Then and Again: Ape Escape (PS1, PSP)

Regular readers will probably have noticed that none of the games I’ve reviewed were released in Europe before the mid-late nineties. This is because I was one of those who’s first console was the Sony PlayStation, and even then, I didn’t get one of my own for quite some time. In fact, I believe I was among the first to get the DualShock controller as a pack in. So when a lengthy demo for a game that SOLELY used DualShock was making the rounds, a lot of people wanted to play it on my console.

When I myself bought Ape Escape, it was one of those games that just DEFINES one’s childhood, a bit like Contra or Super Mario 3 is for a lot of people.

When the PSP was released, among the launch titles was a spinoff called “Ape Academy”. That was shit. However, in the US they got “Ape Escape: On the Loose”, a remake of the PS1 original. I recently downloaded this off PSN (remember, if you haven’t been able to use PSN, it’s your own fault) and...well. Let’s just see how they compare to each other, and which holds up the best, nostalgia aside.

Premise

You travel through time, hunting hyper intelligent monkeys armed with a butterfly net and a Lightsaber. Yeah. A Lightsaber. Levels are based around platforming and capturing a certain number of each level’s monkeys in order to progress. Periodically, you receive gadgets to make this task easier (or harder). This is true for both versions. There are SOME stealth elements, but you can usually just run up to each monkey, club them with the Lightsaber and net the bugger.

Story

Ah. Now THIS is where it gets a little bit subtle.

PS1 Version

You play as Spike who, with his friend Buzz, is going to see if the unnamed German Professor has finished his time machine. When you arrive, you find that the Professor and his schoolgirl assistant Katie have been restrained by some monkeys wearing “Peak-Point Helmets”, which the Professor designed to enhance intelligence. The monkeys activate the time machine, and you and buzz get sucked up with them. Spike awakes in pre-history, and has to capture the monkeys before they change the future. It later emerges that the apes are under the command of Specter, an albino monkey who got his hands on a Peak-Point helmet when Katie and the Professor were at the zoo. He has built a much more powerful version of the Helmet, which makes him smart enough to speak, and has kidnapped Buzz, using technology he has developed to keep Buzz in his psychic thrall.

Ape Escape P

Buzz and Katie are now Jake and Natsumi, although curiously both versions have a text box referring to the character as “Natalie”, no idea why. Peak-Point helmets are now called “monkey helmets”, which begs the question as to why the Professor invented them in the first place. Now the really subtle change. The Professor warned Specter that the Peak-Point’s limits were there because increasing intelligence further could prove dangerous. In the PSP version, Specter’s Spiky helmet is said to be an unstable prototype. This could work, except the opening cutscene still shows Specter putting on a normal Monkey Helmet before becoming  evil. It’s a bit of a plothole, unique to the remake.

Voice Cast

This is what really bugs me. Now, the PS1 version wasn’t exactly top tier storytelling, or indeed voice acting. But it was better.

PS1

Spike and Buzz both sound very much like they are being voiced by women, which is standard for pre-pubescent boys. They and Katie DID have at least Acceptable English accents however, if a tad wooden. The Professor’s German accent meshed pretty well with his character design. Specter, however, had one of the best hammy villain voices ever. A perfect mix of polite bond villain and total psycho. The monkey’s went “Eek!”

Men call me MAGNETO!

PSP

Oh dear. The voice cast is very obviously American, though it only REALLY shows when you hear isolated phrases and grunts. Jake sounds more Australian. Natsumi also has an English accent, for as we all know, red-headed Japanese schoolgirls are a major ethnic group in the UK. The Professor is the only one who can maintain the accent consistently, and the character does suit the accent, so no complaints there. But Specter. Oh, dear sweet Christ Specter. I would say he’s a poor man’s Kefka or Dhoulmagus, but that does it no justice. The Man who’s Kefka this is is so poor they can’t AFFORD to sell their vital organs or turn tricks on the street. They’ve turned this ruthlessly intelligent, delightfully hammy villain into something that sounds like the old ladies in any given episode of South Park. I don’t care for it.

