The Critical Flaw That Haunted Jak And Daxter
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Once upon a time there was a series that could. Jak And Daxter. A series revered to this day. Unfortunatly, with the benfit of hindsight we can look at Jak And Daxter and see what exactly went wrong. Why is it that this series basically fell off the map after it was all said and done. In my estimation, every problem with the series can be traced back to one critical flaw. The inability to find a distinct identity.
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Remember what I said at the end of the video, feel free to disagree, but keep it civil.
Yeah i most likely disagree with mostly your point of things about Jak and Daxter trilogy but i respect your opinion . It does make since as a business perspective to change the formula to super Mario 64 style to Grand theft auto style. so far as the driving cars in Jak2 they definitely improve the driving system in the later sequels while every one say that it doesn’t know what it wanted be, it still stay true to it self and took some risk while other video games wasn’t doing it at the time and sure it have it’s flaws like the story department and the game being so short but after all it’s not as bad as people seen to make it be but at the end I’m ok with every one having different perspective or them not liking the Jak and Daxter franchise for what ever reasons.
@@GUSLOL161 Ohh, we got a sass master in the house.
@@GUSLOL161 Could you try typing that out again, this time in English!
@@TBP I agree with your points said in the video and we have a similar stance. But after your comment I was going to bait you with "pee pee poopoo brain you're wrong"
But damn... looks like some troglodyte already beat me to it ha...
Anyway keep up the good work man I really enjoy your videos!
@@kristopher4557 troglodyte is a word that not nearly enough people use.
Jak and daxter 1 is my favourite. It’s just a simple and easy game to pick up and play whereas jak 2 turned me into a man before my time
Jak 2 turned me into one pissed off 7 year old.
I never heard it described perfectly, thank you
Jak 2 turned me into a serious lore fan, as a fricking child. What kind of child likes serious lore with dark topics? Kids that played jak 2
@@skycrapty1882 you're right, Jak 2 was my first game and i don't like games ho doesn't have lore of the world, i like, no... i love hearing guards talking to each others about the metal head war, the paranoia the guards have with Jak and the resistance, some other guards ho want to kill civilians and with the tanks the civilians doesn't make other riot (which means the people are annoying with Praxis and the guards).
That kind of things add a lot charisma and expectation of the world and game's plot
@@Just-a-Merican-Girl yess it did I feel that 😂
I think the identity in the Jak series was made by the people that it attracted. Rather than having one specific genre, it meshed together a series of different ones to give the players a variety rather than "oh, I have to run through here. Now there, now here again, levels done."
It was chaotic, the time travel theories, the history of Mar, Damas possibly being Jaks father, sarcasm, explosions, flying Cars, eco, Mad Max, firepower. It gave everyone a sense of touching all different sides and styles of games people enjoyed and gave everyone the option to either stare at a sunset or go blow up some shiny headed dinosaurs in a sandstorm while finding artifacts, with a timer and everything's on fire.
I think the series was great, I do see exactly where you're coming from when it comes to identity crisis and whatnot but I think it was a beautiful series and the chaos was only the tip of the iceberg.
It’s funny I just don’t think that a game having variety means it has an identity crisis
Jak 2 was incredible. It knew what it wanted to be, it was an action game based in the universe of Jak 1. It was 80% action hero game, and 20% fantasy. Once in awhile you would go somewhere like Haven Forest or Mountain Temple where you'd be reminded that this is the same land of Jak 1, and that was such a cool feeling. It was like a post apocalyptic version of Jak 1
One of the absolutely amazing things about Jak 2 is how it's a post-apocalyptic game where you get to properly experience and fall in love with the pre-apocalypse world.
The Precursor Legacy perfected the flow and formula of 3D collectathons in a time where no one appreciated it anymore
I just wish Naught Dog had time to finish it. If all the hubs were as polished as Green Sages hut, the game would've been literally perfect. Reading the JaD design bible and seeing what was cut is heart breaking. The game is noticeably more rushed in terms of feeling, story telling and over all detail as you progress. I mean heck, the yellow sage didn't even get a hub!
"Jak 3 is repetitive" 2 minutes later "Jak 3 tries to do too much" Man make up your mind
14:30 I glad you called out how naughty dog did kiara dirty throughout the trilogy in favor of ashland, who was obviously supposed to be with torn but they want that long awaited kiss to be with the hottest chicken I guess and tried to make up for it in the following game.
I love all of your typos here, especially "hottest chicken" 😂
I think Ashlyn was just Amy Hennig's preferred character of the two. Keira being the youthful girl-next-door precocious affection and Ashlyn being the mature woman who has suffered through hardship and temptation just as Jak has.
As with most things in 3 the execution let down that aspect of the story.
The reason why Kiara was left out at the end is because during the production of the third game the voice actress wasn't available. Don't remember if is was from work overload or health issues but they end deciding not giving much lines for Kiara and hook up Jak with Ashelin. I think the issue is more about lack of context on how things end like that.
The game play and style mix & mach of the games is the reason why me and other people love them. PS2 era was the last time when you could still have games like that.
And while Jak 2 is pre-teen edgy it's still hasba sokid story and Daxter is actually funny unlike in the first game.
Hey, what about Daxter's own game?!
I take 2000's edge over the 2010s "le self-referential and quirky XD" anyday.
@@NihilisticIdealist I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with you. I'm so tired of the self referential humor that plagued a lot of series during the 2010s. Case in point SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.
The problem is that the Jak games weren't experimenting for the sake of experimenting or because they knew what they wanted. Innovation isn't "throwing everything at the wall until something sticks". It's building off what you already did in unique ways. Like, by your logic, shouldn't Assassin's Creed Valhalla automatically be considered innovative simply because it combines Parkour, A Witcher style RPG and combat, Stealth and sailing?
There's a saying in game development: "A game that has everything has no time for anything". The best games are those that pick 1 or 2 concepts and make those the best they can rather than implement lots of features that aren't as fleshed out.
