Ape Escape (1999) Review

November 7, 2022October 2, 2022 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Ape Escape is the first game in one of Sony’s most memorable but somewhat forgotten franchise, the game was Developed by Japan Studios as an exclusive for the PS1, it was the first game to ever make the Dual Shock Analog controller mandatory for play. A PSP remake came out in 2005 but was criticised for not being as good as the original with less manageable controls.

Specter a popular primate in a monkey themed amusement park gets his paws on a Peak Point helmet created by a scientist at the themepark, however due to it being a prototype it not only gives Specter human intelligence but also makes him extremely evil with a plot to take over the world.

Specter soon gives all of the monkeys at the park Peak Point Helmets and releases them to take over the Professors laboratory, at the time he and his assistant Katie are testing out a new time machine when our games hero Spike and his best friend Buzz turn up at the lab and end up being sent throughout various time periods with the monkeys!

Buzz is mind controlled to Join Specter leaving Spike alone to travel to the different time zones, capture all of the monkeys, defeat Specter and prevent any damages to the worlds historical timeline.

The gameplay here is definitely unique, in a sense the game itself if a 3D platforming collectathon where players need to collect a set number of items before proceeding to the next level.

There are only two items to find in the game, one of these are the Specter Coins which will unlock minigames for multiplayer purposes and the other is the monkeys themselves.

Capturing the monkeys while simple enough can get rather tricky later on in the game, the apes helmets all have a siren which glows a different colour representing their difficulty to capture blue is calm, amber is alert and red is high alert.

Sometimes the Monkeys also carry guns and will shoot Spike taking some real damage to your health (Cookies or Biscuits).

The gadgets you unlock throughout the game really help to make the capturing process go a lot smoother, there are 9 in the game and each is unlocked at different points throughout the campaign.

The Gadgets in no particular order are:

Net – a basic net used for capturing monkeys on land

Water Net – a device which allows Spike to swim fast underwater but can also be used to capture swimming monkeys

Sky Flyer – allows Spike to reach great heights and hover temporarily

Stun Club – used for stunning monkeys and turning wheels

Slingback Shooter – a slingshot with 3 ammo types, regular, explosive and homing

Super Hoop – Spike can run really fast with this helping to get past timed obstacles and attack enemies from behind.

Magic Punch – another stunning item but his one is more powerful and can destroy some walls.

RC Car – a remote controlled car which can get in to smaller spaces to chase out monkeys and help solve puzzles.

Monkey Radar – will pin point Spike in the direction of monkeys, the sonar gets more aggressive the closer to a monkey he gets.

Catching the monkeys is really satisfying and very addictive, I found myself wanting to keep coming back to the game to try and find as many as I could, as I previously stated some monkeys are hidden behind tricky puzzles but they can also be hidden behind armoured machinery such as flying saucers and giant mechs, these are difficult to defeat without taking much damage but soon became my favourite monkeys to get as they added more additional challenge where the rest of the game was a bit easier to relax too.

The games controls are actually quite innovative for the time, there is some effort made to evoke realism in the gameplay, its nothing revolutionary but the efforts made to have players use the other analog stick to physically pull back the elastic of the sling shot or spin the propeller of the sky flyer and super hoop was a risky choice by the developers considering that this differed from traditional and more simplified controls, it definitely took a little time to get used to but after a while I grew to really enjoy these choices and hope to see them used in more games I check out in the future.

The three minigames you unlock by collecting the Specter Coins are a nice reward to players for going the extra mile the ski game was my favourite and the galaxy game was a fun homage to space shooters of the past but the boxing game I couldn’t even land a hit in, I’m not sure if it was genuinely hard to control or I just sucked but either way it didn’t effect the main campaign or my enjoyment with Ape Escape.

Visually the game is packed full of colour which really helps to enhance the visuals, it takes on a cartoony look and does not put too much emphasis on textures, it still stands out though due to its brighter colours something that a lot of family friendly games of the era would use, a great example of another game which utilizes more colours would be Croc Legend of the Gobbo’s or Spyro the Dragon.

