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Ape Escape – Part 1-1

We’ve explored the islands off the coast of Australia, and many ages past and future, with Crash Bandicoot. We’ve explored the dragon lands, including those once forgotten, with Spyro the Dragon. Sir Daniel Fortesque guided us on a journey across the kingdom of Gallowmere. There is one missing from these great adventures, and that ends today.

With a lightsaber and a high-tech net, we’re going to capture monkeys throughout history in Ape Escape.

Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud

If you’re wonder where the idea came from to play through Ape Escape now, it stems from a discussion I had while recording the Astro Bot Let’s Play on stream. As viewers may recall, one of the levels in Astro Bot was a send up to Ape Escape, where our goal was to catch the monkey-bots, using the modern control scheme of Astro Bot to mimic the basic gameplay of the over 25-year old classic.

At the time, the topic of the stream changed to the idea of Sony hypothetically greenlighting a new Ape Escape game. While I have philosophical reasons to opposing the mining of old IP for the purpose of nostalgia bait, I have a fundamentally different objection to bringing Ape Escape back: The control scheme.

For the unaware, Ape Escape was developed as one of the first PlayStation games to require a DualShock controller. Those in the generations that followed mine might not know this, but the original PlayStation controller did not have the analog sticks that have become a ubiquitous fixture of modern gaming. There was nothing where the nubs we’re so familiar with are “supposed” to be now. I mention this to underscore that the original Ape Escape game came out in an era where dual-analog sticks were new, and we didn’t know the best practices for them like we do now, after decades of iteration.

It was a combination tech demo/exploration of the DualShock control scheme and what could be done with it. Their proposal, use the left analog stick for movement and the right stick for dynamic 3D control of the equipment our protagonist would acquire over the course of the game. It wasn’t “common sense” to use the right stick to control the camera, largely because no one had access to a right stick before, resulting in a unique control scheme that no other franchise can really claim as its own. Even as it kept getting sequels in the PS2-era, it stays true to this control schema, incorporating it as part of its core identity.

Which is the crux of the problem with hypothetically making a modern Ape Escape game for a new audience. To do so, one would want to modernize the controls for this new audience. However, the control scheme is a fundamental core that the whole series is build around, on a foundational level. You would necessarily need to maintain the dual-stick controls at a minimum to justify even making another Ape Escape game.

And that is why we’re here. I want us to explore the game one more time, asking ourselves if we could envision a creative lead tackling a new Ape Escape game while keeping what makes it as unique and charming as it is.