Agreed each gun can be used in specific scenarios. The blasters waste lander move is far superior to the skin move. No in Jak 3 the spin move with the reflex blaster is pretty OP
I still prefer the style of Jak 1 but this was such a cool and different sequel you gotta appreciate it. Jak 3, however, was very much in the style of Jak 2 but with more vehicles and Mad Max influences.
Whether you love or hate Jak II, you've gotta admit, Naughty Dog had some serious balls to pull such a drastic move after the first game was such a success. This could have absolutely killed the franchise, but it didn't. That's pretty impressive.
Jak II is the best game in the trilogy and one of the best platformers of all time, while also being a very influencial game. Jak II is the father of all those edgy 3D platformers that characterized that era.
I feel Jak's edgyness is justified if he went through two years straight of torture with dark eco. Thankfully he mellows out by Jack 3 and is back to about normal
I PROMISE the jump spin combo isn’t the winning strategy and that’s why yall thought the game was so hard back in the day. If you actually use the other modes for their intended uses, it becomes a lot easier. Use the punch, shoot combos with the blaster especially that fires 3 rapid shots and things like stunlock with the Vulcan blaster. Trust me. That 3 shot blaster combo will ruin anything short of a boss, and you’re not wasting ammo shooting nothing.
i know right, you’re mean to use different guns for different enemy types, the spin blaster move is actually not that useful as it drains your ammo and most of the shots miss anyway
Alright all the guns are useful and heres why Scatter Gun- Good for dealing with large groups of small enemies and knocking back bigger enemies. Blaster Mod- Good for shooting long range, and taking out enemies fast by punching the enemy and shooting it. Vulcan Fury- Good for Keeping distance and Stunning large enemies to take them out. Peacemaker-Blowing Shit up. Play the game using all of the weapons like this, and It becomes much easier and most importantly FUN. I recommend checking Powercell Freak's video about it
I think some of the questioned "glossed over" are a little unfair to the game, if I'm being honest - they're either later explained, or fair questions that are meant to be theorycrafted by fans. There's nothing wrong with leaving your fans to do some exposition of their own. Since Jak (whose real name is Mar) sticks around after the end of Jak 3, and the city was founded by Mar, it's clear that Jak went back in time once more and founded Haven City after the events of Jak 3. Haven City isn't actually built over Sandover Village - it's built to the left of it and off-map from anywhere that was shown in Precursor Legacy. Something clearly happened to the area inbetween Haven City and Sandover Village during the time after the metal heads invaded through the portal, but understanding that the metal heads destroyed the world and caused irreversible damage isn't necessarily a plot hole. As for how Mar came into contact with the precursors, we see this happen in Jak 3. It's not necessarily known if there *has* to be a sage for all eco types at all times, it's just known that at the time of the Precursor Legacy there were sages of each eco type. The wasteland outside the city appears to have a giant ocean, so it's not like the ocean disappeared - the landscape has just shifted. Some of the city is even built over water, further showing this point. I think it's not very fair to say that these are all overlooked elements and examples of poor writing - leaving your audience with questions about the game that you can answer in the future is good writing, if anything.
I loved hunting the invisible metalheads in the forest because recently I played it really really slowly, ducking behind trees and tracking their movements and where they shot from, and it felt great. I was in a weird mood that day.
When I saw this video I was a little suspicious when I saw 400 views. But this video has insane quality for a channel of this size. Good shit bro, nice edits and good takes are all you need. Keep it up
A great watch to be sure. However a point I should make is that some of the visual/audio issues you point out are issues with ports/emulators, not it’s the original game on the ps2. Examples I noticed were Kor’s black face and the cut music on the title screen
I really feel like you missed the point of Jak in this one. He’s not doing what he’s doing to be a ‘hero’, it’s revenge. The resistance is called ‘the Underground’ and I think that fits what Jak does in this game. It’s underground work, violent and messy.
Lots of great and terrible takes in this video. I like hearing a different perspective on a lot of things like the story, but there are some awful takes in here too. Watching your gameplay it blows my mind that you managed to beat the game eventually. The spin move is not even close to the best way to shoot or fight. (Edit: Watching further into the video it's both amusing and frustrating watching you repeatedly level criticism at the game for the spin move being the "best strategy" while you repeatedly die from using it and having no semblance of aim or skilled movement. If you get good at playing the right way, it'll solve 90% of your frustrations.) You don't have to touch enemies to use the scatter gun. The vulcan fury doesn't use that much ammo, you're holding the trigger too long. The enemies are dead despite continuing to react to bullets. The skill comes with trigger discipline. Grinding is so easy it's hard to mess up; you just jump and hold square, and Jak will be magnetically pulled 8' to the side to land on a rail. The vehicles control well if you know how to use them, and the tradeoffs are a feature, not a bug. Anyway, I appreciate the effort put into this video, but it's a great example of how a game being challenging can sour someone with less mechanical skill on the entire experience. This is the first video of yours I've seen, and I look forward to watching more!
Baron Praxis is a great Character and is performed so well by the legend himself Clancy Brown which also is a welcome return for long time Naughty Dog fans since he was the Voice of Neo Cortex in their own Crash Bandicoot games back on PS1 (well except in Crash 1, that wasn't Clancy Brown)
Kor and Vin also gave you conflicting missions from the Power Room. Vin was concerned about having enough eco for the shield walls and Kor wanted you to disrupt the Barron's eco drilling operations because they might be used against the Underground. Which is it? Does Jak want to disrupt the Barron's eco drilling operations so the eco is not used against the Underground OR help the eco operation by killing metals heads and metal head eggs to have enough eco for the city shields?
Did you ever consider that maybe Kor was giving you those missions because he was secretly the Metal Head leader the whole time? Or did you forget that part of the game.
@@HairOnScreen Because Jak doesn't give a shit. His single motive in the game is spelled out clearly from the get go. "I'm gonna kill Praxis!" If a job sounds like it's going to hurt him, he's gonna do it.
You bring up excellent points throughout the video, although I feel like I need to defend one of my favorite games from my childhood. That being said, I am completely biased. I view Jak II through rose tinted glasses, mainly due to nostalgia, but also because, for better or for worse, I wasn't really exposed to the original Jak and Dater before seeing Jak II, therefore the sharp contrast between games and tone didn't really register for me. From that framing, I loved Jak II. The story was well thought out, with fun gameplay that was more adult, with aesthetics that invited younger players to dive in, although the difficulty caused much frustration, but I enjoyed the challenge and actually prefer it over the handholding you see in modern games. Speaking of modern games, I think one of the best aspects of Jak II is that it is so unique. Time travel, sci fi, distopia, guns, crime, revolution, eco, metal heads. The sheet number of ideas in this world make it feel completely new and alien, encouraging exploration, even if you had played the first game, so much had changed that you couldn't help getting sucked into this place. I miss games like this. Developers weren't afraid to think outside the box and focus more on fun, something games seem to lack these days. Uncharted and Last of Us have their pros, but they're so generic and familiar. Uncharted is a watered down Indiana Jones and Last of Us includes typical zombie tropes seen in every tv show, movie, or book that we've seen a hundred times before. Both games are executed well, but they're so tired and obvious, like dozens of other games. There is only one Jak II. Even GTA, an obviously heavy influence, has only surface level similarities. Bad checkpoints and technical issues are inexcusable and I have no defense, but these are small issues compared with the overall presentation, gameplay, and fun that the game exhibits. Jak II is definitely not everybody's cup of tea, but it did a ton with what was available and offers so much that games choose not to these days. It's not as tight story wise as today's games, or books and movies, but it didn't need to be. Games used to be games, fun above all and if there was a decent story, that was just a bonus. I would take a fun, crazy, and unique game like Jak II over a well executed story centric game with boring tropes and gameplay like the Last of Us any day. But I'm a biased old man, willfully ignorant or indifferent to the glaring issues you have rightfully brought up. Excellent video that really took me back! I appreciate your insight into something that many of us have fond memories of!