The soundtrack is an abosolute thrill ride with non stop pumping tracks to put you in a energetic and entusiastic mood to go and catch those monkeys !, I loved all of the music in the game but my favourite was always the opening title music.

Ape Escape is an absolute blast and a game I really wish I had growing up. Child me would have loved this one and while I did have so much fun doing this one as an adult back then I found the games I did have extremely difficult and could have done with something a little milder such as this.

What is there to say apart from Ape Escape is a one of a kind game which delivers in all categories from its gameplay, replay value, graphics and soundtrack. It offers reason to collect everything with the minigames and a secret final boss even after finishing everything I just want to start it all over again. Its innovative, made with love and as just about as charming as we could ask for needless to say I would be banana’s to award it any less than a clean 10/10

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The Spongebob Movie – Sponge out of Water (2015) Review

August 24, 2020August 23, 2020 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

Sponge out of Water is the second Spongebob film that was released in theatres, in brought back the original voice cast and starred Antonio Bandares as a new villain. Stephen Hillenburg returned to write this film as well as future episodes of the television series before his untimely death in 2018.

Similarly to the previous Spongebob film this opens with a live action Pirate sequence but instead of going to see the movie this Pirate played by Antonio Banderes actually plays a major role in the film when he steals the Krabby Patty formula using a magic book.

Because of the Formula disappearing food production at the Krusty Krab is put on hold causing the citizens of Bikini Bottom to go into an apocalyptic meltdown, leaving Spongebob and Plankton to try and save the town and recover the secret formula.

What I really like about this movie is that it showed a different side to Plankton that I feel hasn’t been shown before this. In the movie he and Spongebob are forced to work together to retrieve to formula and while at the beginning his plan is to take the formula for himself throughout the movie he starts to see the benefit of team work and friendship ultimately giving up what he has always desired for the benefit of others.

I really appreciate the the various styles of animation used in the movie but my favourite was during the time travels scenes where the animation got really silly and creative, every time that the machine was used a different idea was used for animation styles so each time there was something new to look forward too.

Another part I really enjoyed was when Plankton climbs into Spongebob’s brain, this highly animated scene shows to the full extent how sweet and innocent Spongebob’s mind is, of course the sweetness is too much for Plankton to handle which ends in a few good laughs.

The third act of the movie focuses on live action animation hybrid which puts CGI versions of the Spongebob characters into the real world above the ocean where they eventually gain super powers to take on the Antonio Banderes pirate.

When I first saw trailers for this movie I was concerned that it was going to use the cliche of characters from an one world come to our world and thats where all the jokes would come from. While this does happen and some jokes are at this expense I was pleased when the main goal of the film remained the focus and the comedy was more clever than easy to write humour to keeps the kids happy.

The entire film does a great job of explaining who the Spongebob characters are along with their personalities and goals so that new comers can understand whats happening without making this come across as a forced narrative.

Sponge out of Water is a really fun movie, there is a lot of different plot points going on which I think a younger audience might struggle to follow but overall its a very funny and entertaining film that is sure to keep the attention of both children and adults and shows that Spongebob is still relevant enough to make a film good enough for a theatrical release.

My favourite Spongebob episodes – F.U.N

Whats a better time than now to talk about the very famous Spongebob episode F.U.N?

After once again having his plans foiled Plankton is sent back to his computer wife Karen utterly defeated. After seeing him so sad Spongebob decides to show Plankton the power of friendship and change his evil ways.

At first Plankton is against the idea of befriending Spongebob but is convinced by his computer wife Karen that it’s the perfect chance for him to learn the formula so he ultimately agrees.

This leads into one of the most famous songs in the shows history where Spongebob tries to teach plankton how to have fun with plankton eventually fooling Spongebob into thinking he has changed.

