are
mini-games that have you sky diving while trying to catch a number of parachutes
as well as other monkeys in order to save them all. Another game has you raising
a huge shield while trying to block a sea of arrows shot at you from afar.
There’s a game that has you fending off a pack of hungry monkeys attempting to
eat a giant banana you claimed all for yourself. Then you’ll find some
mini-games that baffle the mind. There’s a series of math questions that have
nothing to do with monkeys but it is there, and there are some baffling
mini-games like the bullfighting game that just makes no sense at all. Sadly,
you’ll find a number of weak games.

In case you want
to replay past mini-games there’s Game Collection mode where you can play
favorites you unlock in Academy Mode. Like Nintendo’s WarioWare games, each game
you successfully complete can be accessed and played in a top-your-old-score
manner. There’s also wireless multiplayer, allowing you to play a number of
mini-games such as Monkey Hockey (a two-player air hockey game) as well as
Karate Chimpster. The multiplayer has Share Mode (for two-players) and Multi
Mode (for up to four players).

On the visual
front, Ape Escape Academy is not a bad-looking game. It displays the same
colorful backgrounds and characters of past games. The game does look a lot
sharper on the PSP and it’s great too see how smoothly the animations look on
its wide screen. There are some decent visual effects in this game, especially
when it comes to displaying fire and water and the monkey madness, as always, is
charmingly funny. The game’s main menu is even easy on the eyes as well.

The game’s sound
might not impress as well as the visuals do but they get the job done. The
game’s soundtrack is composed of upbeat tunes that can be a bit repetitive but
strangely enough it doesn’t become an annoyance (then it could be because the
games move at a quick pace). The sound effects are plentiful and while you’ll
hear the usual monkey noises, there are some familiar sound effects true to the
series. There’s some voice acting but it suffers from the usual rough
translation.

Ape Escape
Academy for
the PSP might not be Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s WarioWare or the
Mario Party games but with a small number of decent mini-games this might be
a game you’ll want when you’re looking for a quick gaming fix. Unfortunately,
not all the games are winners and some will even have you scratching your head
but at least there’s some solid multiplayer fit for any Ape Escape fan.
It’s a nice try but here’s hoping the sequel will be a lot better than this.

Gameplay: 6.9
Monkey sky
diving and monkey dodge ball can be very fun but then there are some seriously
dull games like monkey bull fighting and a poor rendition of monkey air hockey
that spoil things. You can always come back and retry the semester to unlock
even more mini-games or revisit favorites for more points.

Graphics: 7.5
The game looks
like an Ape Escape game and that’s not bad at all seeing as the game is
still nicely colorful and the monkey shenanigans are still charming funny. The
animations look particularly sharp on the PSP and the visual effects just
sweeten the deal.

Sound: 6.5
The voice
acting is still plagued by a rough translation from Japanese to English but
other than that it’s all about the music and the sound effects. The music won’t
drive you nuts although some of what you’ll hear is repeated throughout the game
but the sound effects are not bad at all.

Difficulty:
Medium
Some of the
game’s various mini-games are no-brainers and will test more your motor skills
than your cerebellum, but then again there’s a math challenge as well as the
tic-tac-toe game within a game you play while selecting mini-games.

Concept: 7.0

The number of
mini-games is just Ok but be prepared to be disappointed by the quality of many
of the games you’ll play throughout the game. Many of the great mini-games are
the inventive or the simplistic ones that have you dodging arrows or keeping a
ravenous bunch of monkeys from reaching your giant banana. There are collectable
monkey statues and wireless multiplayer. 

Multiplayer:
7.0
There is
wireless multiplayer fun to be had since there are a number of game modes that
feature more than one monkey on screen at once. The game’s Share Mode has a few
two-player games while Multi Mode is fit for up to four players (monkey trivia,
anyone?).

Overall: 6.7
Ape Escape
Academy for
the PSP has a number of mini-games but unfortunately not all of them make for a
particularly engaging or challengingly fun package. Granted there are games that
are enjoyable fun for gamers of all ages but there are more weaker mini-games
than there are addictively engrossing ones. This one might not be worth the
purchase price but if you’re a fan of the series or crave a collection of
mini-games for your PSP, you just might want to rent this one.