Changing Jak from a cutesy mario-esque platformer to a dystopian GTA-rip off open world shooter never sat right with me

Changing Jak from a cutesy mario-esque platformer to a dystopian GTA-rip off open world shooter never sat right with me.

I mean maybe if they even bothered to upgrade the graphics, but no they still use the same cutesy disney art style and it's really jarring.

Sly Cooper went through a similar transition. Always kinda bugged me.

Luckily for me, I only ever played the first game.

Same here.

It was really jarring and weird. The games aren't bad, though.

I was 13 or some shit when Jak 2 came out. I didn't mind the transition, and actually found it pretty cool. Of course, I also liked Jak and Daxter, and I certainly wasn't one of those new-age retards who inherently prefers mature games for their mature selves.

It was what it was, and it was actually pretty good despite all of that.

Daxter = Jak1>>>>>>Jak3

Ratcher & Clank was always the superior Sony exclusive

It was? I never even had the drive to finish Jak 2, Jak 3 at least kept me hooked

It's been way too long since I last played it, so I can't say anything in depth, but yes. It was a good game, despite all the GTA garbage grafted onto it.

well, I'm glad I didn't play it because not actually being able to kill praxis sounds like one of the biggest blue-balls in video game history

I liked Precursor Legacy a lot. Jak 2 felt like a weird transition, though it was still fun to play to a point, imo. Gameplay and the story of Jak 3 was just complete shit. Never go full time travel story. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish with tying everything to Jak.

Now, it's been even longer since my last playthrough of Jak 2 since I've played Jak 3, but didn't you kill Praxis in 3? I'm not misremembering things, right?

I know you kill that fucker in one of them, but I can't remember if it's late in 2, or in 3.

no he got the "Get rekt by other villain to make that villain look tougher" treatment iirc

you don't even fight him for chrissake

After all this years this is still >mfw

I don't know man. It's been over a decade since I've played these games, but I know for sure you fight him, multiple times. I even checked some videos on youtube to confirm.

I have no idea if you kill him, though. It's just been too long and I couldn't find a video of it. I'll take your word for it.

yeah some "fight"

my nigger, good post

It was just so bad.
I had nothing against run and gun platformers with guns and stuff as R&C games were great and throughout the entire original trilogy they retained the same "spirit", but J&D2 was such a drastic, 180 turn into Shitville i still have no idea what the fuck were they thinking?
I know that GTA was all the rage back then, but why the fuck would you take a spiritual successor to Crash and after only one game in turn it from a fun, lighthearted, silly game into this edgy, crawling in my skin shit?

i only partially played through 2 and finished 1, and i enjoyed 2 for what it was.
I always thought 1 wasn't anything special, it was spyro but not as good, ND should've stuck with linear platformers tbh

I liked every single one on the trilogy
Fuck you niggers
I bet you like Uncharted

Jak X is the only good neo Jak game, daxter never felt right

Best part of 2 was when the city turned into a warzone.

2 sucked. Never bothered with 3. Its a shame we only got one good J&D game.

That's because Ratchet and Clank is just spyro with guns.

spyro had better movement and level design.

Nothing of value was lost so I found it hard to ever give a fuck.

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Perfect as in removing all the charm and fun from the original.

Only good thing about Jak 3 was androgynous monkfu

The first was amazing in many aspects, but 2 actually had a story to it.

If Jak 2 kept to the same recipe as the first, it would've been a Banjo Tooie. I'm glad they spiced things up. The problem Jak 3 had was that it was too similar to Jak 2.

Wait till you play kingdom hearts.

Fuck's sake, and the same is for the Ratchet and Clank trilogy.

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Recently played through these for the first time last year. I don't get what all the fuss is about.

The shooting in the games is utter shit, with no strafing being the most jarring aspect.

