I never had any problems with the aiming and in fact, preferred the blaster over all other weapons. I found that if you move Jak towards the enemy's direction he would auto lock to the enemy.
A funny thing about the Water Slums mission at 23:05 you can actually throw a dark bomb into the water to kill that security turret, and then just skate free under the bridges to the end of the mission with a breeze. And this wasn't a glitch either. Naughty Dog put it there on purpose (at least I believe) because this trick doesn't work in hero mode (NG+).
Never new that, thanks for the tip. I always hoverboarded over the pathways, if you were fast enough you could do it before the transports dropped the crimson guard.
Absolutely fair and detailed review. This is my absolute favorite game of the era. And I've never seen anyone analyze this game like this so it's refreshing.
I really liked Jak 2 (the whole trilogy in fact) but your video was fair. Jak 2 does have flaws and your video does a good job at putting them into words.
I would have agreed with you, until his nonsensical rambling about the level design. I mean, he literally complained about the fact that Jak 2's platforming consisted of platforms to jump on and pits to avoid, while completely disregarding the wealth of interesting obstacle arrangements and design setpieces which permeated nearly every mission and helped make the game endlessly replayable and memorable. I haven't watched his Jak 1 review yet, but I'm interested in seeing how he can justify his statement at the end of this video that Jak 1 had superior platofrming level design, given that much of the platforming in Jak 2 consists of fleshed out ideas that were already present in Jak 1. As an example, Jak 1 contained a mission which consisted of chasing down lurker enemies with your zoomer that moved around in preset paths, in a fashion which was designed more or less randomly. Jak 2 has a similar mission where you had to chase down lurkers with your hoverboard, but this time their movement patterns took you through a serious of carefully designed obstacles which made it feel as though you were actually accomplishing a challenge that the designer laid out for you, rather than simply driving around in circles. That brings me to another criticism: He treats the hoverboarding as though it were a completely separate game mechanic, but in reality it was simply an extension of the game's platforming mechanics which was used in a small handful of levels (not a dozen like he claimed)... other than the first mission you get it where you have to do a bunch of tricks, it wasn't used for any other purpose besides platforming.
i treated jak 2 as a mechanical workout tbh the game didn't require me to be clever, or challenge me to be creative with its mechanics despite me opting in to doing so myself cause i like spectacle gaming the combat was a min/max exercise, the platforming was linear, and the two were rarely combined in creative ways despite the mechanics of the game being fair enough to do so (at least imo) watching this vid i had forgotten about the flipping platforms and the metalhead that chases you, completely forgotten about those two elements and its fair to ask why the platforming and combat rarely met in the middle and instead stayed their own two separate halves, and this is coming from someone that loves jak 2 and yo real talk that game was bastard hard, couldn't finish it first time i picked it up, had to wait for some hair to grow on my chest first
PFBM I'm surprised he criticized mars tomb for the reasons he mentioned, it is imo one of the best levels in the series. Its also one of those levels that fleshed out some of the platforming concepts of the first game.
I feel like I must be one of the only ones who really enjoyed the driving/open world in this game. Many people complain about traffic banking up or obstacles in the way etc - comparing the low and high roads as equally bad, but I feel like they are missing the point completely. Switching constantly between low and high to find the best line seems a lot more natural and far more fun, if you ask me. I enjoyed this video, but I enjoyed playing Jak II a whole hell of a lot more..
Didn't agree whatsoever with the assessment but I still found your perspective Interesting and well thought out. This game is actually my favorite in the series and one of my favorite games of all time, I thought the platforming was fluid and the open world set up an irresistible atmosphere.
I agree with the atmosphere thing, where Jak 2 shines is the world building. They really nailed it to make Haven City a depressing place, especially witht the music. This works especially well because you have the first game as a contrast. For example, when jak 2 first mentioned that Lukers are slaves in Haven City I thought "when the biggest thread in Jak 1 is nothing but a bunch of slaves in this games, then there must be something big going on here."
Novacanoo I’m upset I didn’t see your response until now lol! I’ve actually thought about it more since this post and I think the game would undoubtedly be improved by a more reasonable checkpoint system as well as strafing. I think both of those would mitigate a lot of the difficulty the games have. As the problems that do exist I think are mostly caused by a lack of these two elements. Still love the video and I hope to see more from you down the line!