“Jump, spin, shoot is the dominant strategy.” No wonder you don’t like the combat. You’re bad. You’re relying on a strategy that’s not even in the top 10. Aside from obviously the Peace Maker, each gun has its own set of strengths that all synergise wonderfully with Jak’s melee attacks. I remember when I was 10 and thought jump, spin, shoot was the only way to play. Replaying this game recently without limiting myself to an objectively bad strategy makes the “hard” missions in this game so much easier. Scattershot: works perfectly against low health enemies who try to swarm you in larger groups. It also can knock enemies off ledges for a free one hit kill. Blaster: Effective for picking off enemies at range as well as the punch, shoot “wastelander move” which can destroy a high health enemies that get too close. Vulcan: Stun locks tougher enemies like Metal Spiders and Metal Slingers for easy kills. You can also spin kick and then shoot to cancel the spool up and start shooting at max rate of fire immediately. This gun in particular is massively overlooked and seems like it was handcrafted to make the ambush at the end of the sewer escort trivial. Jump, spin, shoot is a terrible strategy in Jak 2. It works with the Beam Reflexor in Jak 3 but even then you’re better off taking a second to think about the encounter and which weapons to use.
I had to search too long to find someone pointing this out. Later in the video he says something along the lines of "the winning strategy didn't work well for these missions" (referring to the escort missions). One could draw the conclusion that perhaps it isn't a winning strategy after all then, no? It's a good video overall, but things like this bring it down.
I remember trying that method once. I realized REALLY quickly that it's a horrible waste of ammo. The combat works pretty well in the game, provided you use the right weapons. Honestly, the scattergun is my favorite for close-range combat.
i don’t know how i ever beat this game as a 9-10 year old kid. it took me like over a year and i played it constantly, but god damn is this game difficult
This was a great time as a kid. My mom always had me do the hoverboard slum docks part because it was so hard, lol. Fun game. Edit: 1:10:45 Oh, you did it that way? The reason I called it the hoverboard docks part is because that's how I used to beat it. Just hoverboard to the end, shooting no one.
I remembered Jak II as the best game in the series, like many others, but couldn't remember a single mission. Only that awesome yellow blaster! But as I replayed it 15 years later, I slowly remembered eveything that pissed me off about it when I was 13. Then I thought, maybe Jak 3 was the best? I'm playing through them now, so we'll see!
This is why you're really just better off with the originals because for some reason they just always seem to mess up something in these HD collections. I remember hearing the Ratchet & Clank HD set had some issues as well as the HD Sly Cooper trilogy.
Spin blaster is not a winning strategy. It is in fact the way to make your gameplay harder and unfunny. You just dont know how to use the guns properly
Honestly Jak 2 Is my favourite In the entire series, Jak 3 Introduced a lot of new weapon mods and the waste land but that’s about it, and It’s much easier then 2.
One of my biggest issues with this game are the travel times between missions. Especially when you have to use hover cars in the crowded ass city. It becomes a chore and it’s crazy how people barely acknowledge that issue.
Personally I’d love to see a remake of the whole series at least jak 2 rather than a jak 4 game, similar to how resident evil’s been, to flush out plot holes, and give this amazing story more to it, etc. this series holds a spot in my heart forever, I cannot wait for another game
The Title Music DID cut a little prematurely but it is SILENT after that until you hear that "bing-boong" when hitting the Start Button... It's intentional.
6:13- monster did not pop off in the end of jak 1 because the rift ring was NOT activated until the cut scene in jak 2.... 9:52.... i don't understand the issue with the design choice... it's pretty clear there is a pit there..... don't fall. Its a platformer so pits, and obstacles are part of the games DNA. having the first playable moment be platforming section with a pit makes total sense. 11:56 - dark jak. he learned to control it through the orrical. However, that portion of the game does take a back seat so I can understand if you wished it got fleshed out more in the main story 12:06: the child being important was not "hand fisted". That is logically why the guards came after them in the first place because of "underground fugitives". we know the child and kor had connections with the underground. 12:20- guard did arrest them probably due to the massacre that just occurred. Writing that sentence made me realize that the guard actually had more incentive to arrest them. Fine, you make a valid point here lol. So only part of the opening cutscene that is suspect is that erol new Jak would be coming. all your other points are extremely nitpicky or not taking into account that THIS IS A FICTIONAL GAME. Allso al your plot holes ending at 24:47 Are really absured. Most of them don't have anything to do with jak 2. They have to do with jak 1. I get you want them answered but those were not the focus of this game and I don't see how they could be or how they could be relevant to the FUTRE story being told. I have many more critiques but I need to take a break from this video for now.
Great job! I love that you address your personal view, and are able to give (to your best knowledge at the time) an objective retrospective on a well beloved game.
Jak 2 is a oddball of a game. There are a lot of problems like the difficulty, travel time, the rather empty city or some truly awful missions. It's definitely messily designed and has a lot of unrealized potential. And yet, at the same time, it's my favourite game in the series, even though it really shouldn't be. On one hand, unlike Jak 3, I see more things in common between Jak II and The Precursor Legacy. While some of the missions are trash, a decent amount of them have an odd sense of similarity to Jak 1, most of them being outside in Haven City. (It's where the game's at its most enjoyable, that's for sure.) The gunplay, while a mixed bag overall, works rather well in combination with the melee attacks. The spinning trick, or shooting three rapid bullets at once after hitting an enemy with Jak's fist, Jak actually being able to (sort of) position himself correctly by shooting quicky while using the rotating kick or Jak being able to shoot the Scatter Gun upwards if you use the upward fist move. Hell, you can even attack the guards with the Jetboard by using one of the tricks. Stuff like is why I still see something great in Jak II. The game has aged and it shows, especially nowadays. The other games in the series arguably hold up better than Jak 2 from a more critical standpoint (TLF included, massive hot take right here!). Jak II is a very flawed game, one where it's very easy to see why someone would hate it. But all things considered, I'd still call Jak 2 a good game despite it's many issues. I guess it is better than the sum of its parts.
I'm thankful you used footage of AssAssins creed as reference to games staying the same. Most people like to shit on Cod for always staying the same when to everyone with half a brain cell it's clear as day there are major changes in every installment and it's every ubisoft game ever that's just rehash of previous titles, R6 Siege being the exception
The time travel isn’t full of plot holes, it just has long gaps. Long gaps that I’m pretty sure would’ve been filled by a 4th game that looped the first 3
To be honest the first 2 Jak and Daxter games essentially had the exact same health system because you could only take a maximum of 4 hits before you were dead. In the first game you had 3 heart pieces plus a 50 counter for extra collected green eco We're essentially meant that Jak could take 4 hits. In Jak 2, almost every hit from an enemy would take 2 pieces away from the 8 pieces on your health bar meaning that you could only ever take 4 hits in Jak 2 in most cases
I played Jak 2 not long ago and I agree with some of your points. The beginning in the game was very quick for example. But I still enjoyed the game and thought your video was great!
Well done, and entirely fair. This game came with my PlayStation, and I played it before Jak 1. It had the opposite effect for me as it did a lot of people. I adored this game, and when I went back to play Jak 1 I was really disappointed at how light-hearted it was.
My thing about this game is that why is it called Jak 2? Why isn't it called Jak & Daxter 2? The first game wasn't even called Jak 1. How are they gonna take my favorite character in the entire series out of the title like that. Daxter deserves more credit.
"Jak and Daxter 2" was probably just seen as too long of a title to pronounce, I guess. I suppose they figured that everyone would just shorten it to "Jak 2" anyway, so they just called it that, themselves.
Apparently, according to an old trailer, the game was supposed to be called "Jak and Daxter: A New Legacy Begins" but, for some reason, it was later changed into Jak II/Jak II: Renegade.
I agree with almost all of this. It took me too long to realize I wasn't having any fun because the whole package was so jank and annoying, and the story didn't gel with me either, yet I beat it God knows why. Who wants to drive back and forth through the same locations over and over again dealing with annoyance all the way? I like the idea of introducing shooting mechanics and changing the world, but not by giving a middle finger to the interesting ideas presented in the first, which I've only grown to appreciate more and more over time. Jak 2 should've tonally and aesthetically been like The Lost Frontier, much as that game is derided. It's so much a product of its time, except I can get more ironic enjoyment out of Shadow the Hedgehog.