This is actually one of the reasons cited by Naughty Dog themselves why the Jak and Daxter series never took off the same way its peers like Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet did. Because in their own words, they "threw the kitchen sink" at Jak. It had Platforming like Crash Bandicoot, but also gunplay like Ratchet, driving and racing like racing games, and an open world like GTA3 and skateboarding like Tony Hawk. Plus a ton of one off minigames. The end result was a series of games pulled in so many directions that few were satisfied. For example, if you were a fan of GTA3, you wouldn't like Jak 2 as much because the open world gameplay was limited and much of the game was platforming and linear driving missions. If you were a fan of Tony Hawk games, you wouldn't like Jak 2 as much because you had to play through a lot of platforming, driving and shooting levels to get to the skateboarding levels which were pretty short. And if you were a fan of platforming, well, only 1/3rd of your playtime in Jak 3 would be platforming. If the Jak games picked maybe 1 or 2 concepts max and built a game around them, then they'd likely be more popular. Like, Ratchet was built around platforming and shooting and it's doing great. Sly was built around platforming and stealth and it lasted longer. GTA was built on open world chaos and gunplay and loot at it. Tony Hawk went all in on Skateboarding so there's a reason why THPS 1, 2 and 3 are so fondly remembered but not the later games which added more fluff in.
@@FraserSouris Lots of text. But I think I agree.
@@FraserSouris Jak was still a platformer at its core, they just added a few new things to stay fresh
Grand Theft Ottsel. I liked that pun too much.
With this video I finally realize why I like Jak and Daxter so much. Specifically Jak 3. You explain how much of a melting pot it is by being a 3rd person shooter, a racer, a platformer, a combat racer and a skateboarding game. Because Jak was one of my first game series ever it's melting pot behavior allowed me to hone in on the genres of games that I like. After Jak 3 I went on to play Ratchet and Clank, GTA, NFS, Burnout, Destruction Derby Arenas, Twisted Metal, Crash, Prince of Persia and Tony Hawk. The Jak and Daxter series allowed me to figure out a bunch of different that I would like and for it's discovery I love the games. They were my first experience with these different genres and if I never played them I never would have had the itch to scratch to play all of these types of things again.
The precursor legacy is still one of my favorite games to this day. Even as a kid I always felt that the jump from the first to second game was extremely unnatural, to me it never really felt like the games went together cohesively to make a trilogy. I often wonder what the Jak games would be like if they didn't pull a massive time skip into the future.
It feels like Jak 2 tried so hard to be edgy that they would intentionally misspell it as "edjy" to show of its own edjiness. It was pretty evident in the characters' names, such as Torn, Krew, Kor, Praxis, Razer, etc.
In a perfect world, this is what I’d do with the franchise:
- A new rebooted trilogy of games that all follow the ideas and gameplay of the first game
- A sequel trilogy which follows the gameplay of Jak 2 and 3
6 games in total. This way we get the best of both worlds, new games similar to the first which can really focus in on the 3D platformer elements while also developing Jak 2 and 3 into a more fleshed out trilogy
That way they could transition into the style of the later games more gradually.
Fuck yourself if you want a reboot.
There are a lot of problems with that idea in 2022.
Firstly, The Jak games haven't sold very well. Committing to 6 more games when the franchise is lucky to have 1 major success in a market that has moved on is risky in the best condition. Even if Trilogy 1 is a success, you have no guarantee that its audience will be interested in Trilogy 2. Like, look at Assassin's Creed. It recently shifted to a Witcher inspired RPG form and many of its previous audience dislike that. Call of Duty had a string of futuristic games from 2012-2017 and many disliked them so much that COD went back to a Boots on the Ground Model. So when you establish a franchise as like a Mario 64 inspired Collectathon and then after 3 games, pivot to a story heavy GTA meets Tony Hawk Meets Ratchet meets Mario hybrid, you will likely turn some of those earlier fans off.
Secondly, even if you go with the 2 trilogy approach, you'll likely split the fanbase even further. Currently, it's split between Jak 1 and Jak 2/3 fans. If you make the first trilogy focused on Jak 1, you alienate Jak 2/3 fans that have been waiting for their game.
Thirdly, devloping a trilogy itself is also not feasible because of how intensive and difficult game development is now. As an example, Santa Monica recently announced that their plan for a new God of War trilogy starting with God of War 2018 is now a 2 game series just so the story could be finished in a reasonable amount of time since each game takes 5+ years to make now. Ubisoft used to make a new Assasin's Creed game a year and now have to push it to 1 every 3-4 years after Unity's terrible launch. Even assuming a 3 year cycle per Jak game and that nothing goes wrong during that time, it means that trilogy 1 will span an entire console lifespan and it will take 18 years for all 6 games to come out. And that's the best case. It's more likely that enforcing a trilogy means each game gets less time and resources than if each game was more standalone.
And fourthly, how do you make 2 more games for each style of Jak game? Jak 1's style is already considered retro with Indie games replicating it. So how do you make a trilogy of Jak 1 games while making each game iterate and improve on what came before in 2022? In something like Mario's case, they accomplished it by having pretty big gaps in between their games and giving each new 3D mario a new gimmick like Water in Sunshine, Planets in Galaxy and Cappy in Oddyessy. And even then, it helps that it was Mario branding the games so they would have sold well regardless of their quality. And Jak2/3 are filled with so many conflicting design deciesions that making a trilogy from them means either continuing with the Kitchen Sink, in which case, the games continue not having an identiy, or you double down on a few ideas like the GTA style gameplay, in whuch case, you remove that excessive vaerity many Jak 2/3 fans like, and you have to compete with GTA directly.
Personally, I think Jak should remain dormant. There's nothing it really brings to 2022 that makes it unqiue and worth playing over other games. If I want to play a fun collecathon platformer, there's Mario. If I want to play any number of good shooters, they're there. If I want to play a racing game or Skateboaridng game, those are covered as well. Why play a Jak game with a mediocre execution of all these ideas when I could play indivudal games that flesh out all these systems?
But if Jak must come back, my only suggestion is to lean into that craziness with a reboot. Make it an early 2000s style throwback. That way, the janky gameplay is framed as "an endearing aspect of an earlier area" rather than janky gameplay. Though it would also be better to try focusing on just platforming and GTA style gameplay at most to get that focused gameplay.
@@FraserSouris you're right it would be extremely difficult to reboot the jak franchise if not impossible to do this. But let's say hypothetically The Jak games gets an reboot, i would say it has to be developed by an team as passionate and talented as Insomniac Games.