@@random135246 While this post is a month old, I actually have to disagree on putting strafing in since I think it would ruin the balance that the devs were probably going for with the guns. All of the guns are designed in one way or the other to work in tandem with each other and compensate for the lack of a strafe button. The shotgun covers pretty much the entire front space of where you're facing, the blaster travels a long distance and is good for hitting enemies from range, the vulkan is has a short range but makes up for it with really good stunning and DPS on enemies, the Peace Maker is a straight nuke. I feel like Jak's melee doesn't get anywhere near enough credit either as it not only helps you to save ammo but it can be a surprisingly effective tool against pretty much any enemy that can be stunned in this game (which is almost all of them) and using the guns in conjunction with the melee moves makes them that much more effective (especially with the blaster and spin kick combo). All of this is probably the reason why they never implemented one even after this game, because it is uniquely balanced to take advantage of every one of jaks moves and weapons and I feel like a strafe would make one or the other feel less useful. Just my thought's anyway, I love these games to death (specifically the 2nd and 3rd as i've never played the 1st) and i've come to really appreciate the way things are designed in them over the years although more reasonable checkpoints definitely would help smooth out the overall game.
This was an excellent watch, and as someone that loves Jak II and the series as a whole, I feel you were very fair with it. It's undeniable the game was pretty jarring in a few ways and that it was a stew of many different elements cooked together, but I think the fact it implemented all of those different elements solidly (not spectacularly) is pretty admirable.
Even with it's flaws, this is still my favorite in the series for it's greater emphasis on story and characters, overall better setting in Haven City and the fact that it laid the foundation for Jak 3's gameplay, which fixed a lot of the gameplay issues here, particularly with the difficulty (for better or worse)
I remember playing Jak 2 and I loved it as a teen. Seeing this in-depth analysis now both as an adult and an aspiring gamedev is really interesting to me! Thanks so much for the video!
The atmosphere of this game is unmatched, and I really like the story. The tone is engaging enough that a lot of these mechanical issues weren't things I noticed as a kid, although I did subconsciously cope with them using the same methods mentioned here (the gun spinning move). This was a fascinating look at things I don't usually consciously pay attention to in a game.
This game and Jak 3 commits the cardinal gaming sin of not replenishing ammo with each respawn. It kind of artificially forced you to change up gameplay strategy as you ran out of ammo.
Completely agree, at least they should give back ammo from the respawn... How does this even works? Is he magically teleported just before his death? Because that's not time travel...
To be honest in Jak 2 and 3 I spent more time punching and kicking enemies, hardly used my guns unless it was mandatory or very recommended. Although in Jak 2 that was a bit much for certain areas... and I died many times because of that.
It's not a big deal to collect the ammo again. Makes it more "realist" in my opinion (although there's nothing realistic about waking up from the death again and again and again ;), but you get the point).
I have such a strange relationship with Jak 2. Because it feels so disconnected from the first, my knee-jerk response is to say it's a bad Jak & Daxter game, but the more I reflect on that the more I realise I'm just personally disinterested in the direction it took. Of the entire trilogy, 2 is the one that sticks out as the worst and I found it incredibly frustrating. This analysis nailed down exactly why I thought that and it put something I couldn't really express into words. I loved your style of writing here. A few humorous jabs here and there seamlessly woven into serious analysis discussion. I really appreciated the incredibly in-depth section on the gun play. The diagram helped to demonstrate your point and taught me a few things about how the camera can interact with gameplay. I always get excited when I see a video of yours pop into my sub box, and it's always a treat to set aside some time to watch your stuff. As always, I can't wait to see more :)
Thanks man. I really tried to avoid calling Jak 2 a 'bad Jak and Daxter' game, or overcomparing the two, and instead tried to look at why I think it's a fairly poor game in its' own right. It's why there's no disclaimer asking people to watch the J&D video first, and why the first few paragraphs set up how they're similar just as much as how they're different. I'm glad you found the diagrams helpful. I don't want these videos feeling like school, and I was worried that might veer in that direction a little much. I'm always critical of my own sense of humour, but I'm really happy with "This is SERIOUS you moron!" It was a happy coincidence that I was using that cutscene because it has Daxter at his stupidest, and realized that that dialog was absolutely perfect to cap off the topic.
