For those that have been following Press Start and myself over the last decade, you’ll know that I’ve been dying for a new Ape Escape game. It’s easily my favourite franchise and it started a love for platformers and all-things PlayStation for me, and Astro Bot, kind of scratched the Ape Escape itch, but also left me wanting more.
SPOILERS BELOW
At the end of each world in Astro Bot, you take on a boss battle in which you generally find a PlayStation character (much like the rest of the game), but unlike finding regular cameo appearances, these are PlayStation Heroes that then take you to their own level where you actually get to play as that character and be in that world for an entire level.
Whilst you can find all of those here, it’s the first one that nearly knocked me off my chair. It’s a level called Apes on the Loose where you have to catch 10 cheeky monkeys as Spike. At the start of the level, Spike throws you the iconic net as well as the Monkey Radar and then you go through the level as you would any other Ape Escape level.
You wild both your iconic net that is now mapped to the R2 button complete with adaptive trigger functionality, and the Monkey Radar which similarly has clever adaptive trigger functionality and pulses as you get close to a monkey. This is used be used to find monkeys that are hiding all over the stage with their iconic little quirky personalities and names.
The whole level isn’t super long, but it really feels like it elevates the Astro Bot experience. It feels like other levels in the game, but equally feels as though you’re playing an Ape Escape game, and whilst I’ve replayed it more than a few times in the last week, it did leave me wanting a new Ape Escape game even more if I’m being totally honest, but it’s nice to see PlayStation acknowledge the franchise again.
Astro Bot releases on September 6th. The cheapest price is currently $89 with free shipping from Amazon with the DualSense controller also available for $124.95 HERE.
@shannongrixti