Imo I think Insomniac Games might be the only ones to "revive" the jak games but who knows
@@hypernel1798 It wouldnt even be hard nowadays to make a clone of the games with some changes. If i was less lazy and hated technical problems less I would take time to learn to dev solely for purpose of making a sims clone and jak and daxter clone. Sims in particular I find bewildering in same way as Battlefield. Both are severely mistreated unique games but dont have high quality copycat games being made.
i'd disagree with jak x if anything it was the most consistent part of the series. as vehicle segments had been a main stay as far back as the first game and is the only thing that stayed in all 3 games.
I liked Jak 2 for combining platforming and GTA style gameplay
but.... it was the only thing like GTA my parents would let me have at the time which may have made me like it more than i would otherwise have!
I really liked your viewpoints, great video. I think that a lot of what I liked about the series was nostalgia, I played these three games on release day and they were really fun, but at the same time I was definitely disappointed with how everything changed in Jak 2 like you said. Jak 2 and 3 still had good lore, characters and story. If I had to sum it up, each Jak game is good, but the series as a whole is very inconsistent. Some of it was in their control, some may not have been, but it was definitely worth playing through. For me I'd say Crash ≈ Jak > Uncharted >>> Last of Us
I quite like Jak and Daxter, such a shame it never got a sequel.
Jak 2 had a more fun open world than any AC or Far Cry so far. I'd rather go back to the same bar/building to get my quests than visit 2 million unimportant, blah areas with thousands of markers showing loot that only has value to the biggest nerds.
My guy, Jak 2 knew exactly what it wanted to be. A post apocalyptic jak 1 and it executed fabulously. Just because it incorporates different gameplay mechanics doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s actually amazing how well they executed and meshed everything together. This was a triple A title at the time and it deserves ALL the praise it gets.
I agree. I never knew people disliked the game for what they term as an "identity crisis" until recently. Not saying it's free from criticism but Jak 2's dystopian Sci Fi theme was an interesting change from the first and could function as a standalone game in my opinion. The plot elements were also present in the first game so the continuity of the series makes sense to me.
@@Sol-Amar I would argue that almost all the interesting lore comes from Jak 2. It's actually a testament to how it basically IS the series' identity. Jak 1's allusions to the mystery are just that, allusions, while Jak 2 builds what 3, X and Daxter are all centered around. The events in Haven have not been topped in terms of importance.
I loved jak 2 lol. I remember being a kid a d thinking that tone shift was the coolest unexpected thing ever
I believe that the only way this story can truly move forward is for them to find/rebuild the Time Machine. Go back in time to when we opened the rift gate and the metal heads raided earth. Take the guns out introduce new weapons and uses for eco all while somehow maintaining the movement and tight platforming of the first three games.
I still go back and play the trilogy at 30 years old, my personal favorite duo from the early 2000’s. Those 8 year old kids are a prime example of young people thinking they’re older than they are, also despite kids playing GTA it’s still made for mature audiences (not 8 year olds).
Never have I ever felt the stabbing pain of the double edged sword that is freedom of speech like I did watching this video. I would pay any amount of money to have this video taken down so that this poison doesn't get to anyone else's ears.
Exaggeration much?
Dont get me wrong, Jak and Daxter is a masterpiece in my eyes and I disagree with a lot of what he said.
But in the end of the day that's how he sees it and feels towards it.
Isn't it a bit disrespectful to throw out a man's opinions and hard work making a video on a topic he feels strongly towards just because you disagree?
Bruh even Naughty Dog themselves have agreed with that statement.
This is actually one of the reasons cited by Naughty Dog themselves why the Jak and Daxter series never took off the same way its peers like Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet did. Because in their own words, they "threw the kitchen sink" at Jak. It had Platforming like Crash Bandicoot, but also gunplay like Ratchet, driving and racing like racing games, and an open world like GTA3 and skateboarding like Tony Hawk. Plus a ton of one off minigames. The end result was a series of games pulled in so many directions that few were satisfied. For example, if you were a fan of GTA3, you wouldn't like Jak 2 as much because the open world gameplay was limited and much of the game was platforming and linear driving missions. If you were a fan of Tony Hawk games, you wouldn't like Jak 2 as much because you had to play through a lot of platforming, driving and shooting levels to get to the skateboarding levels which were pretty short. And if you were a fan of platforming, well, only 1/3rd of your playtime in Jak 3 would be platforming. If the Jak games picked maybe 1 or 2 concepts max and built a game around them, then they'd likely be more popular. Like, Ratchet was built around platforming and shooting and it's doing great. Sly was built around platforming and stealth and it lasted longer. GTA was built on open world chaos and gunplay and loot at it. Tony Hawk went all in on Skateboarding so there's a reason why THPS 1, 2 and 3 are so fondly remembered but not the later games which added more fluff in.
I'm a diehard fan of this trilogy since infancy but the points he made are all valid and respectable. It's a good video and made me realise crucial things about the games.
@@FraserSouris stop fucking spamming
@@aliceinwonderland4395 I recommend TinyKin, It's a 3d platformer inspired by Ratchet and Jak.
Jak and Daxter 1 is a smooth masterpiece. Beautiful storytelling. Great music, great sound effects, visually stunning and good voice actors. Jak 2 just gets worse. It totally derails from its original focus. It could have been the best platformer legacy ever. Instead they made up a convoluted story, made Jak a cringy emo edgelord and just inserted themes at random (GTA, Tony Hawk etc). There are no iconic lines like: "Even the rocks do not recall". Because it's just action slog.
This video disliking Jak and Daxter 1 is embarrassing to watch, it was excellent for its time. The first 6 minute intro of Jak and Daxter is better then all the sequels combined. The pacing, humor, character introductions, voice actors, motivations, world state, it is a work of art. Jak 2 starts with a 2 year torture scene after which you become some dumb muscle running around like a GTA character hijacking vehicles. This isn't a thematic shift, its just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks (all in the name of greed, which ironically failed, their sales halved). A focused passion product that isn't corrupted by the latest hot trend is always better. Jak and Daxter 1 sold more in America alone than Jak 2 sold worldwide. GTA already dominated its genre, so Jak and Daxter should have stayed the course and dominated theirs, no one wants to play 20 GTA's (unless you want to believe two 8 year old retards from a focus group *cringe*
Bruh at the end of the video he says that Jak 1 is his top 1 and second would be Jak X followed by Lost frontier. Did you even watch it till the end or just got stuck with him not liking a game that you like without ay context?
we talk about how old games had inconsistencies and abnormalities but all of them were superior to the "well-crafted" "streamlined" "consistent" garbage titles we get today
It's funny. I remember GTA 3 being a thing and I thought it was one of the worst games I ever played bc of the core gameplay mechanics it had. A lot of the gameplay mechanic issues you explained with these games I felt gta 3 had. I honestly didn't start liking gta until gta 4. I mean gta vice city and gta san andreas were decent games too, but had their issues. The jak games to me were cool and I liked the change each game had. There was a lot of charcter development with jak and dexter. The games were all unique in their own ways. I'll agree that jak 2 felt really messy with some of the game mechanics and 2 and 3 had some missions that felt super annoying to do and could've been left out. Tho they were good games with good story overall. I think all 3 games are in desperate need of a remake tho.