One of the more silly episodes of the show which has more random moments than clever comedy but I feel it works really well and flows nicely as a simple story. I really love the song F.U.N and I often sing it to myself and have never forgotten the lyrics.

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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages (2001) Review

May 18, 2020May 1, 2020 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

The Legend of Zelda Oracle of Seasons and Ages are the seventh and eight games in the franchise, they were developed by Capcom for the Nintendo Gameboy Colour. These games are very unique entries to the series because they are both heavily connected and should be played one after the other in order of the players choice.

In order to connect the games plots after finishing one game you will be given a code to enter into the other game to get the conclusive experience.

I have decided not to discuss many details of the linked versions of each game because while they have some plot differences and connections, It would be quite major spoilers and for the the most part the base game and dungeons are practically the same with an extended final boss.

If you would like to see all of the details of the linked games use the link below

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/Linked_Game

In Oracle of Ages the Triforce sends Link to the land of Labrynna, here he meets Impa who asks him to move a boulder so that she can listen to the Nayru the Oracle of Ages sing, unaware of the mistake he has made Link helps Impa to find that she had been possessed by an Evil spirit called Veran, Once close enough Veran leaves Impa and possesses Nayru instead.

With Veran now possessing Nayru, a plan to affect time and bring sorrow to the world is in motion, Link visits the Maku Tree who explains that by collecting the eight essences of time Link will be given enough power to defeat Veran pushing Link to travel through time to discover them and save the Oracle of Ages.

You can find the essences of time by completing dungeons that are hidden across the map, these dungeons are very challenging and are packed with tricky puzzles, personally I would argue that these puzzles may be some of the most challenging in the franchise.

New items in this game are seeds, there are many different seeds in the game you find, each of these allow Link to perform various abilities including lighting fires, attracting enemies towards him, awakening owl statues, running at fast speeds and teleporting across the map to different locations.

The only other new item that is important to the game experience is the Harp of Ages, you able to learn multiple songs in the game which allow Link to alter-time and travel freely between the past and present.

During your adventure Link will come across three animals that need his help, A flying bear, A boxing kangaroo and Dodongo that can swim and climb waterfalls. After experimenting with these animals and testing their abilities you will later on have the opportunity to keep one of them as your main companion, this is done by finding or winning one of three flutes in the game. This is unique to both games and your animal companion will be transferred between the two games.

There are many hidden rings in both of the games, by paying for them to be appraised you will unlock the rings ability, these can either upgrade of downgrade various aspects to Links character including but not limited too strength, defence, speed etc. These rings can be transferred between both of the games.

Oracle of Ages has one of my favourite soundtracks in the Legend of Zelda video game series, the music in this game is a lot of fun and really quite creative, it uses a lot of original tracks that suit the game perfectly but it also uses a lot of bit tunes of tracks from Ocarina of time which is one of favourite games ever.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages can easily be considered an almost perfect game, it has a great plot and a really excellent soundtrack but I feel its held back by how its never very clear where you need to be going and a lot of this is because of the in-game map, its not very clear where things are and it can be a pain teleporting across the map only to find its the wrong area I had a very similar issue with the Links Awakening DX but apart from that I really like this game and I think its only fair that I give it a good rating of 9.8/10

In Oracle of Seasons Link finds himself exploring the Land of Holodrum where he meets Din the Oracle of Seasons and Dances with her, during this time the evil Onox kidnaps the Oracle and the seasons of the Land become completely out of control leaving Link to discover the 8 essences of nature to restore balance to the world.

Right off the bat the over-world map is a lot more interesting here than it was in ages, not only would I argue the encounters are better including the trade sequence but a new puzzle element has been added outside of dungeons in the form of seasons. In the game Link is able to find wooden stumps that he can stand on and use the rod of seasons to change the seasons in game which heavily affects the over-world map in different ways, I found this much more interesting than the time travel in Oracle of Ages.