2 is a poor mans GTA and has aged abysmally, with way too much between mission driving. 3 is marginally better but still not that fun.

dose anyone have that pod cast were the game dev said they changed it to a GTA rip off because "GTA 3 just made SO much money"

Jak 2 was not really good but there was an attempt at making it the same game on a cool edgy setting. I think they did what they could to make it popular but just on the surface, haven city and the setting in general is dark and emo shit but every character (except Jak), location outside the city, etc are more or less in line with the original. I think this game could've used a personal vehicle that was much faster than the rest, being stuck walking around the same streets over and over was a mistake. In any case, it is another lesson on why taking an original and making it something completely different while trying to maintain the game's essence is not going to work on any setting

Jak 3 was better on everything, they had the muh grim dark setting from 2 to work with but they added a lot of elements coming from the first game: They added different hubs, you explore a fuckton places and ruins, do gliding, deathmatch car racing, cancer chocobo racing, all sorts of fun stuff that wasnt just walking on feet. It throws you back to isolated natural enviorments with colossal precursor stuff, and adds neat stuff like finding pieces of precursor armor as you progress. It could've used more polishing on some aspects (like making interesting enemies for once, enemies that arent kamikaze 1 hit kills, or making the powers actually useful outside of puzzles) but I think it's miles ahead of 2. It's a 'mature' setting but it's not as cool 'n edgy™ as 2 was, it's far more entertaining, its only miss was the story specially near the end, it was silly but eh that's the essence of the original

Jak X was ok and there's not much to say since it's a completely different game. I liked that it was just a grudge from an old character (plus plot twists) and not the end of the world. Frontier was actually really fun if it wasnt for dark daxter. Daxter (the game) was too monotonous, it tried to be Jak 1 and succeeded for the most part but for me, it had little variety. Good, but not was fun as Jak 1 or 3

So overall I'd say Jak1 > Jak3 = Jak X > Frontier = Daxter > Jak2
That is concerning gameplay mostly, Story wise, well why even bother. I like it but I know it's fucking stupid so I guess it's just personal preference (that said Jak 1 still beats the rest story/setting wise and on every other aspect). And having one above the other doesnt really mean much all of them are really fun

On a side note, Jak 1 was an amazing piece of coding, I wish I still had the screenshots where you can see the entire world (not just low poly assets, the real world) from the top of the snowy mountain

t. Played every game til 100% for years. I could go on and do some in depth autism of each, but eh


Not at all, Jak 1 has a few bugs like missing eyes but it runs perfectly on 2 of my machines

i dunno about that, i know andy gavin wrote in his blog that the reason they made jak 2 all dark and shit cause of GTA and "that's where the market was heading" or something like that

The movement is pretty much the same except charge has been removed and glide is more limited. Play Spyro3 and Ratchet 1 right after another and you'll see how they weren't even trying to hide it.

yeah, this isn't a good thing. Plus, you know, the level design. branching corridors were never very good.

That ruins it for me, the eyes are important as fuck.

I don't get all the Jak 2 hate. I must have been really into the edgy themes it had going.
Also, that Precursor Basin theme with the roaring of the Zoomer. mfw

They really fixed that in the second one, but then completely abandoned it in the third (or whichever is the Arena one). Still a fun game, but it was clearly the point where its action platformer roots died.

Praxis got killed in the second game by the metalhead leader. But it's not like it made the leader seem strong. Praxis was on foot without his tech so of course he'd get fucked.

Up Your Arsenal is 3, Deadlocked is 4. If you watch the developer commentary for the first three games, they talk about how the "battlefield" levels in 3 were the ultimate inspiration for Deadlocked using them entirely.

i dove into the second game not having played the first. intending to play the first if i enjoyed it. man i didnt see that coming but i still had a lot of fun.

Only thing inherently bad about Jak 2 were the driving missions.

I remember absolutely loathing a few of them, and the controls for the driving in general were complete dog shit.

jak 2 also wastes a lot of time going from point a to point b that if they took that out it would be incredibly short. jak 3 made it so most missions start right when you get them which was a good improvement

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How the hell do you go to the future and find out your younger selves are in the future but then must go back to the past? How the hell would they not remember that or at least some type recollection.

Was Jak meant to be Mar? If so that raises more questions.