I can see that, but for me Jak 2 and Jak 3 fixed many of the issues GTA 3 had like its so clunky autoaim system that makes everything feels like a rail shooter, i even prefer GTA 2 gameplay because of that.
There are still others that bothers me though, especially in Jak 2, where the driving is so narrow and the vehicles are even more weaker than GTA 3.
"Let's be civil here people,"
Me: Sadly puts the pitch fork down
This series made me a gamer when I was 9... I would buy a remake, a reboot, a sequel, anything!
I don't know how this guy can say he doesn't like Jak 1-3...... deranged lol XD
Jak II missions is easy, but the checkpoint system is kinda hard, if u fail u have to do everything again.
I think for first players isnt easy though. Im consider good at videogames and my first time was a bad time. Now i find it easy, like Dark Souls players that completed it tons of times would find also easy.
Gameplay wise, sure, 2 and 3 are messy. But there was no mention of how compelling and original the story felt for Jak 2. The story telling, though childish at times, was brilliantly done. I've found myself just watching the cutscences for recreation recently, that's how I ended up on the Jak & Daxter side of UA-cam.
If Jak 3’s gameplay was in the sequel it wouldn’t have been so polarized. There was way way better, eco powers and melee in the 3rd game like the first.
I was 10 when Jak 2-3 come out. I was one of those kids playing GTA (trying just drive when my parent look at the TV). And even with that age, I remember think about the inconsistency of the 2 and 3 games. I was just a kid but still remember to ask "wtf now is just Jak in the title". Of course nobody cares, they were hyped about the dark Jak and the weapons. I know some people love that kind of changes, but for me where a no sense at the moment, even I was 10.
Also I think is importan to value the relationship with Inmsoniac. Both were super close (guess why both Racket and Jak have a little friend). But clearly in the first game of each franquise, one was more tied to the past while the other trully understood better what have to do. Naughty Dog tried to compesate that in the following games. They decided not to be outdated at any cost. Even paying the coherence of the franquise as price.
I love this trilogy to pieces. It's underrated for It's technically quality and every title has something to offer. But it had to be the series that bridged the old and the new. Compared to Ratchet and Clank, which was a series that was still cartoony but with more mature jokes and slowly became more dramatic. Jak and Daxter went from a lovable 2D platformer, to a dark and dramatic action flick. Not exactly a smooth transition regardless of the high quality.
the Jak and Daxter series is one of the few series that actually needs a reboot.
take the story of a village boy collecting artifacts that ends up in bad situation where he has to save the world and deals with dark themes over the course of multiple games with a coherent and connected plot
And here I thought my disinterest in Jak 2 was simply due to me liking collectathons far more than sandboxes.
Though let's be fair, that's probably a decent chunk of it.
The earth being flat in Lost Frontier was contradictory. The third game clearly established that space exists and that the planet has a center.
This is the opinion of someone who wants consistency whereas most Jak and Daxter fans love creativity which is what the series mainly is creativity like he said 10 games in one and it all fits perfectly and we get this amazing story with a fandom that still crying for Jak 4 20 years later. I don't agree with this guy because he's consistent and not creative
Unironically for a series that used to be called a "GTA clone" back when open world was still in it's "Doom era," it remains the one platformer that's essentially GTA on crack. There's not a single other game that's basically a GTA platformer. Such a combination was a bold choice then, and it's a bold choice now. It satisfies a niche most studios would not really dare dabble into these days.
could you argue that Naughty Dog started following the trend of games that are trying to be like movies?
I prefer the later 2 games over the first but I see your point.
I think a reboot would be the best option but it's still a gamble.Reboots are anything goes and the developers can't serve every faction of the fandom. They are gonna pick and choose what they want and leave the rest.
Instead of the GTA direction, I think legend of Zelda would've been a good model. Each new game has a land to explore and new problems to overcome.
Ironically Sonic Boom would've been better off as a Jak and Daxter reboot. Maybe just get those guys to come in and do it? They could use a win after Sega screwed them over.
An FF7R style remake could work but that overlaps with a reboot to me.
The Lost Frontier has similar problems to Thieves in Time but I think the Lost Frontier's issues are easier to fix.
Jak and daxter is a video game
I'm glad they took the game in a new direction. Jak 2 saved the series by standing out from the other platformers. I just wish that we had more games.
Also: Ashelin > Kiera
The Lost Frontier is beyond broken.
When I played the game in hero mode, I decided to watch a cutscene during a mission while taking a break, and that caused the mission order to bug out and skipped half the game.
I'm surprised you didn't talk about the Daxter games
Oof that was brutal. Jak 2 is one of my favorite games ever and the franchise is one of my favorite PS2 series. I always thought it was fun that the games mixed the gameplay up. Still respect and love your content though TBP
>Didn't even review Daxter but would review the other PSP title "The lost frontier"
Ok
Well A, this is not a review, and B, I was playing the PS2 version of The Lost Frontier, I don't own a PSP nor do I own Daxter.
Aw. No mention of the Daxter PSP spin-off
It’s sort of funny, all of your gripes about the series are what I enjoy about it. I like how scattered and random the gameplay was, feel like there won’t be a game like it ever again. But I played these games as a kid and I’ve replayed them since and sure they get boring or frustrating, but I think any game from 2003 would too.
I just love the world they created, and they always added something fresh, whether it made sense or not.
I respectfully disagree. Saying that any game from 2003 was either boring and/or frustrating is a big fat lie and an unnecessary generalization.
I played the original Ratchet & Clank trilogy and the only frustrating thing I crossed was some very specific areas near the end of the game of the first game, the second and third refined everything. The same goes with Sly Cooper, the only frustrating section was the crocodile boss fight that had calibration issues, but that was it, the second and third games were basically flawless.