The dungeons in this game are more focused on combat so they are much tougher with enemy placements and have much more difficult boss fights. I prefer more puzzle based dungeons myself but they were a lot of fun here as well.

The Animal Companions are also in Oracle of seasons and have the same uses as before, the game also uses rings that you can collect to enhance or downgrade Link throughout the game.

The game has a stellar soundtrack which is highly enjoyable to listen too and just like Ages it also uses bit tunes of tracks used in other Zelda games.

Oracle of Seasons is just as good as the Oracle of Ages although they are quite different, this one if more combat based and it was a lot of fun. It is a very difficult Zelda game and is a little unforgiving to its players with how difficult it can be at times but with good practise it can easily be beaten. If i’m being completely honest I seriously think I prefer this game even though it has less puzzles, it handled the characters a lot better than Ages and the majority of them had some importance to the game which made the world a lot more memorable and interesting. It is still very cryptic and the map sucks but that is to be expected considering that Ages had the same issues, overall It is only fair to give this the same score a tidy 9.8/10

I held off from playing these games for such a long time because of how they are connected, I was worried I would be bored playing two Zelda games in a row but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this wasn’t the case and they are very well designed and are great fun. It doesn’t matter which order you play the games in but I do recommend that you use the secret code in the second game you play so that you get the true ending. I wonder if they will ever try something so ambitious with this series again, I really hope so but only time will tell.

Thank you for reading my review of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons for The Gameboy Colour.

Thank You for all of your support.

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Gravity Falls Review

February 20, 2016February 20, 2016 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

Gravity Falls was a hit cartoon series created by Alex Hirsch for the Walt Disney Channel, it first aired in 2012 and it has now finally concluded at the beginning of 2016, the show about a brother and a sister spending the summer in a mysterious town became very popular amongst millions of viewers and Gravity Falls soon became known for its quality, I have now seen the entire series and I am ready to share my opinion.

Twins Dipper and Mabel Pines are spending their summer vacation with Stanley Pines (Great Uncle), They are spending the summer in a mysterious town called Gravity Falls, where Stanley is making them work at his business the Mystery Shack where he guides tourists through a fake museum of mythical creatures and mysterious artifacts, Dipper soon gets bored of this and decides to go and explore the town while his sister Mabel is seeking romance, Dipper accidentally discovers a Journal which is filled with mysterious legends and secrets which may help uncover the dark secrets and hidden mysteries of Gravity Falls.

Apart from the few episodes that really expand on the shows main plot, alot of the episodes can be watched out of order without many consequences as a big portion of the show is just Mabel and Dipper going on adventures and trying to resolve a problem they have discovered in Gravity Falls, most of these problems can be resolved by someone searching for the answers in one of the journals

When the show does focus on the main plot its hard to not get glued to the tv, for a Disney Channel show it’s surprisingly addictive and many of the non plot themed episodes are full of cryptic clues to some of the towns mysteries

All of the main cast are very lovable. but surprisingly almost every character in the entire show has a personality and some even have interesting backstories, personally my favourite character is Mabel Pines but my favourite background character is Blendin Blandin a time traveler you will meet in season 1

Gravity falls is one of the best looking children’s cartoon shows I have seen in a very long time, the animation is smooth and the pixels are at a minimum so the show looks absolutely flawless, I highly recommend watching it in HD so you can truly appreciate it’s beauty.

Overall Gravity Falls was one of best animated series I have ever had the pleasure of sitting down and watching, it is a little sad that the show has finished but I know for a fact that the fandom the show had brought together will be around for a long time.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Gravity Falls

You can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
You can find me on miiverse by searching for draskafer

The girl who leapt through time (2006) Review

January 14, 2015January 14, 2015 ragglefragglereviews3 Comments

Makoto Konno is an ordinary teenager, she goes to high school, hates her little sister, her emotions are all over the place and she loves hanging out with her two best friends Chiaki and Kosuke

Apart from the fact that Makoto is extremely clumsy and a bit of goof ball her life is fairly normal for a girl of her age, but that all changes when she is asked to return some books too one of classrooms in her school, when she arrives the class room appears to be completely empty, she discovers a message on the blackboard which reads “Time waits for no one”

She thinks nothing of this and she returns the books to their proper place but being the klutz she is, she falls on a walnut and crushes it. On her way home she is racing down a steep hill on her bike, she hears a railroad crossing ahead as it is bleeping warning pedestrians of an incoming train, Makoto tries to use the brakes but they wont work, she hits the rail and flies off her bike straight into the oncoming train and presumably dies.