I didn't mind the open world but the guns handled like ass

I loved the first Jak game but never touched the sequels, should I keep it that way?

its all but stated the jak is mar

Yes, keep in mind that jak 2 is the worst it gets better after that

What the fuck are you on about?
They emulate pretty well

Yeah, play 2 and 3, they're pretty good even if they deviate a shitton from 1 and 3 is really rushed plot wise considering it took less than a month to make, its like a revamped more polished and varied 2.
Ignore everything else

I'M GONNA KILL BARON PRAXIS!

me too also have the HD version
Ratchet and Clank (2002) is a good game. just a shame that's it turn into a third-person shooter.

Texture glitches.

jak is what happens when you get TOO EDGY with a character/world that wasn't designed in any way for edginess

ratchet and clank will be edgy soon

I dunno, they pretty severely toned down Ratchet and Clank in the reboot compared to the original.

All three Jak games were the last good games ND did.

Loved 1 and 3, 2 was alright but I never bothered replaying it.
I remember Tess being quite the fap material for my teenage self back then. She's also partially responsible for my consorting with beasts later on, with the whole ottsel transformation and whatnot

Jak was made when the west could make qts as well as the nips. A shame what happened though.

any good ottsel pics?

how about this?

I can understand why people would be mad, but eh, I enjoyed. it. I suppose I never really got an opportunity to get mad because I never played GTA or much of Crash Bandicoot. The edge does actually make sense considering what Praxis did to him.
Now what is confusing is all the hate Year of the Dragon gets.

fuck


you

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I will never not find this funny

Jak 3 is special because it was an attempt to keep the final product as close to the concept art as possible.
Naughty Dog has kept doing that, and for the most part it works. Not all the ideas pull through but it keeps the game coherent.

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Jak 3 kept to the final product, except the story.

They had Jak hook up with Ashelin because Tara Strong was ill when they started doing the voices. That's why Keira barely features in 3.

Here ya go.

That reminds me, how well does R&C emulate? Been meaning to try it out.

Oh, I have to play the english version some time

yeah, i'd

So, is there any more info at all about the PS4 release of the Jak and Daxter collection? I'm definitely looking forward to getting it, but I haven't seen shit.

oh and iirc the concept art for jak 4 was so cool and interesting they ditched jak and made the last of us with it. So yeah jak and daxter is dead in case anyone was wondering

It's just the PS2 versions emulated with trophies. Look at some PCSX2 footage to get a good idea of what to expect.

Oh, really? Thought I heard that they were also upping the detail a bit. I wanted to get this because I can't find my Percursor Legacy disc, and emulating it on my own doesn't work right. It's laggy and every character has black voids for eyes. It's actually pretty damn creepy.

That's pretty fucking creepy

The resolution is increased by like 2 or 3 times the native res, if that's what you mean by upping the detail. Thankfully, since it's running on an official emulator that creepy eye shit shouldn't be there.

man i hate how wonky ps2 emulation is, even if you have a space computer you'll be lucky if the game actually emulates properly and even then you'll get slowdowns all the time

me neither. The original Jak and Daxter is still the best one. Jak 2 is an edgy GTA mess, and Jak 3 is more of the same but in a desert. I don't really like them.

good on you anons. don't ever play 2 or 3. Let Jak 1 stay pure in your minds


right.


if the shift from Precursor Legacy to 2 wasn't so fucking drastic and edgy, it wouldn't have bothered me so much. But damn, it really took a flying leap straight into Edgehog territory.

What's worse is that it depends on the game.

EXPERIMENTATION

That was half the point.

I'M GOING TO ____ PRAXIS!

Kind of reminds me of some issues I had tried to emulate Banjo Kazooie via an emulator on my Wii.

couldn't have said it better myself. Hell, there's even an option to remove Jak's edgy goatee

that's because the writing is shit.
it's lacking any sort of satisfaction

seriously, what the fuck happened to this company

Literally everyone that worked on Crash and J&D left the company after the J&D racing game.
There isn't a single original developer left there anymore.

The PS3 version looked pretty good

So it's Naughty Dog in name only

what the fuck was up with this? how the hell did 3 different game studios pull off the same fucking sequel structure?

