9:58 wholeheartedly agree with this. Jak 3 was such a wasted opportunity for greatness, it hurts my heart just how great this game would have been if the same effort for Jak II was here
You totally get it, Zeke. Even when I was playing the first game as a kid, it felt so cool to find a high up spot to chill and look in the distance at the locations I've been at, and where I need to go next. The top of the jungle temple, snowy mountain on either side of the mountainface where the fort was, and the top of the citadel were so good for that.
Title comes off exaggerative, which to that degree I of course have to disagree. The desert does work, it just could have been polished just a bit more (provided the developers were uniquely somehow given more development time over their peers) with lore and environmental content (as gameplay activity wise that was good with the likes of the satellite mini game, races, side missions, and collectible orbs). 3:55-4:03 That's not inherently an issue. It's easy to immediately think back to games that are considered the best of all time and even openworld that yet had desert environments but also didn't invoke a sense of "hotness". There are also different types of deserts that can range noticeably in appearance and feel. Jak 3 goes for and nails the dry desert type. Day and night cycle is also something to take into consideration when evaluating the present mood of the desert. 7:52-8:05 I wouldn't say these spots are hard to come by at all. For the weird people who just go story mission to story mission, sure. For players who actually explore: whether out of curiosity of lore and/or looking for Precursor Orbs? And do the side missions (which explicitly guide you to spots like this)? And even the challenge missions that should eventually bring you to new spots to experiment with better score results? Definitely not. More than anything else, it's more difficult to not find them. Most of these spots you also CAN chill uninterrupted, since the devs were aware enough with having the infinite Marauder spawn off in various spots in the desert, which went unmentioned in the video. There's a consistent exaggerative tone throughout this video unreasonably lowballing Jak 3/wasteland, when the criticisms were overwhelming false or flawed. I know you're a big Jak fan (though not sure if you're of the ones who lean far more heavily towards TPL or J2), so the only (other) reason I could think of for you presumably forgetting some of these fairly memorable aspects I've brought up is because of recent memorably-overwriting playthroughs where you either speedrun the game or go through the motions with campaign only runs, forgetting the game design nuances in the process. Because playing the game spontaneously and engaging with some of its content, you would naturally find these moments and do the opposite of what you were claiming during 10:17-11:04. Even during story missions. There's also the experience of coming across these things through the inherently fun Jetboard Turbo secret that people would mess around with for hours/years. All of this I easily discovered during the release era, not even the PS3 HD Collection where some fans acknowledged having learned of new things they missed in the original releases. Time-stamping everything is getting tiresome... "There's nothing to do/it's empty". When you play the game for the first time, you aren't imparted with the knowledge whether the wasteland is empty or not, so that criticism doesn't work either. You have to explore the desert and then come to that conclusion yourself after exploring it. That's in addition to certain distinct landmarks that _will_ absolutely draw you in, and the minimap that will show you mission givers to approach and interact with. I know hating on Jak 3 nowadays is the cool thing to do within the fandom, especially as the chat clearly showed, but it (predictably) tends to go too far and probably more than anything whiny-not talking about you specifically with that last part, just generally speaking. And I do have to sadly add that the complaints also come off as silly individual revisionism. Eh to slightly expand on what I mean is that... in isolation of Jak 2 (and even TPL, which didn't even have a desert biome). For all the things people despised Jak II for, the wasteland was a complete stark contrast to that. There was peace in the lack of traffic, no "poor hover controls", no civilians, no enforcement system, a "good" hub BGM, etc. In closing, Jak 3's wasteland is mostly a hit. It has its weakpoints, as does everything and anything ever made, but it did enough to not be considered a "failure" or "pointless addition" to the game (for those people who actually say and imply those things). The desert could have been a lot worse than people never actually imagine, like a nearly to entirely flat layout, no sandstorm, no distinct landmarks, little to no content (e.g., side missions), and a forgettable OST, none of which the opposite of thankfully is the case with Jak 3. The harshness of the wasteland, which was the strongest and central thematical point of the setting reinforced by the story and characters, was a knockout. Also love Jak 3 expanding on Jak 2's lore of the Wasteland having new, far bigger and deadlier Metalheads that was never seen and couldn't be seen from Haven City.