Seems appropriate that the series took the turn to a more mature story, considering that light hearted game was more like our innocent youth. We grow up and get all corrupted and shit
The comments here seem to be swathed in Jak fans defending this game - that's probably to be expected, and that's perfectly fine since many people still cherish Jak II - but, man, it is refreshing to be reaffirmed that I'm not to only one turned off by this game as someone who really doesn't like the direction J&D went in after Precursor Legacy. Jak II is an odd duck of a game. It's a shooter without reticles and strafing. It's a skateboarding game without a balance meter. It's a platforming game with barely any platforming. It absolutely destroys the tone of the game before it in the first cutscene and never looks back. It's a GTA wannabe that, similarly to GTA III, hasn't held the test of time. And it barely wants anything to do with Jak I before it. Whereas Jak I had excellent gameplay but maybe was a bit on the young side, and had the solid foundations of a story that had yet to be fleshed in, Jak II has loads of attitude and massively coarse corrects all the way into a ditch of M-rated ideas and then-relevant trends, eschewing solid foundations completely and totally. Gameplaywise I think this game is a frustrating mess and the epitome of an identity crisis put to a PS2 disc. It plays out to me as the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The first entry was very solid, competent, and fun, even if maybe there wasn't exactly a roadmap of where to go next with this bold, exciting, "experience for a next generation". But you nodded your head, you picked up on a couple of loose plot threads on where things potentially could go in a sequel or two, and you thought this would be the beginning of something new that we'd all be talking about the same way people still talk about Crash all the time. Then, Jak II pulls a Last Jedi on us and firmly tells us, to everything we've been expecting out of a sequel, "No." Maybe you like that, maybe your tastes are much punkier than the average cartoony colorful young children's platformer like Jak I, maybe you like the ballsy play to shut things down and bring its own attitude to drastically shake up something that could've gotten stale without any new energy or lifeblood. Or, maybe you look deeper and notice that, beyond the applause-worthy power play of changing up everything and subverting expectations, as the term goes, there are some fundamental flaws and cracks beneath the surface that time is only going to expound upon. I do think Jak 3 to be leagues better than Rise of Skywalker, though. A very low bar to pass, so obviously it's better. So, because of the long and winding pathway that kinda tonally shot itself in the foot, Jak feels like the forgotten middle child of the Naughty Dog big four franchises. Not as succinct as Crash, not as memorable as the Last of Us, not as competent as your average Uncharted, and not bad - pretty decent, actually, all things considered - but, Jak reels of identity crisis and it all starts here. So much was thrown at Jak so quickly in just one game. And I 1000% agree with your point that it needs to be "built to", early in the video. While I find it hard to forgive gameplay and design choices like the lack of checkpoints, the barren Haven City, and the plotholes mentioned here, a Jak 1.5 that inserts itself between Precursor Legacy and Jak II would've done so, so very much at making this game feel natural, or at least like less of a mid-sixth-generation panic play to chase trends and appeal to the 9-year-old-playing-San Andreas crowd. Every so often I remember that Jak and Daxter exists, and I'll smile, remembering the fun times with the first one that I had growing up. Then, I'll remember the story never ended there, and I won't know what to feel about a game that I think time is starting to forget about. And when it's not forgotten, buried with all the precursor artifacts - well, it doesn't seem to hold up quite as well as maybe you'd remember it to.
Playing this again has made me realise that its a good game but not a good sequel. I definitely prefer the original Jak and Daxter but what really stood out is the complete abandoning of blue, yellow, green, red and light eko for just dark eko! Wasted opportunity to expand on those great concepts!
Gotta love how everyone is saying that the spin2win tactic is super broken, but yet in the video, it is shown very clearly that it's not a one trick pony. You can clearly see it in the mission where you have to escort Young and Old Samos (1:07:00). Doing a wasteland move would be a much better tactic than just spamming the Beyblade strategy; The blaster is amazing and "nuking" enemies with a lot of burst damage The Scattergun is amazing at giving you some time and room to move in. The Vulcan is amazing at stunlocking in general, but doing a wasteland move instantly revs it up to 100%. The Peacemaker is just an end-game high damage weapon. The game incentivizes you to use risky and melee focused combat. Spamming the Aerial Wasteland move (spin2win) is 90% a dumb idea and you'd be better off with actually doing the other combos.
So to answer your question. Mar, THE MAR, did indeed know the precursors and they were Allies it’s safe to assume mar used the rift rider to travel further into the future. Which I’ve predicted to be close to when jak leaves into the future in the beginning of jak 2. Jak goes 500 years into the future. Assuming Mar had precursor technology he could easily build and terra form an entire city pretty decently. Mar used the rift rider to go into the precursor legacy timeframe, built the city and then vanished.
I can’t say you’re wrong about much of your critiques. It is full of coincidences and plot holes but I love this game regardless. The third one is my favourite though.
It should be noted most of these glitches are exclusive to the PS3 version. Otherwise great critique! As for the whole "lack of a transition period" bit; i think after 2 years of nonstop torture it makes more than perfect sense for Jak to be so different. The whiplash is very effective. Also funny how you claim to be using the Haven City theme in bg to show how bad it was and you accomplished the opposite.
In what universe is a pit to demonstrate the consequences of failing parkour bad game design? Its simple sure, but far from bad. Also, I thought the entire point was that the baron knew jak would arrive thanks to the time travel shenanigans. Maybe im wrong?
I decent video overall, but I gotta ask - How are you going to say you're trying to see if it still holds up, but use the PS3 version? Aside from it being possibly a poor choice of words, some of the issues you mention are PS3 exclusive.
Alarms don’t sound if you hit a civilian with your jetboard numnut, only krimson guards... listen, I know I’ve been hard on you, but I think you deserve it, and while you took the time to make a great video on one of my all time favorites.. I also think your wrong on a ton of shit. Or who knows biased. The aesthetic and weirdness of this game are why people like it. Not to mention fluid controls, intriguing storyline, superb platforming and beautiful graphics. And we can’t forget.. this game came out in 2003!!! I feel like this entire video is a negative review and you only admit that halfway through... Is it hard? Yes. But that’s why people loved it. It felt rewarding to beat that hard mission, and advancing to the next one. Dying 100 times over some “bullshit” only sharpened your skills. I breeze by these games now, literally. But judging by your footage^^ this game is wayyy to hard for you dude... or maybe thats on purpose to further your biased narrative? Hmm. The only negatives I see in this game are the checkpoints and maaaaybe the story and character building (like Dax) but it’s games like Jak that we are missing nowadays. Video games are all the same to me now, some slow paced cinematic crap that we’ve seen before. What happened to creativity and diversity? You can say what you want about Jak2 but it was DIFFERENT and MEMORABLE and it holds a permanent place in a lot of our hearts. Go play ratchet and clank bro we know that’s what you really on haha I like ratchet though..
I played Jak 2 for the first time a few days ago, I grew up playing the first game but I never played the sequels. I was excited because a lot of people think Jak 2 is the best game in the series. I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything you said in this video, Jak 2 has some cool moments but overall I didn't like it.
The music cut out is not that dramatic that sounded edited almost. I just played it the other day and it’s not like how your video presents it. It’s a seamless transition. Maybe just a bug or something. Also the black face part is a bug, I think it has something to do with using debug mode.
you must replay the Jak Trilogy on PS2 how it should be,PS3, 4 & 5 versions are badly emulated with tons of bugs! at 4:50 the music doesnt cut out on PS2
This feels like a picky take on it. You gotta think at what point this game was made and perhaps the engine limitations. Jak and Daxter has never been the type of story to take so seriously. It always has that humor and even makes fun of itself for that from time to time.
