Under Lock and Monkey - Episode 2: Chimps Ahoy!
0Originally recorded: July 10, 2025
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When I originally decided to scale back my clear criteria for Ape Escape, I was operating under the assumption that a 100% completion run would take roughly 12 hours -- as it said on HowLongToBeat. I was hoping that that would mean that I'd take less time than that... maybe even finishing in three sessions instead of four. Suffice it to say, that dream died a horrible, painful death during this session. And yet, I continue to press on.
While I can appreciate Ape Escape's experimentation with the right analog stick, I kind of wish I had beaten this game before I got accustomed to it only being used to control the camera in 3D games. It doesn't help that the game actually does map camera control to the D-Pad... because I keep on forgetting about that. Fortunately, I can at least remember that there's a button to reset the camera.
After my first Ape Escape stream, I learned that the game was actually remade for the PSP, but with a significantly modified control scheme. You know, to compensate for the handheld's lack of a second analog stick. I doubt it's worth pursuing -- especially since it sounds like the other games in the series utilize the same control scheme as the PS1 original -- but I do wonder how they handled the RC Car gadget. Did it act like a toggle where you'd switch between controlling it and Spike? I mean, every other gadget in the game so far has a pretty obvious way to be mapped to a button press, but the RC Car is an exception. I guess I'll look into that before next time.
I was originally hoping to get past the last level this time, but sadly, I only managed to get to the penultimate world. I lost a lot of time in that one huge level at the end of the fifth world. On the plus side, I did at least have enough time at the end to show off the second mini-game that I unlocked. Granted, it felt more like an annoying tech demo than a legitimate game... but at least I don't have to worry about going back to it. Here's hoping that the last one ends up being significantly better than the other two.