When I was younger, Jak 3 was my favorite. It was a lot easier than 2, made the dark powers more useful, added (mostly) cool light powers, and had an arsenal closer to RnC. As an adult I see where a lot of the criticisms is coming from and can agree to a certain point. Yes the game is wasted potential, but so was Jak 2 in different ways. I don’t think I would trust Sonny or Naughty Dog with it right now, but the whole series could use a remake. And I mean one remake stabling all the games together into one play through. Maybe cut a few missions or rework them but keep it all mostly intact. Have proper tutorial levels in Jak 2 to teach how to use the guns in melee. Rebalance the difficulty of 2 and 3. Adjust the final arsenal and power sets (dark Jak grappling hook?). Make the wasteland all it was meant to be!
@@SawyerAnderson remakes are a horrible idea, what made these games great was how unique and out of nowhere they felt at the time. Sanding off all the edges would only serve to make them generic
(Apparently this will be an overwhelming amount of content to put out all at once, and might even come across messy. Sorry. Would just rather not make multiple comments.) "Wasted potential", honestly, isn't a good argument. That argument can be applied to any game, regardless of their quality (bad, mediocre, great, and amazing). Spyro, Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Ratchet & Clank, Golden Eye, Splinter Cell, whatever game literally, only getting worse when coming at older games from an utterly unfair revisionist standpoint. The deeper the bond/time spent with a game you love, the deeper you sink in that void of these "what it could have been". At the actual time......... Jak II was, unconventionally, a homerun and had still did a multitude of unique things even the best games had not done and were not doing. That is what matters, not re-evaluating the 2003 (and 2004) game in 2025 and cherrypicking anything any person can deem "wasted potential". Any person could get away with calling every aspect in this game (and any other game in general for that matter) was wasted potential............ Ontop of that all games have their weak areas and can't possibly be top notch or even amazing in all categories. It should be enough that, at bare minimum, this game absolutely did at least a few things noticeably better than the particular likes of a R&C and GTA3 of all games (which I also say because it's not said nearly enough, not even remotely). Ok I think I can digress there. *Developers.* It's interesting you said *you don't trust Naughty Dog and especially Sony* (who would realistically fund the game and play a role in its creation whoever it be), but if you don't trust them you shouldn't trust anyone else either. Even though the reasoning would or could be different, other developers would be off the mark in other areas of game design. Maybe a pointless example, but like say you don't trust ND with the story, the other developer you can't trust with things like animation quality, attention to detail, polish, etc. The games should *not be remade.* Remakes never recapture the soul and charm of their counterparts. I'm sorry to say this for its fans, but the overrated Spyro Reignited trilogy proved that. Fans can say what they want, but when you take an actual closer inspection and do direct comparisons you'll notice a list of things are off that you missed while enjoying and taking in the game. And this goes for every remake. Art direction is one other heavy sub topic, which is another contention I have with Spyro's remake. I can already write a preemptive reliable essay on what a remake across any Jak game would fuck up. With all that said....... im down for TOP quality remasters (which the HD collection quite never was) but ones that only make clever changes/additions and no censorship. I cannot stand censorship (which the Spyro remake has a ton of too 🙃). Remaking the game into *"one big game"* is also obviously(?) a bad idea, and one that isn't even possible. Completely unrealistic. Look how TLOU2, a non-openworld game, needed 2 disc to work (you might takeaway the wrong idea from that point but im hoping you don't). The -disappointing- Spyro trilogy remake, an older + simplier trilogy from the 90s, had troubling development and polish issues. This same trilogy even had the beneficial access to the game's original assets iirc. A ton of the remade stuff, in short, was done worse than the originals too. And for a third game example look at the atrocious singular "R&C1" remake/re-imagining. All these games I mentioned all add unique unfavorable elements that should make the idea of a Jak remake, whether each game one at a time (Resident Evil style) or all at once like an HD collection (immensely unrealistic) or combined into one game (also immensely unrealistic), sound unappealing at least. Jak 2 and especially 3 already had good *tutorials* in general. Hidden depth is usually not tutorized in games (especially if obviously unintentionally designed). Only prominent mechanic they didn't teach you was the aerial 360 shower, BUT this was told in the manuals (and more than likely the strat guides). Well I guess J3 didn't teach you one new with the Jetboard, but it was clearly unnecessary anyway. They can tutorize the 360 shower shooting attack I guess, but it's interesting to remember that the general playerbase have widely been aware of this move without the tutorial in the original games. *Jak 2's difficulty* is highly overrated. Almost nothing needs to be touched in terms of making the game easier. You can negotiate very few updates, but not ones the average player would say. Some ammo crates literally don't give any blue ammo, so adding that appropriately would be a fair ask. Another fair ask would be actual consistency or better design with bulky vehicles durability