I gotta say, I am in total agreement with your criticisms here about Jak 2, and I'm surprised to see so many people in the comments in disagreement. But what I'm noticing is that those that disagree, they all played it when they were younger, or perhaps are still young. I only played Jak 2 this year. And I couldn't finish it. I got about 70% of the way through and decided that the game was just far too disrespectful of my time and moved on to something better. And maybe if I'd have played this back in high school when it came out, my mind would've been different about it. The sadistic checkpointing and the inadequate gunplay meant that it took me, y'know, an entire hour or more just to make ten minutes of progress sometimes. And back in high school when I had literally nothing better to do but bang my head against video games all day long, sure, that probably would've been fine. But I'm 30 now. I have a job, a house, several other hobbies that I don't have enough time for as is... I just have other stuff to do. I don't have the time to be constantly wrestling with a game that's so disrespectful of my time. So I dropped it in favor of the million other things I can be doing with my free time. It's not that I don't like difficult games. I'm a HUGE Dark Souls fan. But the difference is DS is respectful of the player's time. Jak 2 was just a clunky, confused mess that was severely unfair in its checkpointing and encounter design. Almost deliberately so, it seems. I also hated the whole grimdark tone of the thing. I really missed the colorful, playful, goofy tone of Jak 1. But maybe the statement they were making with Jak 2 is a statement that isn't so resonant these days. At the time when the market was oversaturated with goofy, colorful collect-athon mascot platformers and Jak 2 came out and said "We pronounce the genre dead," it was probably pretty refreshing. But today? That message is not only totally lost, but now it's irrelevant, too, with the colorful mascot platformer revival we've got going on. I don't know. Jak 2 is just an unfair mess and I hated it because I'm not a edgy teenager like the game was made for, lol. That's my tl;dr, I guess.
Dave Starr I loved this when I was 15 but I went back to it after I graduated high school and yeah I fucking hated it, it's such an unfair and frustrating slog of a game with really shitty writing. If one mechanic of Jak 2 doesn't frustrate you then another will, like I'm great at shooting and I hardly die from it but the vehicle sections is where I start to lose my cool. I wanted to love this game but it's really hard to with the mess of mechanics and frustration.
Dead Spirals You took the words right out of my mouth. It seems like everyone in the comments of this video is praising the game based off nostalgia. Don’t get me wrong I love jak and daxter however I played jak 2 recently on ps4 and I wanted to rip my hair out the more I progressed through the game.
personally i dont find the open world to be a problem or bad design choice because the city is interestingly designed, and it adds atmosphere to the game/story. Also i spent countless hours taking turns with my friends to see who can survive the longest when i was young. good video though
i totally agree with the last point in general considering many games today, but not too much in this game actually. I think too many studios now try to stuff their games way too much for their own good. The driving was fluidly linked with running and gunning, you could change vehicles from the fly or take out the hoverboard and try to lose the enemies in a non vehicular area, which is why the open world works well. This doesn't compliment the story missions too often though, so it could be better.
This video is pretty old so I don't expect you to see or react to this, but there a some little things I want to address: You said only a "very few" missions are in the Overworld. This is completely untrue. I could mention you at least 8 Missions from the getgo. Also you completely ignored the secret Precursor eggs you can collect and that you can get them from bonus missions in the overworld. So the Overworld is not completely empty and has something to go for. No matter how good or bad the execution of them is. Also you completely ignored the one extremely hard mission where you have to fly trough those Rings against that one racer "Enemy". I don't know how often this was mentioned in other comments. I just had to clarify this, because it threw the game in a more darker light than it deserves to be. Nevertheless, I like your video and how you clarify your standpoints :)
Said 8 missions out of 57 can be called "very few". And even if they were great missions, it would still be wasted effort given how few of these missions there are. Imagine if in an Assassin's Creed game, there were only 8 stealth missions. Would be fair to criticize the game for calling itself a stealth game yet almost never having stealth in it. Secret Precursor Eggs are just that. Secrets. They aren't part of the main game. 90% of players won't go for them. You never have to collect them for progression. They are optional and not even interesting ones. That doesn't make the open world interesting. It's the equivalent of saying an area in Metal Gear Solid 2 is great because it has Dog Tags to collect.