Gameplay

Well, to be fair, Ape Escape isn’t really about the story. There are some apes, and they have escaped would probably be a fair enough summation of everything I’ve said so far. So, onto what really matters.

Basically, the PSP version feels a lot easier by dint of being on the PSP. In the original, all gadgets were controlled by rotating or otherwise moving the right analog stick. In the PSP however, you just press the appropriate face button, occasionally tapping or holding depending on the item in question. Let me explain how this takes away the challenge.

Less than halfway through the game, you receive the Sky Flier, essentially, a propeller that can be spun to increase height and duration of your jumps. As a result, there’re more than a few monkeys hanging around ledges with no other means of access. Now, in the original, getting them would require selecting the Sky Flier, rotating the right stick while jumping in the right direction, continuously rotating the right stick until you’re where you want to be,  pressing the face button for the net/Lightsaber (usually, you stun then catch them), and then swinging the right stick in the direction of the monkey. This IS a fairly quick process, but it does take a little bit of time. In the PSP version, you jump, start tapping a face button, then press another face button. You don’t need to recreate these conditions yourself, since the entirety of the process on the PSP is two of the steps for the PS1. Also, tapping a face button continuously is FAR less strenuous than rotating the right stick. Remember Lulu’s overdrive from Final Fantasy X?

However, there is one way that the PSP has improved the gameplay, though that’s down entirely to intuition. The camera controls for both versions are identical; snap the camera behind you with the L button (L1), and when you need to, you can fine tune it with the D Pad. This was perfectly fine when this was the only game in the world that required dual thumbstick controls, but when I replayed it recently, I found I kept impotently swinging my sword as I tried to move the camera to where I needed it. My hands automatically associated camera with the right stick. It’s even worse than when the axes have been inverted from what you normally use. Having had a PSP since launch, I’m used to using L and the D Pad to move the camera, so it felt a thousand times more natural.

Verdict

Don’t take my word for it. It is impossible for me to be objective here. I loved Ape Escape when I was a kid. Hell, I’ve never even played any of the sequels, because I KNOW that they couldn’t possibly compare to how I’ve built them up over the years. I used to play at Ape Escape with a friend in the school playground, waving around fruit shoot bottles as nets and lightsabers. I honestly can’t even say for a fact that this game is any good. So get whatever version you can, if you’re at all interested. You’re far more qualified to voice an opinion than I. If you get the US PS1 version, I’m told that most of the voice actors are the cast of Pokémon. So that’s neat.

PS: Apparently, a movie is coming out soon. They’ve done the usual adaptation decay stuff, I think Spike is a scientist or something, and the monkey’s gain intelligence from a standard “genetic experiment” plot, and time travel isn’t going to be touched on til the sequel, and the even changed the title, but it’s all there. Hyper Intelligent Apes have Escaped, and are going to usurp humanity.

*sigh* The Movie always get's the best parts wrong...

Final Fantasy IV (US SNES, Wonderswan Color, PSX, GBA, DS, VC, PSP)

I don’t think I like it.

The Final Fantasy series is fairly well liked, though the last three games in the main series have been met with both harsh criticism and high accolades depending on who you ask, with the exception of XIV which came out half finished. Square-Enix gets a lot of criticism for releasing the same game over and over, both in terms of recycled gameplay and actually releasing the same game over and over. To date, I have bought the PSX, GBA, DS and now PSP releases of Final Fantasy IV, widely believed to be the first Final Fantasy with a character driven narrative. The recent PSP release aims to be the definitive version, being bundled with its previously episodic sequel, The After Years.

Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start with the cover. This is something that a lot of people don’t give much thought to where games are concerned, but as a man who routinely switches the cases of his favourite games with those of less well-liked and less scuffed cases, I’d beg to differ.

Like the legacy edition of Dissidia 012, it has a cardboard sleeve, which may or may not be the true cover art. They’ve eschewed the traditional “logo on a white background” in favour of some full colour artwork of the main cast of The After Years by long time promotional; artist Yoshitaka Amano. It’s nice enough, but I’m not sure it’ll suck in people unfamiliar with the original.