as sometimes they get randomly destroyed in one hit when you're rammed by other vehicles, especially one seaters the weirdest of all. Maybe a single healthpack in a certain mission or few that don't have any, it depends. J2 difficulty is so so delicate that the slightest tweaking could ruin the challenge and immersive brutal nature of them. (Even though the game ultimately isn't brutally hard, it seems to get away with invoking that feeling and that's something that really needs to stay intact.) Chalking checkpoints and health-packs everywhere shows an utter lack of understanding of the game's difficulty balance. Now of course *Jak 3 needs to be readjusted,* mostly the literal onfoot campaign missions. I don't mind a harder challenge in general, but it did seem like it was almost exclusively only those onfoot campaign missions that were too easy while non-onfoot missions were solid. *Grappling Hook.* Kinda crazy for me to say this given *grappling hooks* are one of my top favorite mechanics in gaming trust me (Just Cause series, inFAMOUS 2, Dying Light especially, Lost Planet, Sekiro, Far Cry, Dishonored 2, Titanfall 2, etc), but it wouldn't be worthwhile enough to add. In addition to Jak 3 already being commonly considered a cluttered game, the world design wouldn't well accommodate for it. (Plus Dark Jak is already out of button inputs.) In Jak 4 though? I'm open to it, however not entirely because I think it would be more impressive and opportunistic for the IP to have an engaging traversal system in its own unique way (like Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush 2) with its unique eco identity. Not sure what you mean with the *Wasteland,* but one cool feature and to give some depth is allowing Marauders to exit their vehicles and Jak to carja-c-k them (the time and place where that feature is actually morally justified lol). Bringing it closer to Mad Max, which isn't a bad thing, and like it actually exist in the game. Even as a kid it always felt off to me that that entire idea wasn't in the game, especially given it was there in Haven City. (Now that I think about it this is probably the place where you could add the grapping hook-obviously it wouldn't be for traversal though-whether it be manmade or a "Daxterhook" like in The Lost Frontier 👀.)
if i had a nickel for everytime i misheard you saying day star as "gay star" i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
9:58 wholeheartedly agree with this. Jak 3 was such a wasted opportunity for greatness, it hurts my heart just how great this game would have been if the same effort for Jak II was here
You totally get it, Zeke. Even when I was playing the first game as a kid, it felt so cool to find a high up spot to chill and look in the distance at the locations I've been at, and where I need to go next. The top of the jungle temple, snowy mountain on either side of the mountainface where the fort was, and the top of the citadel were so good for that.
Love listening to you talk about Jak
Played Jak 2 first. It will always be the best atmosphere to me. Dark, grungy city? Hell yeaa
The best. Love Jak II
Title comes off exaggerative, which to that degree I of course have to disagree. The desert does work, it just could have been polished just a bit more (provided the developers were uniquely somehow given more development time over their peers) with lore and environmental content (as gameplay activity wise that was good with the likes of the satellite mini game, races, side missions, and collectible orbs).
3:55-4:03 That's not inherently an issue. It's easy to immediately think back to games that are considered the best of all time and even openworld that yet had desert environments but also didn't invoke a sense of "hotness". There are also different types of deserts that can range noticeably in appearance and feel. Jak 3 goes for and nails the dry desert type. Day and night cycle is also something to take into consideration when evaluating the present mood of the desert.
7:52-8:05 I wouldn't say these spots are hard to come by at all. For the weird people who just go story mission to story mission, sure. For players who actually explore: whether out of curiosity of lore and/or looking for Precursor Orbs? And do the side missions (which explicitly guide you to spots like this)? And even the challenge missions that should eventually bring you to new spots to experiment with better score results? Definitely not. More than anything else, it's more difficult to not find them.
Most of these spots you also CAN chill uninterrupted, since the devs were aware enough with having the infinite Marauder spawn off in various spots in the desert, which went unmentioned in the video.
There's a consistent exaggerative tone throughout this video unreasonably lowballing Jak 3/wasteland, when the criticisms were overwhelming false or flawed. I know you're a big Jak fan (though not sure if you're of the ones who lean far more heavily towards TPL or J2), so the only (other) reason I could think of for you presumably forgetting some of these fairly memorable aspects I've brought up is because of recent memorably-overwriting playthroughs where you either speedrun the game or go through the motions with campaign only runs, forgetting the game design nuances in the process. Because playing the game spontaneously and engaging with some of its content, you would naturally find these moments and do the opposite of what you were claiming during 10:17-11:04. Even during story missions. There's also the experience of coming across these things through the inherently fun Jetboard Turbo secret that people would mess around with for hours/years.
All of this I easily discovered during the release era, not even the PS3 HD Collection where some fans acknowledged having learned of new things they missed in the original releases.