A few Seconds later she is back on top of the hill and is in pain after falling off her bike and she hears the rail road crossing warn passers by of the same train that hit her previously.

Obviously she gets very confused by this and she goes to visit her Auntie Witch

She Explains to Makoto that she had peformed a time leap which means that she leapt through time and time traveled. We also learn that time leaps can be peformed by a lot of teenagers her age, but not many know that they have this ability.

As you may expect like any person who discovers that they can time travel Makoso starts time leaping whenever she can, she starts time leaping to get what she wants, to change how she deals with situations because if she does screw up anything she can reverse time and start again, she even time leaps so she can keep redoing her maths test until she has a perfect grade.

Makoso starts to get very selfish knowing that she can now have multiple chances at any thing that life throws at her and that nothing in her life will ever go wrong again.

At least that’s what she thought because later on in the movie Makoso notices a Tattoo of the number 9 on her arm, at first she thinks nothing of it and she carry’s on time leaping only to realise that the 9 is now a 6, this number represents the amount of time leaps Makoso has left,.

Makoso starts to feel foolish that she wasted almost of all of her time leaps and with only one left she decides that would be a great idea to time leap back to the begging of the movie so that she can get her friend Kosuke in a relationship with a girl who has a crush on him, but by doing this she ends up managing to sprain the girls ankle, since Makoso just walked away not realising what had happened Kosuke borrows Makoso’s bike and starts rushing to his house to get the girls ankle fixed but little does he know that he is heading towards the same train from the beginning of the movie.

Makoso Realises this and with no time leaps left she runs to try and stop her friend before it is too late.

The films plot is very impressive considering that a lot of anime’s are full of action, have an antagonist of some sort and are genuinely un-realistic, but with this anime its not the case at all because these teenagers act like normal teenagers, the high school looks and feels like a normal high school and even when Makoso starts time leaping she uses her new ability for non important things such as redoing karaoke over and over again, going back in time so she can eat her meals for a second time and to just genuinely avoid awkward situations, the reason I bring this up is because when I was a teenager if I this ability I would be using it in a similar manner.

The icing on the cake is the animation, this movie is beautiful every scene is hand drawn and its amazing. What may surprise a lot of people is that the animation and designs of the characters are quite simple but the backgrounds have had so much effort and time put into them that they really stand out, I don’t see this as a bad thing because its actually quite a nice change of pace considering that with most animated films and animes its the characters them selves which stand out the most compared the the rest of the imagery the film has offer, this film is a complete reversal of the usual formula and it works really well because it allows the viewer to really soak in the animation and ultimately 9 times out of ten they will appreciate the animation a lot more as well as the time and effort that went into making the film.

The girl who leapt through time is an amazing film it has top notch animation, a wonderful cast of characters, a brilliant plot and writing and it some heart warming and heart breaking moments which are bound to bring out some emotions in any who watches it.

If you haven’t yet seen this movie, I highly recommend giving it a watch

I hope you enjoyed this review

If you repect my opinion, I will respect yours

By Padawan

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

You can find me on Miiverse by searching for draskafer

Ecco the Dolphin (Megadrive) Review

October 6, 2014February 24, 2015 ragglefragglereviews4 Comments

Halloween 2014 is really close now and since it is already October its time for the traditional Raggle fraggle Halloween blogs.

This years theme is games and movies that you would not expect to be scary but in reality they are.