Ive never beaten a sandbox game and after ever felt like there was anything fun to do that i havent already done 100 times pre story ending. So its more a problem with the sandbox in general.
i think your analysis of the difficulty is incorrect. I don't think extra checkpoints is a solution to the core problem of Jak's difficulty, just treating a symptom. The problem with the difficulty in Jak is that every level requires the player to have seen what is coming next and memorise it before they can complete the level. A lot of this is down to the poor camera not being responsive enough to track new parts of the world as Jak moves into them. I didn't find any of the quests "difficult" in the sense that they required a huge amount of skill, but I did have to attempt some multiple times because there were some sections that I couldn't have been reasonably expected to react to without knowing in advance what was going to happen. Now, there is something to be said for the joy of learning a level and acing it through memorisation, but this is the joy of mastery. In Dark Souls (there it is lol), you are not required to memorise an area to get through it - you are able to get through any area on first try if you are skilful enough and observant of your surroundings. This makes it feel fair as you die for being careless. In Jak, it doesn't matter how careful you are, you will die on a lot of sections until you've done enough trial and error to figure out what you're supposed to do, and THEN it becomes fun. So those first deaths are very frustrating. Otherwise, great review, spot on :)
Yeah you're right I've been playing Jack 2 again these last few days and you're right it's like no matter how good you are you're going to die because I didn't remember exactly where everything was and the goddamn camera however I would say that checkpoint still at least help out a lot making a little less frustrating but yeah it's a just bs. But also because our missions I wouldn't say they were super long but are decent length, if you die you have to start all over and that's was extremely frustrating it's like dude I did all the s*** now im going to start all the way f****** back and it just takes the fun out of it most of the time jak 2 overall a decent game but man it could have been way more fun.
@ 38:18 imagine this shot but redone in 2022 4k field of view omg I need a Jak trilogy remaster plz. Use the money you earn from that and make Jak 4 plz 🙏
I never played any of these games…but for some reason when I was young even till now…I always thought Jak 1 just looked amazing and the others looked so bland. I just think the vibe, tone, graphics of the first game clicked for me. I just ordered the first game and I’m gonna play it for the first time ever so I’m curious to see how it really is
I'm so glad someone finally sees Jak 2 for what it truly is, the game is constantly getting blindly praised by several other reviews who never bring up obvious problems like the npc cars getting in the way during city races and times missions, not be able to aim up and the hoverboards grind not always working. I'm surprised that you didn't bring up how a good amount of enemies take away two points of hp from you as opposed to one which would lead to you dying in 4 hits instead of 8, for me this adds more to the artificial difficulty problem.
Artificial Difficulty in Jak 2 mostly stems from these issues: Improper or usually plain PUNISHING CHECKPOINTING in the game, not having enough CAMERA CONTROL nor ability to lock on with it, the HEALTH AND DAMAGE SYSTEM(giving Jak some more invincibility frames would’ve been nice, too), and the LACK OF STRAFING and backwards movement
BlackSenergy Actually, AntDude does bring up some of those problems. There’s even a full segment of him talking about the lack of checkpoints in some areas and especially the final third of the game being a pain in the butt. He just said overall he enjoys the game, it’s world and characters and all that.
@@OmegaBlacky To be fair with Square Eyed Jak, that review is like hella old and he recently came out in his current Q&A video that he doesn't think his Jak reviews hold up.
@@decadentgamer3108 yeah then he comes back to rereview the trilogy claiming he has so much critique knowledge since then and he gave jak 2 7/10 and jak 3 6/10.. its so cringy when he tries to act professional even though his stupid channel is named after jak ..what a loser..i hope people dont take him seriously
Average cost of running a small gaming company of 20 employees is around 10k a week... That's covering bills too so I dunno how the numbers get SO inflated. Must be advertising and those suit dummies leeching their cut.
You're 100% on point with what you said about what a frustrating experience this game is and how they made weird design/story choices. I thank you for going in, and elaborating on everything that you did, felt like you were very fair and objective. I feel like I'm crazy going by the reviews and how people regard this game. I was around 20 when this game came out, so it wasn't a matter of just being a kid and not being good. I felt like everything that was supposed to be fun in this game just wasn't very polished, but required very specific timing or maneuvering. As you focused on in the second half, the design of the city seemed like it was somewhat thoughtful, fitting the gameplay into it just didn't seem to have been done with loving care or balance in mind. Just felt like they wanted to make the game hardcore and edgy. Glad I avoided the Edgy Sonic/Shadow games, but it was really frustrating that they kinda snuck that in this game for me.
Thankyou so much for pointing out the problems with this game. I beat it last night and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had. The lack of fast travel, boring and repetitive missions with absurd difficulty, the plotholes, the poor driving mechanics, etc; You touched on almost all of my issues. This game felt like a big step down from the first game and in the end it was kinda disappointing. I liked some of the missions such as the hover board and the racing ones. But thats it. In the end I wouldn't say this is a bad game but a VERY flawed ok game.
imo jak 2 > jak 3 > jak 1, but that is also the order i played them in. Felt like jak 1 just didnt have as interesting story or missions. Also Jak 2 had just the right difficulty
I'm not going to lie, The phrase "artificial difficulty spikes" Hits me like nails on a chalkboard. I'm not sure if you knew this or not buddy but it's a video game and it's all artificial. Like none of it's real. I'm getting so tired of people reviewing video games that came out 20 years ago and talking about him in a modern context. For its time Jack 2 was the undisputed GOAT and without it I don't think video games would be near where they are today.
Jak 2 would be awesome, if it was a game of its own...but it should have been a continuation of Jak and Daxter and its universe... the story doent fit...it was an idea for a game, to get an older crowd. but they wanted it to look like jak and daxter, to get those fans to. Jak 2 is not the continuation of Jak1 it is a new game which just wanted to use a character, which is known and loved
Bruh, i was willing to just keep watching til u got to the board. Complaining about the GRINDING? My dude, just say youre hating just to hate and move on my god
Stop criticizing the combat/difficulty if you're unironically saying the jump spin shoot method is the winning strategy.
Agreed each gun can be used in specific scenarios. The blasters waste lander move is far superior to the skin move. No in Jak 3 the spin move with the reflex blaster is pretty OP
Jumping and kicking and shooting. Makes the game extra hard.
I still prefer the style of Jak 1 but this was such a cool and different sequel you gotta appreciate it. Jak 3, however, was very much in the style of Jak 2 but with more vehicles and Mad Max influences.
I like how Jak 3 brought back the adventure theme of Jak 1 but built on the gameplay and world of Jak 2. Really cool game
I player jack x before jack 3 so for me It Easy the fusion of Teo Greta games
@@floridaman0219 the desert missions were trash
I dunno jak 2 was my favorite jak game. I dunno why.
@@wozthescott2804 Just because you cant drive the sand shark, doesn't make the desert levels trash.
I love jak 2 it was such a awesome and badass game
Whether you love or hate Jak II, you've gotta admit, Naughty Dog had some serious balls to pull such a drastic move after the first game was such a success. This could have absolutely killed the franchise, but it didn't. That's pretty impressive.
I personally love Jak2 and think it's best game in the trilogy
They did kill the franchise. It died after Jak 3.
@@eatanotherzio6811I think people just lost interest in platformers.
It did kill the franchise tho
Jak II is the best game in the trilogy and one of the best platformers of all time, while also being a very influencial game. Jak II is the father of all those edgy 3D platformers that characterized that era.
I feel Jak's edgyness is justified if he went through two years straight of torture with dark eco.
Thankfully he mellows out by Jack 3 and is back to about normal
It's his aaaarrrccc!
I PROMISE the jump spin combo isn’t the winning strategy and that’s why yall thought the game was so hard back in the day. If you actually use the other modes for their intended uses, it becomes a lot easier. Use the punch, shoot combos with the blaster especially that fires 3 rapid shots and things like stunlock with the Vulcan blaster. Trust me. That 3 shot blaster combo will ruin anything short of a boss, and you’re not wasting ammo shooting nothing.
If you calm down with the spin blaster move in the sewer escort mission; and use the scatter gun it’s not that bad
i know right, you’re mean to use different guns for different enemy types, the spin blaster move is actually not that useful as it drains your ammo and most of the shots miss anyway
Alright all the guns are useful and heres why
Scatter Gun- Good for dealing with large groups of small enemies and knocking back bigger enemies.
Blaster Mod- Good for shooting long range, and taking out enemies fast by punching the enemy and shooting it.