Time-stamping everything is getting tiresome... "There's nothing to do/it's empty". When you play the game for the first time, you aren't imparted with the knowledge whether the wasteland is empty or not, so that criticism doesn't work either. You have to explore the desert and then come to that conclusion yourself after exploring it. That's in addition to certain distinct landmarks that _will_ absolutely draw you in, and the minimap that will show you mission givers to approach and interact with.
I know hating on Jak 3 nowadays is the cool thing to do within the fandom, especially as the chat clearly showed, but it (predictably) tends to go too far and probably more than anything whiny-not talking about you specifically with that last part, just generally speaking. And I do have to sadly add that the complaints also come off as silly individual revisionism. Eh to slightly expand on what I mean is that... in isolation of Jak 2 (and even TPL, which didn't even have a desert biome). For all the things people despised Jak II for, the wasteland was a complete stark contrast to that. There was peace in the lack of traffic, no "poor hover controls", no civilians, no enforcement system, a "good" hub BGM, etc.
In closing, Jak 3's wasteland is mostly a hit. It has its weakpoints, as does everything and anything ever made, but it did enough to not be considered a "failure" or "pointless addition" to the game (for those people who actually say and imply those things). The desert could have been a lot worse than people never actually imagine, like a nearly to entirely flat layout, no sandstorm, no distinct landmarks, little to no content (e.g., side missions), and a forgettable OST, none of which the opposite of thankfully is the case with Jak 3.
The harshness of the wasteland, which was the strongest and central thematical point of the setting reinforced by the story and characters, was a knockout. Also love Jak 3 expanding on Jak 2's lore of the Wasteland having new, far bigger and deadlier Metalheads that was never seen and couldn't be seen from Haven City.
When I was younger, Jak 3 was my favorite. It was a lot easier than 2, made the dark powers more useful, added (mostly) cool light powers, and had an arsenal closer to RnC.
As an adult I see where a lot of the criticisms is coming from and can agree to a certain point. Yes the game is wasted potential, but so was Jak 2 in different ways.
I don’t think I would trust Sonny or Naughty Dog with it right now, but the whole series could use a remake. And I mean one remake stabling all the games together into one play through. Maybe cut a few missions or rework them but keep it all mostly intact. Have proper tutorial levels in Jak 2 to teach how to use the guns in melee. Rebalance the difficulty of 2 and 3. Adjust the final arsenal and power sets (dark Jak grappling hook?). Make the wasteland all it was meant to be!
Grappling hook - love it. MORE platformer elements, not fewer.
@@SawyerAnderson remakes are a horrible idea, what made these games great was how unique and out of nowhere they felt at the time. Sanding off all the edges would only serve to make them generic
(Apparently this will be an overwhelming amount of content to put out all at once, and might even come across messy. Sorry. Would just rather not make multiple comments.)
"Wasted potential", honestly, isn't a good argument. That argument can be applied to any game, regardless of their quality (bad, mediocre, great, and amazing). Spyro, Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil, Ratchet & Clank, Golden Eye, Splinter Cell, whatever game literally, only getting worse when coming at older games from an utterly unfair revisionist standpoint. The deeper the bond/time spent with a game you love, the deeper you sink in that void of these "what it could have been".
At the actual time......... Jak II was, unconventionally, a homerun and had still did a multitude of unique things even the best games had not done and were not doing. That is what matters, not re-evaluating the 2003 (and 2004) game in 2025 and cherrypicking anything any person can deem "wasted potential". Any person could get away with calling every aspect in this game (and any other game in general for that matter) was wasted potential............
Ontop of that all games have their weak areas and can't possibly be top notch or even amazing in all categories. It should be enough that, at bare minimum, this game absolutely did at least a few things noticeably better than the particular likes of a R&C and GTA3 of all games (which I also say because it's not said nearly enough, not even remotely). Ok I think I can digress there.
*Developers.* It's interesting you said *you don't trust Naughty Dog and especially Sony* (who would realistically fund the game and play a role in its creation whoever it be), but if you don't trust them you shouldn't trust anyone else either. Even though the reasoning would or could be different, other developers would be off the mark in other areas of game design. Maybe a pointless example, but like say you don't trust ND with the story, the other developer you can't trust with things like animation quality, attention to detail, polish, etc.
The games should *not be remade.* Remakes never recapture the soul and charm of their counterparts. I'm sorry to say this for its fans, but the overrated Spyro Reignited trilogy proved that. Fans can say what they want, but when you take an actual closer inspection and do direct comparisons you'll notice a list of things are off that you missed while enjoying and taking in the game. And this goes for every remake. Art direction is one other heavy sub topic, which is another contention I have with Spyro's remake. I can already write a preemptive reliable essay on what a remake across any Jak game would fuck up.