One thing is for games to have frustrating sections, no game escapes from that even today, but it's a whole another thing when a complete game is filled just frustrating mechanics that don't blend well for the entire game and that's bad, what you like is what actually killed the trilogy.
So as I disagreed with you, all I'm saying is this is a Jak & Daxter problem and not gaming in general for that time, heck the same team made the Crash Bandicoot games, older games that were flawless for their time c'mon!!!
PS: Part of game design is that you're actually supposed to make sense of what you're adding, sorry but I cringed when I read the last part of your comment.
i wish there was an interquel that takes place during and after the events of the first game, but....i'm not sure if it would work.
14:32 Finally. After all these years someone else says it. I no longer feel alone on this.
What happened to Keira after Jak 1 has been one of my biggest frustrations with the series. I will never forgive Naughty Dog for the following crimes against my waifu:
>Having changed Keira's voice actress. (Regardless of reasons, a voice change is a voice change.)
>Having relegated her to be a minor character. I don't even remember her talking in Jak 3.
>And for some reason, I never liked her 3D model in Jak 2 and 3. Her Jak 1 model stands as my favorite to this day. Not to mention that her forehead seemed bigger by Jak 2 and 3.
I haven't played Jak X or Lost Frontier. I know Keira is in there, but just haven't had the chance to check them. Nor I hate Ashleen, but there was no reason to just minimize Keira the way they did.
This is a good critique without being offensive, a hard thing to do. And these are my favorite games, but i can hear what your saying and it makes sense. Growing up with these games though has cemented them in my memory as something awesome and i always felt bewildered by how radically they changed things from game to game.
Jak II has always been my favorite of the series, (still is), but hearing a differing opinion is enlightening. I just like the darker tone, dystopian backstage, and difficulty ramp up, but the points you make are valid. Good video man.
I agree...
Jak II checkpoints where almost inexistent and the vehicles where to "greasy and slidy"
At 9:09 ive always thought you had to jet- board the whole way back on the docks ive beaten the game prolly 20 times ive always done that lol
Same
The Plottwist that the precuser are not lightform meta beings destroyed the whole something bigger effect & the whole Quality of the Lore.
Yeah thinking about it, they kind of sacrificed a lot of the lore on the altar of a joke that wasn't really funny.
The psp Daxter game was my favourite in the series, to be fair I haven’t played it in years and im thinking on nostalgia
bruh but the movement is so much fun
Well, i've never played Jak but it's seems pretty good :), and looking the 3 games together you really can see they are very lost in what to do.
I think this a good example for Begginer Devs, who wants to make a BIG GAME with A LOT OF FEATURES AND GAMEPLAYS JUST BECAUSE YES, well in the majority of times people struggle doing that because of the lack of experience, but here we are talking about NAUGHY DOG, they are very competent people, and even them making a game with a lot of different concepts it's still shows that less is more
So I other words, if the creators didn’t try to be tendy, the other two games could have been more well received
What about the Daxter game plus I say "the Jak and Daxter series is about the adventures of a guy and a otsel" that's the closest I can get to a cohesive statement
this is certainly an... _interesting_ review.
pretty much every single thing that people love about each of these games you somehow managed to twist it into being a bad part of the game. even what was _praised_ about these games when they first released by game reviewers of the time. one of the only things ive seen people genuinely complain about that you've shared here is the repetitiveness of the early game of Jak III
I liked all the Jak Games with the exception of the last frontier. It.was kinda doing it's own thing and it did it well. Even when it took a 270 turn it was still being both unique and familiar.
Couldn't have said it better myself. The first game gave us a premise that had a lot of promise, and I would have loved to see where they had gone with it if it weren't for the cancer that is focus group testing turning it into GTA Blade Runner and Mad Max.
I actually like a direction of Stylized Edgy setting of Jak 3 (my first game in a series). Yeah, i can agree with your reasonable criticism, but i still think that this edgy but cartoonish setting can be good if it's done right.
Another great vid TB - soundly put & agree completely! Loved The Precursor Legacy, Jak II (though an ok game) was such a jarring tonal shift after just one game - makes all kinds of sense now seeing Naughty Dog were trying to channel GTA III - and Jak 3 just felt very lost overall. Thus, one big identity crisis.
It's wonderfully refreshing to find someone who shares these thoughts on franchises and gets people talking about them in depth :)
Funnily enough, I recently had a conversation with a colleague who had never played the series and asked me to sum it up. I struggled! XD
I picked the HD trilogy recently. I played through the first one and unwittingly ended up Platinum'ing it. It wasn't anything *special*, but it was a rock solid collect-a-thon. I fired up the second game immediately after and... yeah. Sure was a departure.
Now I heard that it was edgier and all GTA-like and I didn't actually mind that at all because I found the tone and the characters of the original to be fairly bland. Giving them an edge would do them good IMO. It's the gameplay that didn't do it for me. Dying was way too easy and the city is such a pain in the ass to navigate - GTA had interconnected streets and there were multiple routes towards the mission area depending on where you were, but in Jak II it's always the same route so if you're two whole districts away, you need to go through them in order so you could reach the objective, and the streets and hovercar paths are super cluttered.
I went on a business trip shortly after and didn't finish the game, but when I got back... I didn't bother finishing it. I just played some PS3 Ratchet and Clank instead.
I hated the driving in 2 that as a kid I never got farther than the 3rd or 4th mission. I hated the lack of checkpoints too because it was too hard. I beat the first and third game a bunch of times each, the first game was the first game I ever beat. I decided a year or so ago to go back and beat jak 2. Never again. It was good but it has so many design choices I hate and I only beat it as an unfinished business thing
Good lord... it's not that hard....
Everything you hate about the series I love about the series . it’s kind of funny.
I liked Jak and Daxter when Jak 3 came out. But fell in Love with Rachet and Clank, because that was my first 3d platformer on ps2
I'm surprised you didn't mention the Daxter PSP game
Great Video. I completely disagree.
>Every clip of him in Jak II is spin jump and blaster
>Complains about running out of ammo
Lmao
23:39 i looked at this concept art, and i wasn't a fan of it either. i was like, "What is this? Is this jak and daxter, Or F***ing Microsoft's Fable?"
This game turned into what it was because GTA changed what was "the game", and also, platformers were a failing genre at that point...
