For August 2020, the retro games of the month shall be:
- Ape Escape – 1999 – 3D platformer
- Big Tournament Golf – 1996 – sports
Ape Escape (AKA Saru Getchu [Monkey Get You] in Japan) was released for the original Playstation in 1999. It is notable for being the first Playstation game to require the DualShock controller – other games utilized it beforehand, but Ape Escape made it mandatory to have the two joysticks. I feel this is comparable to Night into Dreams releasing with the Saturn 3D controller in 1996, and how development of Super Mario 64 (also released in 1996) influenced the Nintendo 64’s controller.
Ape Escape was developed by SCE Japan and published by Sony. It is one of many 3D platformers for the Playstation, but is notable for having a unique control scheme. You use one joystick to move, and the other joystick to control whatever item or weapon you happen to be holding (attacking with it in the direction you push). The action buttons are for selecting the item your character is holding, and you jump with the right trigger. For camera adjustment, you use the left trigger or the D-pad.
The goal of the game is to catch all the monkeys (or apes I guess). It’s a pretty bizarre story premise for this one… Basically an ape acquires a helmet that grants him high intelligence, and so he proceeds to command an army of apes to use a time machine and change the past… Now you (AKA some anime kid) have to travel to past time periods and nab each of the apes with a net. You get lots of other little gadgets to use along the way though, most of which I imagine also implement the use of the controller’s joysticks.
Ape Escape was well-regarded back in the day, and the franchise had a couple sequels and a bunch of spinoffs. The last mainline game was released in 2005 (PS2), while the last spinoff (for the PS3’s Playstation Move) was in 2010. The series has pretty much been dormant since then, but there was hope for a new entry when a Japanese Twitter account was made for its 20th anniversary (2019). But maybe that was nothing.
There was a remake of the game released for the PSP in 2001, titled Ape Escape: On the Loose. The controls are reworked for that version, since the portable console only had one joystick. Also perhaps worth keeping in mind, the characters in Ape Escape have different names depending on the region. For example the professor’s assistant/granddaughter is named Natsumi in Japan, Katie in Europe, and Natalie in America. It seems this series also had different English voice acting for European and American regions. Howlongtobeat dot com says it takes about eight hours to play through Ape Escape.
Big Tournament Golf (AKA Neo Turf Masters) is a golf game that released in arcades in 1996, developed by Nazca and published by SNK (which would acquire Nazca soon thereafter). Nazca is best-known for creating the Metal Slug run-and-gun series (the first of which also released in 1996).
There have been a lot of video games made for golf over the years, but I think there’s something special about 'ol Neo Turf Masters. It’s a game I’ve played from time to time, but now I’d like to really dive in and see if I can ever stand a chance of making the top rankings for a course. The game is much more addicting than you might expect of a golf game, and I think a large part of why it works is because as an arcade game it requires you to take your turn fairly quickly. Choose your club, aim your shot, and swing (first deciding the power, then deciding the height). You’ll surely mess up a bunch of times, but with practice you’ll learn to gauge distances better, and learn to accommodate for wind, slopes, and trees more accurately. The controls are a bit simpler and less technical than most other golf video games, which makes sense for an arcade release.
If possible, I strongly recommend playing this game with a friend. It is a very fun multiplayer game, and there is a lot of mid-90s Japanese arcade game charm to its presentation in general. Neo Turf Masters was released for the Neo Geo home console, and had a simpler-looking version made for the Neo Geo Pocket Color as well (in 1999). It has since been released for the Wii’s Virtual Console, for iOS and Android, for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, and for PC via Humble Bundle and GOG. Just keep in mind the title of the game is now Big Golf Tournament for all regions, presumably changed due to trademark issues.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on either (or both) of these games as you play them over the course of August. If you finish, you can give a mini-review if you’d like. Let us know if you think these games stand the test of time!