Vulcan Fury- Good for Keeping distance and Stunning large enemies to take them out.
Peacemaker-Blowing Shit up.
Play the game using all of the weapons like this, and It becomes much easier and most importantly FUN. I recommend checking Powercell Freak's video about it
I think some of the questioned "glossed over" are a little unfair to the game, if I'm being honest - they're either later explained, or fair questions that are meant to be theorycrafted by fans. There's nothing wrong with leaving your fans to do some exposition of their own.
Since Jak (whose real name is Mar) sticks around after the end of Jak 3, and the city was founded by Mar, it's clear that Jak went back in time once more and founded Haven City after the events of Jak 3. Haven City isn't actually built over Sandover Village - it's built to the left of it and off-map from anywhere that was shown in Precursor Legacy. Something clearly happened to the area inbetween Haven City and Sandover Village during the time after the metal heads invaded through the portal, but understanding that the metal heads destroyed the world and caused irreversible damage isn't necessarily a plot hole.
As for how Mar came into contact with the precursors, we see this happen in Jak 3. It's not necessarily known if there *has* to be a sage for all eco types at all times, it's just known that at the time of the Precursor Legacy there were sages of each eco type. The wasteland outside the city appears to have a giant ocean, so it's not like the ocean disappeared - the landscape has just shifted. Some of the city is even built over water, further showing this point.
I think it's not very fair to say that these are all overlooked elements and examples of poor writing - leaving your audience with questions about the game that you can answer in the future is good writing, if anything.
I loved hunting the invisible metalheads in the forest because recently I played it really really slowly, ducking behind trees and tracking their movements and where they shot from, and it felt great. I was in a weird mood that day.
Weird is good
When I saw this video I was a little suspicious when I saw 400 views. But this video has insane quality for a channel of this size. Good shit bro, nice edits and good takes are all you need. Keep it up
A great watch to be sure. However a point I should make is that some of the visual/audio issues you point out are issues with ports/emulators, not it’s the original game on the ps2. Examples I noticed were Kor’s black face and the cut music on the title screen
Yeah and the haven city walking theme seems to be missing some instruments
I really feel like you missed the point of Jak in this one. He’s not doing what he’s doing to be a ‘hero’, it’s revenge. The resistance is called ‘the Underground’ and I think that fits what Jak does in this game. It’s underground work, violent and messy.
Lots of great and terrible takes in this video. I like hearing a different perspective on a lot of things like the story, but there are some awful takes in here too. Watching your gameplay it blows my mind that you managed to beat the game eventually. The spin move is not even close to the best way to shoot or fight. (Edit: Watching further into the video it's both amusing and frustrating watching you repeatedly level criticism at the game for the spin move being the "best strategy" while you repeatedly die from using it and having no semblance of aim or skilled movement. If you get good at playing the right way, it'll solve 90% of your frustrations.) You don't have to touch enemies to use the scatter gun. The vulcan fury doesn't use that much ammo, you're holding the trigger too long. The enemies are dead despite continuing to react to bullets. The skill comes with trigger discipline. Grinding is so easy it's hard to mess up; you just jump and hold square, and Jak will be magnetically pulled 8' to the side to land on a rail. The vehicles control well if you know how to use them, and the tradeoffs are a feature, not a bug.
Anyway, I appreciate the effort put into this video, but it's a great example of how a game being challenging can sour someone with less mechanical skill on the entire experience. This is the first video of yours I've seen, and I look forward to watching more!
Jak II is one of my favourite games of all time and arguably the best by Naughtydog.
Baron Praxis is a great Character and is performed so well by the legend himself Clancy Brown which also is a welcome return for long time Naughty Dog fans since he was the Voice of Neo Cortex in their own Crash Bandicoot games back on PS1 (well except in Crash 1, that wasn't Clancy Brown)
Kor and Vin also gave you conflicting missions from the Power Room. Vin was concerned about having enough eco for the shield walls and Kor wanted you to disrupt the Barron's eco drilling operations because they might be used against the Underground.
Which is it? Does Jak want to disrupt the Barron's eco drilling operations so the eco is not used against the Underground OR help the eco operation by killing metals heads and metal head eggs to have enough eco for the city shields?
Did you ever consider that maybe Kor was giving you those missions because he was secretly the Metal Head leader the whole time? Or did you forget that part of the game.
@@keshonhend2047 Reread my comment. I'm asking why Jak is accepting mission that contradict each other.
@@HairOnScreen Because Jak doesn't give a shit. His single motive in the game is spelled out clearly from the get go. "I'm gonna kill Praxis!" If a job sounds like it's going to hurt him, he's gonna do it.
@@keshonhend2047 Does Jak only have a single motive? Destroying the metal head eggs at the Drill Platform helps Praxis.
You bring up excellent points throughout the video, although I feel like I need to defend one of my favorite games from my childhood.
That being said, I am completely biased. I view Jak II through rose tinted glasses, mainly due to nostalgia, but also because, for better or for worse, I wasn't really exposed to the original Jak and Dater before seeing Jak II, therefore the sharp contrast between games and tone didn't really register for me.
From that framing, I loved Jak II. The story was well thought out, with fun gameplay that was more adult, with aesthetics that invited younger players to dive in, although the difficulty caused much frustration, but I enjoyed the challenge and actually prefer it over the handholding you see in modern games. Speaking of modern games, I think one of the best aspects of Jak II is that it is so unique. Time travel, sci fi, distopia, guns, crime, revolution, eco, metal heads. The sheet number of ideas in this world make it feel completely new and alien, encouraging exploration, even if you had played the first game, so much had changed that you couldn't help getting sucked into this place. I miss games like this. Developers weren't afraid to think outside the box and focus more on fun, something games seem to lack these days. Uncharted and Last of Us have their pros, but they're so generic and familiar. Uncharted is a watered down Indiana Jones and Last of Us includes typical zombie tropes seen in every tv show, movie, or book that we've seen a hundred times before. Both games are executed well, but they're so tired and obvious, like dozens of other games. There is only one Jak II. Even GTA, an obviously heavy influence, has only surface level similarities.
Bad checkpoints and technical issues are inexcusable and I have no defense, but these are small issues compared with the overall presentation, gameplay, and fun that the game exhibits.
Jak II is definitely not everybody's cup of tea, but it did a ton with what was available and offers so much that games choose not to these days. It's not as tight story wise as today's games, or books and movies, but it didn't need to be. Games used to be games, fun above all and if there was a decent story, that was just a bonus. I would take a fun, crazy, and unique game like Jak II over a well executed story centric game with boring tropes and gameplay like the Last of Us any day. But I'm a biased old man, willfully ignorant or indifferent to the glaring issues you have rightfully brought up.
Excellent video that really took me back! I appreciate your insight into something that many of us have fond memories of!
“Jump, spin, shoot is the dominant strategy.” No wonder you don’t like the combat. You’re bad. You’re relying on a strategy that’s not even in the top 10. Aside from obviously the Peace Maker, each gun has its own set of strengths that all synergise wonderfully with Jak’s melee attacks. I remember when I was 10 and thought jump, spin, shoot was the only way to play. Replaying this game recently without limiting myself to an objectively bad strategy makes the “hard” missions in this game so much easier.
Scattershot: works perfectly against low health enemies who try to swarm you in larger groups. It also can knock enemies off ledges for a free one hit kill.
Blaster: Effective for picking off enemies at range as well as the punch, shoot “wastelander move” which can destroy a high health enemies that get too close.
Vulcan: Stun locks tougher enemies like Metal Spiders and Metal Slingers for easy kills. You can also spin kick and then shoot to cancel the spool up and start shooting at max rate of fire immediately. This gun in particular is massively overlooked and seems like it was handcrafted to make the ambush at the end of the sewer escort trivial.
Jump, spin, shoot is a terrible strategy in Jak 2. It works with the Beam Reflexor in Jak 3 but even then you’re better off taking a second to think about the encounter and which weapons to use.
I had to search too long to find someone pointing this out. Later in the video he says something along the lines of "the winning strategy didn't work well for these missions" (referring to the escort missions). One could draw the conclusion that perhaps it isn't a winning strategy after all then, no?