You honestly deserve more visibility, because this was a really well thought out retrospective. Kudos! 😎
I don't agree with everything in this video especially the lost frontier part. There is no roll or rolljump which mean no autolock with gun and the overhaul feel of the gameplay is terrible. You can’t high jump out of a ground pound. Think don’t connect correctly it just doesn’t feel right. And the story is garbage. The only saving grace is the DaxterJak thing when you send daxter stealing stuff. That was cool.
While you are entitled to your opinion, I do agree with a lot of things you said. Like how Jak 2 was created under the heavy influence of GTA3. Even today, I find it weird. And the including of guns even though you an die so easily. Back then, that sounded messy but today, with games like Dark Souls or whatever difficult games are popular, it's paractically normal. Also, Ashelin as the main female character in Jak 2 and 3 really ticked me off because she was boring. I prefer Kiera who was a more upbeat character. And the villain in Jak 3, Errol. Even I had to search which character that was in that game. Anyway, I liked your video but I still think the Jak Trilogy was great.
Hey I really want to see what you think of The Last Of Us and Uncharted, I personally love both of the game franchises but it’s always interesting to watch it from a standpoint of someone who doesn’t like it. I also loved the entirety of the Jak Trilogy but it was fun to watch it be torn apart for some of its flaws. Keep up the great work, will definitely tune in for your reviews of The Last Of Us and Uncharted!😁
First I have to add that Crash did not surpass Sonic. Just because the world thought so doesn't mean it was actually the case. We both know you don't agree with the generally positive reception for R&C2016, which is considered one of the best R&C games, especially before RA.
This _review_ is dishonest and way too narrow. You label it a flaw that you revisit locations, but you never acknowledge the fact that you're exploring a new section compared to the last time you were there. I also find that a silly complaint for an openworld game, wherein the idea should be to revisit locations so that it feels, you know, like an openworld and not a linear game wherein all you do is move forward or select levels from a hub only one time. This is the legitimate mistake The Precursor Legacy made by not justifying why it needed an openworld format, when it turns out to just be a glorifed hub with no loading screens.
From this point on it might show how lazy I had become by this point and really forced myself to write something, as your tangents were off the rails.
12:00mins in. Yep, alright, so this is going to go like some of the other generic critical Jak II/Jak 3 reviews after all. It's the same collection of complaints as everyone else: the difficulty, driving, etc. But once you falsely said the Jak II lost "all its charm from the first game", heavily exaggerated the edginess of the series, called it a GTA wannabe (which is among one of widest misconceptions an anti-support can have), and critiqued the tone in such a narrowminded way, that's when I knew this wasn't going to be a high quality video. Like with the tone, the game is literally informing the player from the beginning what they're in store for and what to expect. There's a term for this but I forgot what it is. And did you even watch the beginning cutscene? The game does an incredible job shifting tones with that single opening FIRST cutscene. The game didn't have to do that and could have just lazily threw you into world the way it was with no context of any kind. GTA - anyone who thinks it's trying to be like or is that game just puts their own ignorance front and center. Jak II doesn't focus on its city hub, platforming is still a focus, and Jak is still going to the sectioned off levels as he did in TPL. The inspirations it takes from GTA aren't enough to classify it as a clone, because it still has that TPL dna prevalent in the gameplay. The GTA aspect is more of a faux-display or secondary feature to pull people from GTA.
The identity crisis is also overexaggerated, but too lazy to go on about that.
Dude, Jak 3 had one year of development. Sony rushed that game out, which is the reason for a lot of its problems, not "because the developers were incompetent and didn't know what to do with the series". Like my god there's a lot of strawmens in this video. Keira was also victim of this as there were internal issues with the new voice actor for Keira, which made her debut in this same rushed game Jak 3. It wasn't Naughty Dog being like "we're going to put Keira aside, give her less relevance, and make Ashelin the new love interest". This review sucks :(
And Jak 4 was cancelled and turned into TLOU, not Uncharted.
Okay, I'm not reading all that, and you shouldn't expect me to. I'll just respond to the very last thing because that's all I feel like doing. Yes, it's common knowledge that the team that was working on Jack for canceled it to make the last of us, but that's not what I meant. Uncharted was the one coming out concurrently as Jak was canceled, they started making Uncharted and stopped making Jak. Ergo my point is that Jack 4 was canceled in favor of Uncharted. We're arguing semantics here.
Also if you really want to claim to me that crash hasn't or didn't surpass sonic, you're out of your mind. I'd like to know what university you're living in. The Nsane Trilogy is one of the best-selling games of the past generation, and the individual games back in the ps1 days sold a combined 21 million units. When's the last time Sonic's had anywhere near that success? Certainly not in the 90s, considering the Saturn didn't have a single main Line Sonic game, so crash became Mario's main rival by default. And Sonic has never been more irelevant from 2015 to now. I'll grant you that Sonic was Mario's main rival in the 2000s, but that's faint praise considering how badly platformers in general were doing at the time.
I'd also like to point out, you keep using the word review, this isn't a review. It's an editorial on a single topic
Hahaha Grand Theft Ottsel.
I agree with you 100% I noticed that Naughty Dog was chasing trends as soon as I booted up Jak 2. It was such a disappointment to me, I don't hate Jak 2 and Jak 3 but what they did with Keira was awful, she was literally one of the inspirations for the OC I created for the series. I want Jak and Daxter to be remade with a solid idea and identity, I know it may feel like a different game but I really love the characters Jak and Daxter so much. Plus Ottsels are the cutest things ever lol.
Kya dark lineage was a good game also. Kind of similar to Jak and daxter. Man I had a great childhood. I was in the first grade when I first saw the commercials advertising jak and daxter 😁
TBP, could you make a video on the original Ratchet and Clank PS2 games?
UA-cam deleted my comment, can you un-delete it potentially? If you can set me as "not dangerous to society", that might solve it. The algorithm is overreacting recently.
Flaws or no flaws, you're definitely in a (relative) minority on this topic as far as the general consensus on this series in the grand scheme..
But regardless it's but i it's always refreshing & welcome to hear a different perspective every once in a blue moon (even if in the end it's sometimes one i respectfully don't agree/nor side with).
And i can understand different preferences when it comes to things like Jak.
I have no doubts to the effect that I am in a minority here. The thing is, in order to come to the same conclusions that I have, you need to not already be a fan.
