Ape Escape Academy

Ape Escape goes mini for its latest installment on the PSP

With Ape Escape Academy, the Ape Escape franchise makes its first move from platformer to mini-game collection. The allure of the PSP's pick-up-and-play style, along with the success of competitor Nintendo's Wario Ware: Twisted for the DS and long-running Mario Party franchise, seems like a solid bet for SCE and developer Shift. But it takes more than quirky monkeys to craft a capable party game, and this one just doesn't peel the banana.

Mini Mini-Games
Where academy goes wrong is shrinking the mini-games down too far, meaning PSP loading rides shotgun on every road trip though the menu. Games in Academy can last anywhere from 10-60 seconds on average, and range from air hockey, to rope swinging, to multiple-choice trivia. Some games are astoundingly simple, while others induce urges to punt my PSP off of a rooftop. The controls are often shoddy, and analog stick support is minimal in a platform where it should be used unsparingly.

The game is laid out in a school-like manner, as you'll take a young monkey through increasingly difficult "years" of Ape Academy. Progress is made by completing rows on a tic-tac-toe board, where winning a game is represented by an O for the corresponding space on the board, and an X for losses. Additionally, after you've lost a certain amount of spaces to the point where it's impossible to win the required amount of rows, the game still forces you to finish out the year (with no way to quit, other than to reset the unit).

Stop Monkeying Around!
In short, Shift should have stuck to the standard Ape Escape, tried-and-true formula. It could have easily included these mini-games in a linear platformer, but the party style feels entirely disconnected. Granted, Academy's mini-games looks nice, but just can't compete with Wario Ware's non-stop style of play that is best suited for the stylus-equipped DS.

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