Yes.

why are there like no lewds of kiera tess and ashelin

Grand Theft Auto 3. No other reason.

I think it happens rather frequently, and with even older games/series. Companies try to make something a bit different with a second entry which may/may not be well received, while the third winds up closer to the original. Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, etc.

Speaking of Insomniac's games, even the PS1 Spyro games are subject to it, as the world he gets summoned to in Ripto's Rage, Avalar, is a stand-alone sort of place with no dragons present but him, while in YotD's lore, the "Forgotten Realms" were once part of the Dragon Realms long ago, and the plot revolves around rescuing the kidnapped dragon eggs (which immediately hatch and warp home, or something), bringing the trio somewhat back to its base.

Jak&daxter and ratchet&clank devs worked on the same room. Literally. Look it up. Dunno about sly but it was made by some of the people from ratchet right?

Sucker Punch isn't former Insomniac employees; wikipedia suggests they were formerly from microsoft. The only game the company made prior (under that company name, anyhow) to Sly was Rocket: Robot on Wheels.

I liked all three of the Jak games. The shift from whimsical to dark and edgy was a little more novel at the time, but it still managed to be a good action platformer. The GTA stuff doesn't really get in the way, and how many sci-fi GTA games are out there anyway?

They're all good games, which you prefer is more a matter of personal preference.

Evan Wells is still there, but other than him and maybe a few others, yeah it's a different company.

That looks like concept art though, is that even in the game

Why are there no lewds of twink Daxter

In both cases, the massive industry evolution caused by GTA forced the devs to radically alter their development goals. You really going to try and sell a non-open world game, funded on a AA - AAA budget, when GTA 3 has just come out, Vice City is coming out, and San Andreas is on the horizon, and the entire gaming world is 100% focused on the implications of that? There was no choice. They had to. In both cases, I think they did a pretty good job.

I think you're just butthurt that Jak 2 was too hard for you.

Dark Eco. Not even once.

Yeah, that's my problem. I don't know about how you guys play, but when I play Spyro, I'm charging 97% of the time trying to basically casually speedrun the game. Active camera mode, never not charging. Fun as fuck. The only time I stop charging is to glide for a second or two, flame something real quick, or to jump up and then charge in another direction to make a sharp turn or 180. Spyro 2 was my favorite, because it had the double jump glitch where, if you jump straight up and immediately charge upward halfway through the upward trajectory, you gain some height above what you should be able to with a jump and can sequence break and go out of bounds all over the fucking place. Most ledges that were designed to be out of reach are only a tiny bit out of your regular jump range, so this glitch basically unlocks most barriers.

When I was a kid and my mom stopped to watch me play for a minute sometimes, she always said I made her motion sick with how I played the game.

Jak, Ratchet, Sly, Crash, Spyro, Rayman, DKC, definitely a bunch of others I can't recall atm.

I liked 3, never played 2.
3 seemed to still have good platforming, it was just less, and more combat that felt a bit like Ratchet and Clank.

I recently replayed it and I really do hope that they weren't unironically going for the GTA audience. Everything is edgier, but at the same time, everything is still cartoony and goofy. I'm personally not bothered by it because I thought it was really stupid and funny, regardless of whether or not it was intentional.

Sounds like the basis for a bad creepypasta

Are you kidding, that was the best thing Naughty Dog ever did. It was brilliant, what a plot twist. Besides the second game is objectively a lot better.

After reading this thread it is clearer to me than ever before, that Holla Forums truly hates all games, even great ones. Jak 2 was a fucking masterpiece, and this thread is full of people who hated it.

I still haven't played Up Your Arsenal, or the first Ratchet and Clank.
Going Commando and Deadlocked are the only ones I've played so far, and for some reason I can't find the motivation to burn the games on a disc or emulate them.