Naughty dog did there Thang with the jak series jak 2 easily being my favorite jak 2 wasn't a gta clone it was still jak with a city to explore idk jak always felt unique to itself
Jak wasn’t back in the city in a few hours. That’s was your story. In my story, he was in the desert city for weeks. I explored a lot before I would play the next mission. In my head canon he was gone for a while.
You said that you don’t have a vendetta with the series but listening to you, it sounds like you do. It’s like saying, “Listen, disclaimer, I’m not a duck,” then you quack and waddle. [+]
Honestly the problems you spell out do indeed exist but saying that the game is bad because of them is a big no.
Jak 2 is a fantastic game. Yeah it's not perfect, and would probably not go over well today, but it's still one of the peak games of my childhood.
Everything you hate about two is what i like. I enjoy the extra difficulty lack of ammo hard driving. Most every game i play i feel like my hands being held but jack did a good job making me feel accomplished.
Imo they ruined what they had after the first one by trying to go the edgy and dark route. I really loved the world and feel majestic feel of the first game. The sequels were still good and really fun gameplay wise but I really disliked the direction they took the series in.
I still find is astounding that people found Jak 2 even remotely difficult. It was the easiest game I ever played. Also, loved the sandbox. Loved exploring. Loved my hover board. Loved dark Jak. Such a fun game [+]
You should genuinely try hero mode then. It's pretty brutal, it was what I expected the game to be when I first heard about it's immense difficulty.
I would definitely agree that a struggle to find the series' identity or firmly nail it down is what doomed it, but I don't agree with many of your points. Respectfully, it seems you just want more iterations of Precursor Legacy with more refined platforming, when for someone who enjoyed the whole series, I adored the dystopian future setting. Sure, I can understand why it would be jarring for it to be in a "kid's game", especially after the first game, but when I look at Fable, probably my favorite video game franchise of all time, I totally get it and see a bunch of similarities. I think it's even the same time jump between the games. Fable 1 is a very generic LOTR-like Arthurian fantasy, but it's in the second game where it truly nails down its identity as a series with that leap to an almost colonial era fantasy. Jak 2 was very much the same for me. It was, essentially, an "edgier" Ratchet & Clank, but there's nothing wrong with that. Ratchet & Clank glosses over some pretty dark topics that are casually thrown in for jokes (see the entirety of Deadlocked), but a series like Jak & Daxter was where themes like that could be explored. If it stayed the same as The Precursor Legacy, I don't know if I would have bought the other games, because Precursor Legacy just felt like a worse version of Banjo-Kazooie to me.
The thing that's different regarding Fable and Jak & Daxter though is that, while both of the franchises floundered with their third release, I don't think it was for the same reasons. Some people think that it was simply the almost Steampunk and highly industrialized setting of Fable 3 that doomed it, when I can undoubtedly say that it was the sheer decline in the quality of the gameplay that caused it so much trouble. The combat was far more simplified, a lot of things weren't explained well or at all, there was nonsensical stuff added just for the sake of "it's Fable!", and playing the game and going through the world just wasn't all that fun or interesting anymore.
Jak, on the other hand, didn't have that issue. The gameplay in 3 is honestly the best in the series, though I agree that the smorgasboard of everything with how many mini-games and one-off missions there were was definitely annoying as a player. The problem with Jak 3, from my eyes, was that it... didn't really leave anywhere for them to go. Sure, Jak said he was going to "explore the universe" or whatever, but the litany of topics that could introduce is endless. If they kept going with the series as it was, we would likely end up getting something not too dissimilar from a watered-down version of Shadowrun like we already had, or Jak & Daxter hopping to various points in their worlds time and seeing how the world of The Precursor Legacy turned into what we got in Jak 2, maybe with Jak & Daxter having to fight off some evil faction that's altering with events in the past to try and alter the present. The latter would most certainly be a more interesting game, at least in my opinion, but I don't know if that would tone down on the "smorgasboard of everything" issue. I could see the first half of a mission being some weird time-fitting gimmick (sailing, a shooting competition, car racing, hoverboard racing, flying a plane, etc.), and then the second half being an anachronistic Jak and Daxter wiping out anachronistic enemies in various time periods with anachronistic weapons, not too dissimilar in structure from Jak 3's missions.
The Lost Frontier, to me, wasn't a horrible route for the series to go, however, it became way too generic in it's setting, and had just generally underwhelming writing and dissonant characters. Why on Earth are there steampunk-styled airships, when there are flying cars like something out of the Star Wars prequels? If they want to do airships, that's awesome, go right ahead, but at least make them look relatively cyberpunk-y or futuristic instead of just a generic steampunk ship. The idea of an "Eco Crisis" isn't bad for a main plot, in many ways I can see some similarities between that and something like the plot of Final Fantasy 7 with its corruption and exploitation of Mako energy and thus the Lifestream, but we never really see any signs that the planet is dying or being choked of life by futuristic industrialization. Daxter becoming a "Dark Eco beast" made no fucking sense, not just because it was dumb, but also because considering Jak 3 was all about fighting Dark Makers, Precursors that had been corrupted by Dark Eco, meaning Jak should be EXTREMELY concerned about the health of his friend. They hinted that Jak had to severely control himself and the situations he was in, almost like a Jedi, or else the Dark Eco inside of him would rage and kill him, but they never fully explored or developed that. A great alternative would have been making "Dark Jak" similar to Rage Mode in Kingdom Hearts, where it is very powerful in one way but limits your power in others and hinders recovery greatly, and then exploring Jak getting more "in tune" with Light Eco (possibly through "communing with the planet" or something), and expanding on his Light powers, but alas. The characters were just dissonant from how they were in the rest of the series, the setting didn't really match up, and not every series is Kingdom Hearts or Ratchet & Clank. Not every series can make a "spin-off" title or even a mainline title that isn't on a home console and expect anyone to buy it, much less newcomers. In addition, just like Jak 3, they leave the door open to so many possibilities with going "beyond the Brink" that there is no real way to genuinely nail down where to go from there.
