Trivia / Ape Escape

• Development Gag: This artbook seems to explain why the word "Kidz" was used so much in the first Ape Escape. The word was see in some of the levels, on signs, graffiti, and game consoles, as well as the Ski Kidz Racing minigame. These mentions of the word are most likely either leftovers from when the game had this name, or inside references to the game's development. It's possible that the apes in Monkey Madness that play arcade cabinets reading "Kidz" are intended to be playing the prototype game that evolved into Ape Escape.
  • There are also some designs of scrapped characters resembling wizards and witches. These designs might have inspired Yumi's Fantasy Knight transformation in Ape Escape 3.
• Dueling Dubs: For some reason, the games are almost always given two English dubs. One for North America where the characters all have American accents, and another for the UK where everyone has a British accent. This applies to everyone except for Pink Monkey, who retains the same more American accent in both.
• Franchise Killer: It seems the third game didn't do well enough in the West for the franchise to avert No Export for You for most of the remaining installments. The PlayStation Move reboot, likewise, seems to have failed to find an audience and killed the franchise entirely, with very few signs of life from it since then.
• Killer App: The first game served as one for the DualShock controller, being the first game to explicitly require it due to utilizing both of the analogue sticks. Because of this, it became one of the most acclaimed games on the platform, and was cited as being revolutionary.
• No Export for You:
  • Piposaru 2001, Million Monkeys, Piposaru Racer, and SaruSaru Big Mission were the only titles in the series to not get an English version. An Eyetoy entry in the series, Monkey Mania, never got an North American version due to poor reception in Japan, Europe, and Australia. Ape Academy 2 similarly only got released in Europe and Japan. In an odd case, Pumped and Primed was not released in Europe.
    • Ape Academy 2 finally made it to North American shores on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Presumably, the fact that it already had an English version made the decision easier.
  • The anime series, Saru Getchu -On Air-, hasn't aired outside of Japan.
  • The PlayStation Move reboot is available in North America. However, if you want a physical copy, you have to get it from Japan or Europe, because the North American version is download only. Same goes for Ape Quest, except Europe didn't get a physical version.
  • Speaking of Million Monkeys, the game was planned to release outside of Japan at one point, but its localization was cancelled at the same year, probably because of the low sales of the third game. It was even shown at E3 2006 with a trailer and screenshots.
• The Other Darrin:
  • The games (at least, the North American versions) are inconsistent with the voice actors. This is bad enough that even the PlayStation Portable port of the original had different voice actors from the original PlayStation version (Barring one cutscene for some reason.)
  • Solid Snake's guest appearance in Ape Escape 3 was voiced by Peter Lurie (who voiced Vulcan Raven in the original Metal Gear Solid) instead of his usual actor David Hayter.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In honor of Ape Escape's 20th anniversary, this Twitter account was set up, and periodically provided various sketches and drawings for concepts that ultimately didn't get into the first game, As well as an art book.
    • The plot of the game would have revolved around The Professor sending Spike to an "Animal World" where primates ruled the world as villains. Spike would venture throughout the world, trying to find a way back home. Spike would have moved with the Left Stick, and have an animal companion be moved with the Right Stick. While the animal movement was scrapped, the idea was reworked into the R.C. Car Gadget. Monkeys also appeared, but there was no catching mechanic added.
    • Spike's appearance is similar to his final design, but seems more mature, slightly taller and has an earing on his left ear. Spike's horizontally-striped shirt matches some unused sprites found in the data of Ape Escape, showing that some ideas from this artbook, at one time, made it off the paper and into the game in some form, before the changes were made. In some artworks, his blonde tuft on his forehead is gone, making him look similar to Jimmy. While it doesn't seem like Gadgets appear in this concept, Spike is seen wielding a sword and a wooden club, similarly to the Stun Club. Spike also had an animal companion on his shoulder that may or may not have evolved into Pipotchi from the second game.
    • Helga also strangely appears in this artwork, which means that Helga was originally planned to be in the prototype/original Ape Escape. Since she holds a Stun Club, it's possible that she could have either been a second playable character, similar to Yumi, or an assistant like Casi.
    • Specter seems to have gone through the most changes, but he has always had a unique helmet and throne to set him apart from the other apes, even in the earliest artwork, along with his albino coloring.
    • There are also several characters shown that don't appear in the final game, including a female mage (Who somewhat bears a striking resemblance in appearance to Jake), and a male monk.
  • In a much sadder note, the Ape Escape's 20th anniversary Twitter account was announced to close after the series' 21st anniversary. The final tweets implies that a new game was in the works, but it didn't work out.
  • Based on some concept art in Ape Escape 2, it seems originally Spike was going to be the player character again, until he was replaced by Jimmy at some point in development. Additionally, Jake and Casi from the first game were going to appear as well.
• Working Title: Project KIDZ

---