I’m focussing the review on the Final Fantasy IV part of the game, since that’s all of managed to play so far. You might think this’d be the sensible option, but the majority of the manual is focussed on The After Years, and all the information for that game is before any mention of the original.

Since this game is only a few months younger than me, I’m not going to bother regurgitating the story. Suffice it to say that it’s surprisingly complex for a game that was originally in development for the NES. The majority of gameplay features seem to be based on the GBA version, though there seem to be a few tiny differences to keep it fresh. The massive difficulty spikes the game suffered from starting at the Tower of Zot seem to have been ironed out, though this could be due in part due to the erratic encounter rate. You could go through a map once without a single battle, and then go through the same map and have a back attack encounter every time you take a step. The bosses all require keen observation to take on effectively, particularly the Eidolons. This is the first time I’ve managed to actually complete the game, and the final dungeon is incredibly arduous if you lack cottages and dry ethers to restore MP.

When I got to the final boss, I was wiped out easily at first. After grinding up a bit, I went back to confront him, only this time, I discovered a shocking secret. Now, this being the future and all, I binged for a strategy to beat him, and as far as I’m aware, nobody else seems to have discovered what I have. Zeromus is so challenging because he can unleash to devastating attacks in quick succession. Except he’s vulnerable to slow. I’ll say that again; the FINAL BOSS is vulnerable to a STATUS AILMENT.

Obligatory Text-Box shot

The graphics have really been tarted up. Shading’s a LOT smoother, and everything looks all shiny. They’ve also FINALLY made Cecil’s sprite resemble how he’s supposed to look...except in battle he goes from having long flowing hair to short spiky hair as in every other version.  And sprite flipping is still used for walking left, meaning that character’s with asymmetrical hair cuts have their partings mysteriously flip to the other side when walking left. This was originally done to save space, but considering they found room for flashy new spell and summon animations (which ARE awesome), this smacks of laziness.

Briefly talking about The After Years, I’d say it’s better than the WiiWare version.  For a start, it’s cheaper, and comes all in one bundle, plus the enemy formations don’t look so oddly spaced (the WiiWare version was adapted from mobile phones, and used the low resolution sprites from the GBA).

I’m having trouble telling if I’m being overly negative in this review, and that about sums up my feelings for FFIV. It’s definitely not my favourite, but I don’t hate it. Hell, I spent the last week playing it pretty much non-stop, so that has to count for something. As a port, it’s pretty amazing. While the other PSP final fantasy ports suffered from immense slowdown (I know for a fact that the UMD version of FFII had actual LOADING SCREENS before random encounters), FFIV Complete Collection has a data install feature, although there isn’t much noticeable lag if you don’t use it, plus it comes with art cards (which...take up space?), a PSP screen cloth with Cecil on it (alas, too little too late for mine) and a costume for Cecil in Dissidia 012 based on his sprite art, PLUS the After Years PLUS an interlude section, PLUS the fact that both GAME and Gamestation had it on sale for £20, it’s not a bad buy.

If you like that sort of thing.

Which I might.

Dissidia 012 [duodecim]: Final Fantasy: The Revenge of Oppenheimer: Episode V: Part 2-A New Hope (PSP)

“Who’s the bigger badass; Sephiroth or Kefka?” This question that has plagued many fans of Final Fantasy for decades, and now, we Finally have an answer. Of course, we’ve had the answer for some time now; neither. Kuja destroyed a planet, and then destroyed everything that could possibly exist, but even for the homophobic, the answer came last year, in the form of Dissidia: Final Fantasy. This is the sequel. 

Except it’s a prequel.

And a sequel. A bit.

And the exact same game.

With a long title.

Or possibly the 12^th in the series. I don’t know.

Confused? You will be! 

