APE OUT Review

Gorilla Tactics-An APE OUT Review

4/2/20 Zachary Wilson

As Corona has divulged into a real issue and left many stuck in place at home, I decided to play APE OUT as a way to imagine going outside and freeing myself from this horrid quarantine. So what better way to escape real life than run around and absolutely murder everything as a supercharged ape?

Gameplay and Mechanics

I was pleasantly surprised with just how intuitive controlling a giant ape can be. It is clear that Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Matt Boch really took their time understanding their general gameplay loop and movement, and it shows in spades here in APE OUT. As an aside, it is just delightful to be able to scream out APE OUT in all caps while writing this review. Anyway, the base mechanics of the game are as follows: grab and throw. That's it, and that's all that's really needed here. As you move from level to level your moves don't change or evolve, but the level design and enemy types do, pushing your mastery of these mechanics to the absolute edge. 

Soundtrack and Other Notables

The soundtrack is what sets APE OUT apart from the rest, as it is completely adaptive to how you play. Every hit and throw of an enemy activates another part of the song and adds additional drums to the background. It is fantastic, and I have never seen anything like it before. By playing, YOU create the soundtrack and YOU dictate how ambient or loud the track blares out. 

Another thing of interest, there is also a level of procedural generation in this game. It's quite different from most other uses of this mechanic though, as the basic shape of each level stays the same but the locations of certain objects and enemies is random. This can be very frustrating, especially in the third world when the level design opens up, as the location and number of certain enemy types can make or break a run. This leads to inconsistent difficulty at times, as some runs through a level will be a cakewalk and others will be riddled with groups of fast shooting enemies. It was never enough to make me rage quit, but it definitely played a factor in my playthrough. Other than these times, it can actually add a significant amount of replayability and makes sure that, even though you may die on a single stage a lot, no two runs are the same. 

Verdict

APE OUT is fantastic, and I would wholly recommend it for anyone who is a fan of challenging games. It is a perfect fit for the Devolver Digital Studio it was produced under, and shows the inspiration of similar titles like Hotline Miami. However, it is not without its flaws, housing an at times frustrating procedurally generated level system as well as some overly lengthy bits at the end. The main game is fairly short, but a robust arcade mode and a new game plus-esque secondary difficulty level are more than enough to make up for it. 

9/10, A Vivid Jungle of Mechanics