With all that said....... im down for TOP quality remasters (which the HD collection quite never was) but ones that only make clever changes/additions and no censorship. I cannot stand censorship (which the Spyro remake has a ton of too 🙃).
Remaking the game into *"one big game"* is also obviously(?) a bad idea, and one that isn't even possible. Completely unrealistic. Look how TLOU2, a non-openworld game, needed 2 disc to work (you might takeaway the wrong idea from that point but im hoping you don't). The -disappointing- Spyro trilogy remake, an older + simplier trilogy from the 90s, had troubling development and polish issues. This same trilogy even had the beneficial access to the game's original assets iirc. A ton of the remade stuff, in short, was done worse than the originals too. And for a third game example look at the atrocious singular "R&C1" remake/re-imagining. All these games I mentioned all add unique unfavorable elements that should make the idea of a Jak remake, whether each game one at a time (Resident Evil style) or all at once like an HD collection (immensely unrealistic) or combined into one game (also immensely unrealistic), sound unappealing at least.
Jak 2 and especially 3 already had good *tutorials* in general. Hidden depth is usually not tutorized in games (especially if obviously unintentionally designed). Only prominent mechanic they didn't teach you was the aerial 360 shower, BUT this was told in the manuals (and more than likely the strat guides). Well I guess J3 didn't teach you one new with the Jetboard, but it was clearly unnecessary anyway. They can tutorize the 360 shower shooting attack I guess, but it's interesting to remember that the general playerbase have widely been aware of this move without the tutorial in the original games.
*Jak 2's difficulty* is highly overrated. Almost nothing needs to be touched in terms of making the game easier. You can negotiate very few updates, but not ones the average player would say. Some ammo crates literally don't give any blue ammo, so adding that appropriately would be a fair ask. Another fair ask would be actual consistency or better design with bulky vehicles durability as sometimes they get randomly destroyed in one hit when you're rammed by other vehicles, especially one seaters the weirdest of all. Maybe a single healthpack in a certain mission or few that don't have any, it depends. J2 difficulty is so so delicate that the slightest tweaking could ruin the challenge and immersive brutal nature of them. (Even though the game ultimately isn't brutally hard, it seems to get away with invoking that feeling and that's something that really needs to stay intact.) Chalking checkpoints and health-packs everywhere shows an utter lack of understanding of the game's difficulty balance.
Now of course *Jak 3 needs to be readjusted,* mostly the literal onfoot campaign missions. I don't mind a harder challenge in general, but it did seem like it was almost exclusively only those onfoot campaign missions that were too easy while non-onfoot missions were solid.
*Grappling Hook.* Kinda crazy for me to say this given *grappling hooks* are one of my top favorite mechanics in gaming trust me (Just Cause series, inFAMOUS 2, Dying Light especially, Lost Planet, Sekiro, Far Cry, Dishonored 2, Titanfall 2, etc), but it wouldn't be worthwhile enough to add. In addition to Jak 3 already being commonly considered a cluttered game, the world design wouldn't well accommodate for it. (Plus Dark Jak is already out of button inputs.) In Jak 4 though? I'm open to it, however not entirely because I think it would be more impressive and opportunistic for the IP to have an engaging traversal system in its own unique way (like Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush 2) with its unique eco identity.
Not sure what you mean with the *Wasteland,* but one cool feature and to give some depth is allowing Marauders to exit their vehicles and Jak to carja-c-k them (the time and place where that feature is actually morally justified lol). Bringing it closer to Mad Max, which isn't a bad thing, and like it actually exist in the game. Even as a kid it always felt off to me that that entire idea wasn't in the game, especially given it was there in Haven City. (Now that I think about it this is probably the place where you could add the grapping hook-obviously it wouldn't be for traversal though-whether it be manmade or a "Daxterhook" like in The Lost Frontier 👀.)
when do ya stream? real mad about missing em.
@@mechicanalnumbariaro very sporadically lol
I disagree, it looks great, especially for a game made in 2004.
if i had a nickel for everytime i misheard you saying day star as "gay star" i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
@@grave-d5v a gay star would have saved Jak 3 frfr
@@powercellzekestreams1295 I need a more skull gems!!!
Jak 3 was an empty husk compared to 2................ Jak 3 somehow had less consequences than Jak 2 also
@@Saaaahdoood Nah, the Challenge alone made Jak II worth the ride