The premise for the Dissidia games (and I’ll mostly be talking as though this were the only one, since it’s essentially a replacement) is deceptively simple. The goddess of Harmony is engaged in unending war with the God of Discord (Cosmos and Chaos respectively). To facilitate this, they summon up warriors from the world’s past. Or worlds’ pasts. Or possibly the future. And they may not actually be the same people, but copies. Deceptive. From a more meta viewpoint, it’s a fighter/RPG with Final Fantasy characters. The original Dissidia had one hero and one villain from each game, and Duodecim adds about eight new fighters; Lightning, Vaan, Prishe, Yuna, Laguna, Tifa, Gilgamesh and Kain. The first half of the game focuses on the “12^th cycle of Battle” (bare with me), which takes place before the events in Dissidia. It focuses almost entirely on six of the new characters, with most of the returning characters getting cameos at best. After that, the game starts to be a rewrite of the original, allowing for the new story points and features.

And now, about those features. In Dissidia, outside of battle, the gameplay was that you’d move your character around on a sort of chessboard, interacting with “battle pieces” to start fights. Now, you move around a world map (similar to Final Fantasy I’s), and enter into dungeons, where it starts to look a lot like the original game-board thing, but with a little bit more interactivity. 

Now for the fights themselves. Your characters need to be equipped, level up, learn and set abilities like in an RPG, although there is an arcade mode with preset characters. In battle, you have two sets of numbers to keep your eye on; brave and HP. Your Brave can be boosted by attacking with the circle button, which in turn reduces your opponents brave. When you think you’re brave is high enough, use the square button to attack there HP. As you might expect, the goal is to reduce their HP to zero as fast as possible. By collecting EX cores (wingéd bells), you can enter EX mode, and by performing an HP attack, trigger an EX burst, this game’s limit breaks. New to 012 are Assist characters; by filling up a separate Assist gauge, one can summon another character to perform an attack and depart.

The Graphics are pretty nice, although unlike the recent Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, you cannot increase the colour depth from 16-bit to 32 (this means that there’s a weird cross-hatching thing going on with the graphics, and characters with bright coloured models (e.g. Cloud’s hair) have weird halos in some scenes. You’ll also want to do a data install before you start playing, since the load times are long and frequent otherwise.

If you’ve already played the original Dissidia, you can import your save data. A nifty feature of this is that you can opt to not import character levels and abilities; you can start with everything you’ve already unlocked (in my case, this was 42% of 012’s  PP catalog), without having characters ridiculously over levelled, particularly since some of them have been given lot’s of new shiny moves.

Speaking of the unlockables, in the original, most of the unlockable outfits were disappointing palette swaps. Now, the majority of characters have at least one drastically different outfit, often designed to resemble the ingame appearance, since the default outfits are mostly based on concept art. We have a Warrior of Light with Red spiky hair, Exdeath out of his armour, Kefka in a Turban, President Laguna, and Marriage of Convenience Yuna (beard not included) to name but a few. There’s also DLC costumes and music. A few of these can only be obtained by buying certain square-enix products (the legacy edition of duodecim for instance), however they’ve been really smart here; there is a helmetless Warrior of Light costume for free on PSN right now (at least, I ASSUME it’s still there), which looks pretty badass, but it’s located right next to the other DLC for the game. If a new player goes to get there free DLC, they’ll notice the fairly cheap other items, and end up buying them as well. It’s the same reason why newsagents keep the mints and stuff at the counter.

The soundtrack is just awesome. It’s a mix of new arrangements of familiar battle themes, and a few unaltered tracks thrown in for good measure. I love it, but then I love them anyway. More will be available as DLC packs. Or not. It’s hard to tell right now. For all we know, the PSN was downed by Skynet, and all our days are numbered. I hear tell judgement day just passed again recently.

In summation (which sounds damned professional), if you’ve not played the original Dissidia, but this instead; there won’t be massive gaps in your understanding of the plot because of it. If you have played the original Dissidia, this one’s just better. If you have already bought it, but didn’t know there was DLC, then make a PSN account and check them out posthaste. If by some fluke you cannot get on PSN, then there’s something wrong with you, and you are right to feel ashamed. 

You are right to feel ashamed.