When I finished Jak 3 back in the day, and even when I replay it now, I always feel like the logical place to go for the series would be to have Jak return to his father's kingdom in Spargus, and learn more about himself and where he comes from and deal with the issues there, with Jak maybe even rising to a role of power in Spargus not too dissimilar from his father at the end. Why did Jak seem to be the only person with these types of Eco powers? Who exactly is, or was, Mar? Was Spargus his father's kingdom, or did he inherit it from another individual or faction, or relocate there for some reason and rise to power? They say it was founded by Haven City outcasts, but no one knows when it was founded or who did it. Would Jak trade between Spargus and Haven City, causing a vast amount of technological innovation in Spargus, or would Spargus insist on keeping things naturalistic and more "in-touch with the planet", causing Jak to have a philosophical conflict with the other officials in Spargus? We spent 3-5 whole games playing as Jak, and we hardly ever got to learn who he really is and where he came from. Jak 4 felt like the perfect time to do it, and flesh out the history of the character before we proceeded to send him all throughout time or beyond the known reaches of the world. That being said, I can acknowledge that the hyper-obsession with realism that everyone has now likely means we will not and should not see a Jak 4, but in another reality, The Lost Frontier was written by Naughty Dog, released on a main console, and served as "Jak 4", until the actually numbered Jak sequel came out.
Bro should be glad that UA-cam stopped showing the number of dislikes
I enjoyed Jak 2 and 3 a lot more honestly X was the last game in canon it's even confirmed that the lost frontier is not canon
As someone who aged with it and had age restrictions growing up, this series is a masterpiece, and I can’t be convinced otherwise…
I agree, the series was my favorite video game as a kid and it still is to this day and I'm 22.
I strongly agree one of the best in Playstation line up
i mean we had everything growing up, madden, homerun durby, jak n daxter, gta 3. no rules on what games we could have. and i invested so many hours into all of them. i think some games just aren't for some people. and if you take a really hard look at any games from 15-20 years ago i think it would be pretty easy to pick them apart and find atleast a few things they could've done better. i personally really enjoyed jak n daxter + ratchet and clank. they were some of my absolute favorites.
this was the first thing i ever played when i was little with my dad, it will always hold a place in my heart
Same here!
The one most baffling high point for me is that Daxter, the comic relief of the duo, is actually made MORE tolerable and relevant in the later darker games which don't even have his name. He's playable, he gets more story/lore relevance, he doesn't talk QUITE as often, and since Jak has been turned into an edgelord, his light heartedness sometimes better serves as a tone balance instead of just being obnoxious. Heck the guy got his own spin off game.
It's about the only thing from the first game that made sense to develop on that they actually DID.
Jak has edgy moments but he even he still cracks jokes and smiles at times.
They developed a ton. The world actually evolved pretty naturally. The Zoomers are now mass produced in an industrial age. Those lurkers that were hardly a threat in the first game are now used a labor force with an uprising as theyre intelligent shown with Brutter. Eco is used as a power source and used to theme the ammo. Its there if you look for it.
Jak is not an edgelord.
I guess you could say that this game is a Jak of all trades
The only thing I agree with from your video was when you said “Grand Theft Ottsel” lmao💀
At 19:20 when you were talking about setting trends and following trends I've noticed that Naughty Dog has always been the ones to follow trends but essentially just try to perfect them. That's not to take away from their talent and creativity with all their franchises but it's something I've noticed. Crash was essentially a 2D platformer gone 3D, Jak TPL was a 3D collectathon perfected, Jak 2 and 3 were 3D platformers and also open world, Uncharted and TLOU are really polished 3rd person shooters. Jak 2 and 3 were their only games I'd call "messy" (still love them tho) and that's probably due to switching up the series and not being consistent like their other franchises as you said.
Not to mention that TLOU capitalized on the zombie trend, which was still going strong at the time, while also doing something different. And Uncharted perfected platforming as a human character.
See I vastly prefer 2 and 3 to the first game in almost every aspect but your point about the thematic shift is still very evident and makes me skeptical the games will ever see a remake no matter how much I want it just because they’d actually be incredibly jarring back to back
The tone shift is fine. The second game makes this clear from the very first cutscene and commits to it the rest of the game and all the way up to Jak X. 3 and X softened some of the extra edge Jak II had (still never had as much as people say), establishing an easily identifiable Jak. Regardless, the last three games by Naughty Dog are still tonally consistent, which translates to 3/4. And TPL's happy go luckiness is so heavily exaggerated. That game's tone isn't far off from Shadow of the Colossus. A lot of TPL is desolate, empty, and depressing. The only thing really saving the same is the fact that it has multiple colors, since to people colors are inherently positive and heartwarming. Change the game's color palette and watch people have a whole different perspective of the game.
That is an interesting discussion you said. I still enjoy the Jak & Daxter trilogy looking back, but you do make a great point why the series have a bit of an identity crisis back then, like how RWBY and the Sonic series have lately.
But I do have to give credit as during the PS2 era I also got to get into other series like Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank & Kingdom Hearts as I know what series they want to be. Plus Jak & Daxter did have it's DNA in Spyro: A Hero's Tail & Crash Twinsanity.
@Games Yeah and with RWBY Vol 7 & 8, it is trying to be a mix up of a Star Wars Prequel & Injustice
Sonic is mostly fine. It's the padding (which apparently stems from financial reasons) and lazy use of classic Sonic that's the issue.
@@windy3935 Okay then.
@@windy3935 The modern Sonic games very much lack identity
@@trajectory7235 Only a couple of them, and even then it's a mixture of other issues that makes it seem like its identity issues.
Honestly as a die hard fan of these games as a kid, who came back to replay them recently this was my overall takeaway as well and this vid encapsulated all the stuff I felt about my newest replay
I honestly think these games were all good and I love them to death but hey that's my opinion I just wish they made a new Jak 4 and everything you said that could be better they can fix it with the new console capabilities also I love your channel bro you talk about stuff that everyone ignores in games and I respect that (ohh heads up for your Rift apart video You might be abit right about Ratchet being sidelined)
Ohh and I hated the Mini Games in Jak 2/3 I just try forget they exist just play the story for the shooting and combat and Jak's cool voice aha
I don't think a Jak 4 with new tech would have fixed the series since tech doesn't fix a messy design
@@FraserSouris I believe the same way, hell it should of had " What if scenario " sequels.. Mainly being subversions of taking the idea of " what if we continued the platforming focus and story? " A story that tells a different time line as, since there is time traveling it would be able to accept this is a different timeline and build an equally as appealing work there. One main follow up, one side series follow up. Like like Persona and the Shin Megumi Tensei series where it starts off as a spinoff, but branches into a series with its OWN DESIGN AND LORE.
@@FraserSouris ok hater