Lets begin with the first game of the season with the adorable Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega Mega Drive

Released in 1993 Ecco the Dolphin is in my opinion Sega’s response to Nintendo’s popular game series Metroid

The plot of Ecco the Dolphin is that your family mysteriously disappears in a storm and Ecco travels through the many dangers of the ocean to reunite with his family, while on on his travels Ecco is told to travel to the Artic to speak to a blue whale called Big Blue. Big Blue explains that these storms appear every 500 years and Ecco is directed to the oldest creature on earth the Asterite.

The Asterite agrees to help Ecco as long as he travels back in time to an ancient atlantian city so he can retrieve one of the Asterite’s globes that is missing (Globes are those multicoloured circles that the Asterite is made of) After receiving the globe Ecco is told that the storm was a harvest of Earths waters and this is a tradition committed every 500 years by an alien species called the Vortex. After learning this, Ecco travels 55 thousands years into the past and finds the Asterite and is forced to battle, after defeating the Asterite, Ecco is granted a power which turns his Sonar into a deadly weapon which he can use against the Vortex, Ecco is then sent foward in time to the hour of the harvest and this time he also gets sucked into the storm and ends up in the Alien space ship, Ecco then fights his way to the queen to save his family.

Thats right Ecco is a time travelling Dolphin who fights Aliens, That is freaking awesome

Ecco the Dolphin has really awesome game play, The game is level based, each level gives the player a new objective to complete but unlike traditional level based games Ecco the Dolphin feels a lot like Metroid, the player is going to get lost at certain points of the game. This is due to all of the different paths you can take to help you find your your objective and sometimes you need to solve puzzles in order to move forward for example you may need to push a rock to block of a strong water current in order to take a new path or you may need to use clever strategy to sneak past an angry octopus.

Ecco the Dolphin is surprisingly a really difficult game, this is due to the fact that just like a real dolphin Ecco can’t fully breath underwater and while playing through the game the player will need to find air holes in order to keep Ecco alive, Personally this was the most difficult aspect of the game for me, because finding air is not easy and Ecco runs out of breath really fast.

Also Ecco can easily take damage from enemies as well as taking damage from bumping in cave walls, luckily eating fish replenishes your health so this aspect of gamplay is not something that people will have too much trouble with.

What is an issue is the games controls, due to Ecco being able to move in a 360 degrees pattern the D-PAD on the Mega Drive controller became a big issue as I found controlling Ecco to be very clunky and awkward. I believe the game could really benefit from the use of an analog controller.

Ecco the Dolphin has a really awesome soundtrack, the music really makes the player feel like they are in ocean and the music changes depending on the scenario of the stage, at first the music feels really relaxing but as the games plot unfolds the soundtrack evolves into something more hardcore and dark. I love this soundtrack, it really helps the player feel the atmosphere of the game.

it is one of my favourite game soundtracks on the Mega Drive and I love every minute of it.

Here is a link to a playlist of every track in the game

Ecco the Dolphin is a really awesome game, apart from the not so great controls it is definitely a game I reccomend to retro gamers but I do feel that it would not be popular with the modern gamers of today.

I also feel that the game would be a turn off to male demographic simply because you play as a dolphin which is most likely why the game did not do as well as the developers hoped it would back when it released.

I may not have enjoyed Ecco the Dolphin as much as I have enjoyed a lot of other Mega Drive titles but I do feel that is an underrated gem on the system and I recommend it to all retro gamers .

A cute little game which is surprisingly a little bit terrifying 7/10.

I hope you enjoyed this review of Ecco the Dolphin

if you respect my opinion I will respect yours

By Padawan

ragglefragglereviews

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Tag: Time Travel

Ape Escape (1999) Review

The Spongebob Movie – Sponge out of Water (2015) Review

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages (2001) Review

Gravity Falls Review

The girl who leapt through time (2006) Review

Ecco the Dolphin (Megadrive) Review