Saru! Get You! 3 (Ape Escape 3) adds hilarious costume swaps and more variety. Generous platforming, free-spirited humour and memorable minigames. A particularly successful sequel.
Your verdict
Category
Platformer1 player7+
Description
A Sony and Japan Studio platformer released in 2005, the original Japanese edition of Ape Escape 3. Kei and Yumi chase Specter's monkeys through TV shows (anime, film noir, samurai). Twenty-five themed worlds, transforming costumes for the heroes and the Mesal Gear Solid mode as a bonus. The franchise's PS2 peak.
Saru! Get You! 3 review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
3/5
Story
★★★★★
"Solid"
Ape Escape 3 builds its worlds on television genres, an anime set, film noir, a samurai saga, gaudy science fiction, each zone aping the visual codes of its show. The heroes slip into transforming outfits, ninja, cowboy, magician, that entirely redraw their silhouette according to the chosen power.
To each world its musical pastiche, hushed jazz for film noir, western guitar for the desert, sentai fanfare for costumed heroes, martial drums for the samurai. The score changes costume as often as the characters, embracing the parodied genre and signing the game's humor through its choice of styles alone.
Gameplay
"Excellent"
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
The monkey hunt reinvents itself with even more gadgets, lunatic transformations and levels brimming with ideas. Tracking down each little runaway and triggering the perfect capture delivers an immediate, addictive satisfaction. The ever-present humour and the variety of situations enchant from start to finish. Colourful, generous and inventive, a gleeful platformer-adventure.
The Japanese edition of Saru! Get You! 3, the last major monkey-catching entry on PS2, released late in the console's life and pressed in more measured quantity than its predecessors. Its appeal lies in this status as the endpoint of a platform series loved in Japan, whose complete copy is gradually thinning out. A target for fans of the mascot and late Japanese platforming.
Is Saru! Get You! 3 still worth playing in 2026?
Released in 2005 on PS2 and known in the West as Ape Escape 3, Japan Studio's project extends the hunt for prankster monkeys with overflowing inventiveness and ever present humour. The array of gadgets, from the net to the rotating club, turns capture into a clever gameplay loop, and the costumes with varied powers constantly renew the approaches. The colourful art direction, the abundant levels and the many mini games make for a generous and joyful adventure. The uneven pace and a certain easiness show. An excellent action platformer, recommended for fans of the genre and of mischievous design.