It's a good video overall, but things like this bring it down.
I remember trying that method once. I realized REALLY quickly that it's a horrible waste of ammo. The combat works pretty well in the game, provided you use the right weapons. Honestly, the scattergun is my favorite for close-range combat.
i don’t know how i ever beat this game as a 9-10 year old kid. it took me like over a year and i played it constantly, but god damn is this game difficult
Naughty Dog heard your request to kill off a fan favorite character and RAN with it
This was a great time as a kid. My mom always had me do the hoverboard slum docks part because it was so hard, lol.
Fun game.
Edit: 1:10:45 Oh, you did it that way? The reason I called it the hoverboard docks part is because that's how I used to beat it. Just hoverboard to the end, shooting no one.
Congrats on what has got to be the most in-depth Jak video on RUclips!
I remembered Jak II as the best game in the series, like many others, but couldn't remember a single mission. Only that awesome yellow blaster! But as I replayed it 15 years later, I slowly remembered eveything that pissed me off about it when I was 13. Then I thought, maybe Jak 3 was the best? I'm playing through them now, so we'll see!
Personally I think Ashlynn is the coolest character design I've seen.
I hope they make a game for her. Honestly.
She’s tattoo worthy haha always thought she was hot, and her voice ughh
man the remastered collection has alot of bugs.
I like these retrospectives though man, very in depth and well opinionated. Great job!
This is why you're really just better off with the originals because for some reason they just always seem to mess up something in these HD collections. I remember hearing the Ratchet & Clank HD set had some issues as well as the HD Sly Cooper trilogy.
really nice retrospective. Was hoping someone made a video like this
just the kind of video i needed today. thanks
Jaks uncle isn’t his blood uncle. It’s simply someone who took care of jak while Samos wasn’t.
Spin blaster is not a winning strategy. It is in fact the way to make your gameplay harder and unfunny. You just dont know how to use the guns properly
What's up with the menu music and Korr's black face? It isn't like that on PS2 and on PS4 (Which uses the PS2 version).
HD collection on PS3. The only version I like to play now although the PS5 version is really solid compared to PS4 upscale
Those are bugs on the PS3 version.
I've never agreed more with any other video review, thank you.
Honestly Jak 2 Is my favourite In the entire series, Jak 3 Introduced a lot of new weapon mods and the waste land but that’s about it, and It’s much easier then 2.
10 mins of “it’s an okay game” 15 mins of valide complaints and and hour of “how could this 2003 game not be more to 2020 standards”
One of my biggest issues with this game are the travel times between missions. Especially when you have to use hover cars in the crowded ass city. It becomes a chore and it’s crazy how people barely acknowledge that issue.
Personally I’d love to see a remake of the whole series at least jak 2 rather than a jak 4 game, similar to how resident evil’s been, to flush out plot holes, and give this amazing story more to it, etc. this series holds a spot in my heart forever, I cannot wait for another game
The Title Music DID cut a little prematurely but it is SILENT after that until you hear that "bing-boong" when hitting the Start Button... It's intentional.
The music cutting out on the title screen is a bug only in the HD re-release.
Would it be safe to conclude that in Jak and Daxter, Jak is about 16 years old, and in Jak 2, Jak is about 18 and a half years old ?
6:13- monster did not pop off in the end of jak 1 because the rift ring was NOT activated until the cut scene in jak 2....
9:52.... i don't understand the issue with the design choice... it's pretty clear there is a pit there..... don't fall. Its a platformer so pits, and obstacles are part of the games DNA. having the first playable moment be platforming section with a pit makes total sense.
11:56 - dark jak. he learned to control it through the orrical. However, that portion of the game does take a back seat so I can understand if you wished it got fleshed out more in the main story
12:06: the child being important was not "hand fisted". That is logically why the guards came after them in the first place because of "underground fugitives". we know the child and kor had connections with the underground.
12:20- guard did arrest them probably due to the massacre that just occurred. Writing that sentence made me realize that the guard actually had more incentive to arrest them. Fine, you make a valid point here lol.
So only part of the opening cutscene that is suspect is that erol new Jak would be coming.
all your other points are extremely nitpicky or not taking into account that THIS IS A FICTIONAL GAME.
Allso al your plot holes ending at 24:47 Are really absured. Most of them don't have anything to do with jak 2. They have to do with jak 1. I get you want them answered but those were not the focus of this game and I don't see how they could be or how they could be relevant to the FUTRE story being told.
I have many more critiques but I need to take a break from this video for now.
Great job! I love that you address your personal view, and are able to give (to your best knowledge at the time) an objective retrospective on a well beloved game.
Jak 2 is a oddball of a game. There are a lot of problems like the difficulty, travel time, the rather empty city or some truly awful missions. It's definitely messily designed and has a lot of unrealized potential. And yet, at the same time, it's my favourite game in the series, even though it really shouldn't be.
On one hand, unlike Jak 3, I see more things in common between Jak II and The Precursor Legacy. While some of the missions are trash, a decent amount of them have an odd sense of similarity to Jak 1, most of them being outside in Haven City. (It's where the game's at its most enjoyable, that's for sure.) The gunplay, while a mixed bag overall, works rather well in combination with the melee attacks. The spinning trick, or shooting three rapid bullets at once after hitting an enemy with Jak's fist, Jak actually being able to (sort of) position himself correctly by shooting quicky while using the rotating kick or Jak being able to shoot the Scatter Gun upwards if you use the upward fist move. Hell, you can even attack the guards with the Jetboard by using one of the tricks. Stuff like is why I still see something great in Jak II.
The game has aged and it shows, especially nowadays. The other games in the series arguably hold up better than Jak 2 from a more critical standpoint (TLF included, massive hot take right here!). Jak II is a very flawed game, one where it's very easy to see why someone would hate it. But all things considered, I'd still call Jak 2 a good game despite it's many issues. I guess it is better than the sum of its parts.
I'm thankful you used footage of AssAssins creed as reference to games staying the same. Most people like to shit on Cod for always staying the same when to everyone with half a brain cell it's clear as day there are major changes in every installment and it's every ubisoft game ever that's just rehash of previous titles, R6 Siege being the exception
Cod yes,you're right. But ac also has changes in every instalment. Sometime for worse rather than better,example Syndicate.
The time travel isn’t full of plot holes, it just has long gaps. Long gaps that I’m pretty sure would’ve been filled by a 4th game that looped the first 3
To be honest the first 2 Jak and Daxter games essentially had the exact same health system because you could only take a maximum of 4 hits before you were dead. In the first game you had 3 heart pieces plus a 50 counter for extra collected green eco We're essentially meant that Jak could take 4 hits. In Jak 2, almost every hit from an enemy would take 2 pieces away from the 8 pieces on your health bar meaning that you could only ever take 4 hits in Jak 2 in most cases
I played Jak 2 not long ago and I agree with some of your points. The beginning in the game was very quick for example. But I still enjoyed the game and thought your video was great!
I agree the default camera controls choice is baffling
Well done, and entirely fair.
This game came with my PlayStation, and I played it before Jak 1. It had the opposite effect for me as it did a lot of people. I adored this game, and when I went back to play Jak 1 I was really disappointed at how light-hearted it was.
My thing about this game is that why is it called Jak 2? Why isn't it called Jak & Daxter 2? The first game wasn't even called Jak 1. How are they gonna take my favorite character in the entire series out of the title like that. Daxter deserves more credit.
"Jak and Daxter 2" was probably just seen as too long of a title to pronounce, I guess. I suppose they figured that everyone would just shorten it to "Jak 2" anyway, so they just called it that, themselves.
Apparently, according to an old trailer, the game was supposed to be called "Jak and Daxter: A New Legacy Begins" but, for some reason, it was later changed into Jak II/Jak II: Renegade.
The music stop didn't happen in the PS2 version.