I liked the trilogy
The transition from J&D to J2 was quite dry and rough. In one minute you were watching as innocent, happy Jak and his group arrive into a grim and edgy city, lose Sage and Keira, get arrested by cyberpunkcops, and spend a year getting tortured and used as a guinea pig for dark eco experiments. A year later and Daxter arrives to rescue the once quiet green haired boy, who now turned into an edgy revanchist man, all of a sudden. Looking to join the underground resistance and overthrow Praxis
I loved the three, but my favorite was Jak 3, had more shit to do, liked the desert and the fucked up city ambient, liked the ending of the trilogy and I assume Jak & Daxter ended with Jak 3. Anyone else happy because afterall, they didnt bastardize Jak and daxter by creating a shitty excuse of a sequel?
pic related, Cancelled Jak game concept art

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All three PS2 Ratchets are great, though the first one's a bit unrefined (namely that it doesn't directly have strafing; you have to use the rocket attachment for Clank to hover, and then strafe there, as opposed to ability to just strafe side to side). Ratchet's attitude towards Clank can also be rather jarring, as for a fair bit of the game he's holding a serious grudge against the little robot, and can be downright mean. It does make their friendship after he grows out of it (and in subsequent games) more endearing though, as they've put it behind them. Really, if you get a chance, play the ones you missed.

Was Sony's gutting of Naughty Dog worse than Microsoft's gutting of Rare?

I assume so he would have more time to train and grow so when he was ready he would go back to the future.

There's a pretty funny bug I've encountered from switching from hardware and software emulation back and forth. Jack ends up with both his eyes but only one of them is animated so he has a lazy eye.

When I tried to emulate it, that was happening, and then Keira came in and had bizarre green glitched bug eyes. I was laughing so hard.

>TLoU picture

That black kid a dude, he just happens to be a "passable" trap. Therefore, the pictures are not 1-to-1 (Unless, this Neil fellow considers traps to be girls).

Depends on how you look at it. ND has only made Uncharted and TLoU since they finished Jak. Meanwhile, beginning with the 360, Microsoft had Rare release 14 different titles (6 of which belonged to two different IPs). So, I'd say Sony was the more brutal since Microsoft at least "used" Rare to make something.

Do they emulate well?
My PS2 is so dusty and old, and the last time I played it I booted up Path of Neo and it played at like a constant 20 fps and I don't know if that was the game itself or what.

I think it's worth noting that I have trouble telling the two apart because creative art direction and appropriate use of bright colors and character designs have all gone out the window in favor of "realism™"

Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Nuts and Bolts, and Killer Instinct and that pirate game they have on the way all look like bland shit, but at least they've established a different look and feel.

It was the game and not the console.

Jak 2 was super off-putting in concept, but when you actually playthrough it the veneer of grimdark edge starts to dissipate and you find it's actually a really good story that uses the whole "edgy, grim" transition in the smartest way possible.

It feels a lot like a coming of age story. At first, Jak is a scowling edgelord whose all about MUH REVENGE. But as the game goes on, it becomes clear that he's actually just a vulnerable loner who still wants to be a hero, and by the end he realizes his revenge isn't nearly as important as saving the world.

It's sort of like Jak hit puberty, became an angry teenager and grew out of it.

Hopefully they'll sell the liscense to someone else like they did Crash Bandicoot, and someone will put out a decent sequel.


I shudder to fucking think. It's bad enough what they did to Kratos.

nice gameplay

Jak 2 was trying a little too hard to be edgy, and have Jak act dark. They calmed him down a lot in 3 IIRC. That said I prefer the environments in Jak 2 more.

well, he did get an angel form

Yeah, he even says something like "I feel better" after getting it too. But even before that I don't remember him being as edgy. They also nerfed the hover-board in 3 so that pissed me off. Although the infinite flying glitch was fun if you got it down right.

Post pics of your mom.

It was, but it also sucked

And, I don't disagree. Jak 3 was way better.

but it was still lacking, especially in the drama department.
When they revealed whats-his-face was still alive, kor or whatever.
When Jak's dad died.
And they took out a scene where the monk chick gets killed by the dark eco creatures.
and of course we can't forget the furry precursors

It all ends up feeling so underwhelming and anti-climactic

Going Commando is good too. After that, well…

You're making me remember dumb shit like Cyber Errol. Please stop!

nah, if I have to remember it so do you

What they should have done was turn it into a cutesy mario-esque GTA ripoff open world shooter.