Jak 1 and 2 Reviews

Jak & Daxter beaten again. Far from an unbiased opinion so I'll keep this summary brief. But as a platformer it's fantastic. With one of the best game-feels from the era. Probably thanks in part to the shared experience and advice between Naughty Dog and insomniac, good ol days of friendly collaboration huh. I think it shows in how ready they were to change up the series after GTA3 happened. As well as the success from that change on a gameplay level. The collectathon stuff is fine, but the game is 100% better for going more linear and actiony in it's sequels. Which did lead me to one final thought, but why I consider TOTK not as good as sequel as it could have been. I point to all of the PS2 mascot platformer trilogies and the massive improvements each entry in those franchises brought. Perhaps that's an unfair comparison when you consider the scope of TOTK and modern game development. But it's one I want to make regardless. Jak 2 Completed *I'm gonna **kill Praxis*** Naughty Dog releases a true classic of the collectathon. Directly taking from the gameplay and systems of stuff like Banjo Kazooie or Mario while adding their own fun spin on things. With lots of cool item interactions and extremely expressive and fluid animations. Then GTA3 drops and the entire landscape of the industry changes overnight. You can't just do another Jak & Daxter, I mean that'd just be stale, it'd be too kiddy, not seen as viable. But hang on, nobody has an issue with the gameplay. The core jumping and combat is fun as ever, your buddies at Sucker Punch and Insomniac aren't even having to hard pivot. But why.... Oh, of course. It's staring you right in the face. It's the tagline of so many cheesy things. "Fun for the whole family." And thus, a twist into the more adult, adding weapons and vehicles, (which you already were pretty close to in Jak & Daxter) swapping the collectathon for a mission based system... Oh wow you don't even need to change much, most of Jak & Daxters best parts were already linear. Is it still kinda goofy? Of course it's got a weird little furry bastard in it. If we don't take ourselves too seriously we can really nail that dreamworks-style middle ground. And when all is said and done, you have an utterly fantastic 3D action platformer, with a good sense of humour, wonderfully creative dystopian setting, the same emotive animation and art style with just a touch more edge to everything, and all the GTA inspired additions only compliment the core gameplay. Maybe it's a little overtuned in difficulty, maybe there's some design hiccups. But that's what sequels are for. Idk how the real route of Jak 2s development went. But my point is less about how it happened, more how it happened *so well.*

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