I agree with almost all of this. It took me too long to realize I wasn't having any fun because the whole package was so jank and annoying, and the story didn't gel with me either, yet I beat it God knows why. Who wants to drive back and forth through the same locations over and over again dealing with annoyance all the way? I like the idea of introducing shooting mechanics and changing the world, but not by giving a middle finger to the interesting ideas presented in the first, which I've only grown to appreciate more and more over time. Jak 2 should've tonally and aesthetically been like The Lost Frontier, much as that game is derided. It's so much a product of its time, except I can get more ironic enjoyment out of Shadow the Hedgehog.
Yeah this game did not do it for me either, RaC ftw!
Love how much time and effort you put into this video
Seems appropriate that the series took the turn to a more mature story, considering that light hearted game was more like our innocent youth. We grow up and get all corrupted and shit
The comments here seem to be swathed in Jak fans defending this game - that's probably to be expected, and that's perfectly fine since many people still cherish Jak II - but, man, it is refreshing to be reaffirmed that I'm not to only one turned off by this game as someone who really doesn't like the direction J&D went in after Precursor Legacy.
Jak II is an odd duck of a game. It's a shooter without reticles and strafing. It's a skateboarding game without a balance meter. It's a platforming game with barely any platforming. It absolutely destroys the tone of the game before it in the first cutscene and never looks back. It's a GTA wannabe that, similarly to GTA III, hasn't held the test of time. And it barely wants anything to do with Jak I before it. Whereas Jak I had excellent gameplay but maybe was a bit on the young side, and had the solid foundations of a story that had yet to be fleshed in, Jak II has loads of attitude and massively coarse corrects all the way into a ditch of M-rated ideas and then-relevant trends, eschewing solid foundations completely and totally. Gameplaywise I think this game is a frustrating mess and the epitome of an identity crisis put to a PS2 disc.
It plays out to me as the Star Wars sequel trilogy. The first entry was very solid, competent, and fun, even if maybe there wasn't exactly a roadmap of where to go next with this bold, exciting, "experience for a next generation". But you nodded your head, you picked up on a couple of loose plot threads on where things potentially could go in a sequel or two, and you thought this would be the beginning of something new that we'd all be talking about the same way people still talk about Crash all the time.
Then, Jak II pulls a Last Jedi on us and firmly tells us, to everything we've been expecting out of a sequel, "No." Maybe you like that, maybe your tastes are much punkier than the average cartoony colorful young children's platformer like Jak I, maybe you like the ballsy play to shut things down and bring its own attitude to drastically shake up something that could've gotten stale without any new energy or lifeblood. Or, maybe you look deeper and notice that, beyond the applause-worthy power play of changing up everything and subverting expectations, as the term goes, there are some fundamental flaws and cracks beneath the surface that time is only going to expound upon.
I do think Jak 3 to be leagues better than Rise of Skywalker, though. A very low bar to pass, so obviously it's better.
So, because of the long and winding pathway that kinda tonally shot itself in the foot, Jak feels like the forgotten middle child of the Naughty Dog big four franchises. Not as succinct as Crash, not as memorable as the Last of Us, not as competent as your average Uncharted, and not bad - pretty decent, actually, all things considered - but, Jak reels of identity crisis and it all starts here. So much was thrown at Jak so quickly in just one game. And I 1000% agree with your point that it needs to be "built to", early in the video. While I find it hard to forgive gameplay and design choices like the lack of checkpoints, the barren Haven City, and the plotholes mentioned here, a Jak 1.5 that inserts itself between Precursor Legacy and Jak II would've done so, so very much at making this game feel natural, or at least like less of a mid-sixth-generation panic play to chase trends and appeal to the 9-year-old-playing-San Andreas crowd.
Every so often I remember that Jak and Daxter exists, and I'll smile, remembering the fun times with the first one that I had growing up. Then, I'll remember the story never ended there, and I won't know what to feel about a game that I think time is starting to forget about. And when it's not forgotten, buried with all the precursor artifacts - well, it doesn't seem to hold up quite as well as maybe you'd remember it to.
In the ps2 version of the game I don't remember the music coming to a sudden stop like that
Because it's not supposed to sound like that. That's a bug in the PS3 remaster.
I couldnt disagree more with almost everything you said haha. Great video nonetheless.
5:00 i believe this is an issue on the PS3/4 remasters
It's a bug on PS3, not PS4.
Playing this again has made me realise that its a good game but not a good sequel. I definitely prefer the original Jak and Daxter but what really stood out is the complete abandoning of blue, yellow, green, red and light eko for just dark eko! Wasted opportunity to expand on those great concepts!
there's actually more than 2 types of bonus missions. i remember having to collect green eco at least once
Gotta love how everyone is saying that the spin2win tactic is super broken, but yet in the video, it is shown very clearly that it's not a one trick pony.
You can clearly see it in the mission where you have to escort Young and Old Samos (1:07:00). Doing a wasteland move would be a much better tactic than just spamming the Beyblade strategy;
The blaster is amazing and "nuking" enemies with a lot of burst damage
The Scattergun is amazing at giving you some time and room to move in.
The Vulcan is amazing at stunlocking in general, but doing a wasteland move instantly revs it up to 100%.
The Peacemaker is just an end-game high damage weapon.
The game incentivizes you to use risky and melee focused combat. Spamming the Aerial Wasteland move (spin2win) is 90% a dumb idea and you'd be better off with actually doing the other combos.
So to answer your question. Mar, THE MAR, did indeed know the precursors and they were Allies it’s safe to assume mar used the rift rider to travel further into the future. Which I’ve predicted to be close to when jak leaves into the future in the beginning of jak 2. Jak goes 500 years into the future. Assuming Mar had precursor technology he could easily build and terra form an entire city pretty decently.
Mar used the rift rider to go into the precursor legacy timeframe, built the city and then vanished.
49:42 all guns except the peacemaker do the same damage
9:20 Jak and Daxter TPL was my first game ever that allowed you to control the camera, I got used to those controls OK?! xD
I can’t say you’re wrong about much of your critiques. It is full of coincidences and plot holes but I love this game regardless. The third one is my favourite though.
It should be noted most of these glitches are exclusive to the PS3 version. Otherwise great critique! As for the whole "lack of a transition period" bit; i think after 2 years of nonstop torture it makes more than perfect sense for Jak to be so different. The whiplash is very effective. Also funny how you claim to be using the Haven City theme in bg to show how bad it was and you accomplished the opposite.
Bro that haven city themes got me so nostalgic 😭😭🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 I love it
In what universe is a pit to demonstrate the consequences of failing parkour bad game design? Its simple sure, but far from bad.
Also, I thought the entire point was that the baron knew jak would arrive thanks to the time travel shenanigans. Maybe im wrong?
I decent video overall, but I gotta ask - How are you going to say you're trying to see if it still holds up, but use the PS3 version? Aside from it being possibly a poor choice of words, some of the issues you mention are PS3 exclusive.
How is there even a debate between this game and Going Commando?
Wow. I disagree with 90% of the negativity for this game. But that’s okay:) keep on keeping on
Alarms don’t sound if you hit a civilian with your jetboard numnut, only krimson guards... listen, I know I’ve been hard on you, but I think you deserve it, and while you took the time to make a great video on one of my all time favorites.. I also think your wrong on a ton of shit. Or who knows biased.
The aesthetic and weirdness of this game are why people like it. Not to mention fluid controls, intriguing storyline, superb platforming and beautiful graphics. And we can’t forget.. this game came out in 2003!!! I feel like this entire video is a negative review and you only admit that halfway through...
Is it hard? Yes. But that’s why people loved it. It felt rewarding to beat that hard mission, and advancing to the next one. Dying 100 times over some “bullshit” only sharpened your skills. I breeze by these games now, literally. But judging by your footage^^ this game is wayyy to hard for you dude... or maybe thats on purpose to further your biased narrative? Hmm.
The only negatives I see in this game are the checkpoints and maaaaybe the story and character building (like Dax) but it’s games like Jak that we are missing nowadays. Video games are all the same to me now, some slow paced cinematic crap that we’ve seen before. What happened to creativity and diversity? You can say what you want about Jak2 but it was DIFFERENT and MEMORABLE and it holds a permanent place in a lot of our hearts. Go play ratchet and clank bro we know that’s what you really on haha
I like ratchet though..
56:53 ??? You’re missing the Drill Platform and the Dig(KG big drill operation + metal heads seal of mar mission)
I played Jak 2 for the first time a few days ago, I grew up playing the first game but I never played the sequels. I was excited because a lot of people think Jak 2 is the best game in the series. I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything you said in this video, Jak 2 has some cool moments but overall I didn't like it.
You couldn’t beat it don’t lie lol
I like serouis games with cartoon style
The music cut out is not that dramatic that sounded edited almost. I just played it the other day and it’s not like how your video presents it. It’s a seamless transition. Maybe just a bug or something.
Also the black face part is a bug, I think it has something to do with using debug mode.
That music cut is a bug in the PS3 version.
I think that bug with audio is only in the remaster for the PS3.
Same with the Kor's face bug, it's never happened to me on PS2.
you must replay the Jak Trilogy on PS2 how it should be,PS3, 4 & 5 versions are badly emulated with tons of bugs! at 4:50 the music doesnt cut out on PS2
PS3 isn't an emulation. It's a remaster.
This feels like a picky take on it. You gotta think at what point this game was made and perhaps the engine limitations. Jak and Daxter has never been the type of story to take so seriously. It always has that humor and even makes fun of itself for that from time to time.
It's painfully obvious that Jak II was just chasing the popular trends of the times.
Ive never beaten a sandbox game and after ever felt like there was anything fun to do that i havent already done 100 times pre story ending. So its more a problem with the sandbox in general.
i think your analysis of the difficulty is incorrect. I don't think extra checkpoints is a solution to the core problem of Jak's difficulty, just treating a symptom. The problem with the difficulty in Jak is that every level requires the player to have seen what is coming next and memorise it before they can complete the level. A lot of this is down to the poor camera not being responsive enough to track new parts of the world as Jak moves into them. I didn't find any of the quests "difficult" in the sense that they required a huge amount of skill, but I did have to attempt some multiple times because there were some sections that I couldn't have been reasonably expected to react to without knowing in advance what was going to happen.
Now, there is something to be said for the joy of learning a level and acing it through memorisation, but this is the joy of mastery. In Dark Souls (there it is lol), you are not required to memorise an area to get through it - you are able to get through any area on first try if you are skilful enough and observant of your surroundings. This makes it feel fair as you die for being careless. In Jak, it doesn't matter how careful you are, you will die on a lot of sections until you've done enough trial and error to figure out what you're supposed to do, and THEN it becomes fun. So those first deaths are very frustrating.
Otherwise, great review, spot on :)
Yeah you're right I've been playing Jack 2 again these last few days and you're right it's like no matter how good you are you're going to die because I didn't remember exactly where everything was and the goddamn camera however I would say that checkpoint still at least help out a lot making a little less frustrating but yeah it's a just bs. But also because our missions I wouldn't say they were super long but are decent length, if you die you have to start all over and that's was extremely frustrating it's like dude I did all the s*** now im going to start all the way f****** back and it just takes the fun out of it most of the time jak 2 overall a decent game but man it could have been way more fun.
@ 38:18 imagine this shot but redone in 2022 4k field of view omg I need a Jak trilogy remaster plz. Use the money you earn from that and make Jak 4 plz 🙏
I never played any of these games…but for some reason when I was young even till now…I always thought Jak 1 just looked amazing and the others looked so bland. I just think the vibe, tone, graphics of the first game clicked for me.
I just ordered the first game and I’m gonna play it for the first time ever so I’m curious to see how it really is
I dont think seeing a character tortured for 2 years would have been a good move for a fuckin ps2 era teen rated game bro 😂
I'm so glad someone finally sees Jak 2 for what it truly is, the game is constantly getting blindly praised by several other reviews who never bring up obvious problems like the npc cars getting in the way during city races and times missions, not be able to aim up and the hoverboards grind not always working. I'm surprised that you didn't bring up how a good amount of enemies take away two points of hp from you as opposed to one which would lead to you dying in 4 hits instead of 8, for me this adds more to the artificial difficulty problem.
@SNAComics ,check out square eyed jak, antdude and gaming brit.
Artificial Difficulty in Jak 2 mostly stems from these issues: Improper or usually plain PUNISHING CHECKPOINTING in the game, not having enough CAMERA CONTROL nor ability to lock on with it, the HEALTH AND DAMAGE SYSTEM(giving Jak some more invincibility frames would’ve been nice, too), and the LACK OF STRAFING and backwards movement
BlackSenergy Actually, AntDude does bring up some of those problems. There’s even a full segment of him talking about the lack of checkpoints in some areas and especially the final third of the game being a pain in the butt. He just said overall he enjoys the game, it’s world and characters and all that.
@@OmegaBlacky To be fair with Square Eyed Jak, that review is like hella old and he recently came out in his current Q&A video that he doesn't think his Jak reviews hold up.
@@decadentgamer3108 yeah then he comes back to rereview the trilogy claiming he has so much critique knowledge since then and he gave jak 2 7/10 and jak 3 6/10.. its so cringy when he tries to act professional even though his stupid channel is named after jak ..what a loser..i hope people dont take him seriously
Average cost of running a small gaming company of 20 employees is around 10k a week... That's covering bills too so I dunno how the numbers get SO inflated. Must be advertising and those suit dummies leeching their cut.
Maaan , I’m not even 20 mins in and this guys negative energy is annoying 🙃
You Jak 2 stans are really annoying.
You're 100% on point with what you said about what a frustrating experience this game is and how they made weird design/story choices. I thank you for going in, and elaborating on everything that you did, felt like you were very fair and objective. I feel like I'm crazy going by the reviews and how people regard this game. I was around 20 when this game came out, so it wasn't a matter of just being a kid and not being good.
I felt like everything that was supposed to be fun in this game just wasn't very polished, but required very specific timing or maneuvering. As you focused on in the second half, the design of the city seemed like it was somewhat thoughtful, fitting the gameplay into it just didn't seem to have been done with loving care or balance in mind. Just felt like they wanted to make the game hardcore and edgy. Glad I avoided the Edgy Sonic/Shadow games, but it was really frustrating that they kinda snuck that in this game for me.
You and Novacanoo should do a collab. You both have amazing insights on games.
My copy of the games intro never cut out like that...so I think it just might be your copy.
This is a great review
Thankyou so much for pointing out the problems with this game. I beat it last night and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had. The lack of fast travel, boring and repetitive missions with absurd difficulty, the plotholes, the poor driving mechanics, etc; You touched on almost all of my issues.
This game felt like a big step down from the first game and in the end it was kinda disappointing. I liked some of the missions such as the hover board and the racing ones. But thats it. In the end I wouldn't say this is a bad game but a VERY flawed ok game.
imo jak 2 > jak 3 > jak 1, but that is also the order i played them in. Felt like jak 1 just didnt have as interesting story or missions. Also Jak 2 had just the right difficulty
I'm not going to lie, The phrase "artificial difficulty spikes" Hits me like nails on a chalkboard. I'm not sure if you knew this or not buddy but it's a video game and it's all artificial. Like none of it's real. I'm getting so tired of people reviewing video games that came out 20 years ago and talking about him in a modern context. For its time Jack 2 was the undisputed GOAT and without it I don't think video games would be near where they are today.
18:50 another ps3/4 bug
Not a PS4 bug. PS3 only.
Jak 2 would be awesome, if it was a game of its own...but it should have been a continuation of Jak and Daxter and its universe... the story doent fit...it was an idea for a game, to get an older crowd. but they wanted it to look like jak and daxter, to get those fans to. Jak 2 is not the continuation of Jak1 it is a new game which just wanted to use a character, which is known and loved
Complains about realism....complains about fantasy...🤣 a lot of good points. And a lot of creative nit picking.
fun fact you can hover board the entire pier/seal of mar mission. there are other tactics then just being a noob and spin jumping
God dammit, I cringed when he said Clips for the gun segment.
Ikr he has no grip or understanding of the combat system and it shows
Bruh, i was willing to just keep watching til u got to the board. Complaining about the GRINDING? My dude, just say youre hating just to hate and move on my god
Nah