@@NihilisticIdealist Yes, But MGS2 doesn't require Dog Tags to be great. You could remove them from the game and the game would still mostly be the same. That's fine because the Dog Tags aren't the point of MGS2. In contrast, Jak 2 sells itself on this open world but then goes out of its way to make it a non element
you're playing the kinda bad version where input is 8-directional and everything lags, which might explain your frustration with the controls. Also you're using the widescreen aspect ratio which actually cuts out stuff vertically
Thanks for this; I wholeheartedly agree with every point made. The only other gripes I believe missing are the weak, bumper car-esque vehicles which is only compounded by the unforgiving time trial races...and unavoidable pedestrians...and lack of checkpoints. The other one is the unabashed errand boy exposition, and how you simultaneously have little place in this world while they're literally helpless without your efforts. At least the first game is courteous enough to establish _only you can save the world_, while you're constantly undermined as a mindless grunt in the second.
To be fair, the protagonist was just a nobody who arrived out of nowhere which justifies his errand boy treatment but it does get better later on such as when Jak kills Krew.
really didnt know so many people have so many complaint on the this game. I had a Damn near Perfect experience with jak 2... It Jak & Daxter the Precursor Legacy i had issues with I hate it's Game play style Collecting the power Cell Were so annoying. Jak 2 on the other hand had exactly the Gameplay i was looking for... Navigating the map was simple the missions Not all easy but Fun & never frustrating... Basically i Love jak 2 it has a special place in my heart....
I think the dark eco magnetism is more of a lore thing than a mechanical thing. Since Jak is all imbued with dark eco initially, his body craves it until he's full up. It's like what blue eco did in the first game, but on a more selective scale. When you're ready to go with Dark Jak the dark eco no longer even snaps to you.
I have to disagree with the point you were making around 3:44. You can look around in practically any direction by clicking the camera stick (R3) and from there you can look 360 degrees around you from a first person perspective. The way you were explaining your point about the camera controls made it look like you had no idea the R3 function existed
The thing with the KG ambush at 23:20 is even though there are many enemies it is almost completely avoidable by punching and spin kicking through them to the beacon this has been proven by Lets player +Super Saiyan Paul
Jak II is one of my all time favorite games because it was one of the few games that made me truly want to continue to play over and over. I disagree with a couple of the things you say here however your explanation of each argument is well made and well spoken. Well done sir, well done.
8:16 not really. There’s challenges you can do to collect orbs in the open world, and the world opens up new places as you progress. I never got sick of driving across the map also, because the world is fairly big but not overwhelming. It doesn’t require a fast travel system.
The missions that actually add things to do in this city, like freeing lurkers or those spider bots, shouldnt have been missions but activities in the normal open world so you have something to do between traveling to missions.
I really like Jak 2 because even though it might not do anything superbly, it has a constant change of pace and never bores me. The gameplay can change drastically but always remain focused on the already introduced gameplay mechanics. The contrast of gritty and witty is one of my favourite things and Daxter getting drunk is one of the best examples. I just really like it, and I can't explain it. It has always confused me how exactly did it end up even happening in this case, but in hindsight, there was probably just somebody working in Naughty Dog, who really liked anime. I think Jak 3 does everything better though.
the thing we gotta remember is jak 2 was in the early years of platforming I mean mario 64 was considered the point of revolution and that was on a system with 1 analogue stick. jak 2 by todays standards could be considered a bit clunky but for its time it was doing stuff on par with its competitors at the time, the driving felt smoother and more flexible then GTA 3's framerate dropping driving, the hoverboarding was very clunky I mean as soon as you hit anything or went off track by a millimeter you would fuck up which at the time was on par with ratchet and clanks hoverboarding and tony hawks skating it was clunky but possible. The shooting was very clunky as it had to fit around jaks already existing melee combat where as with ratchet and clank the melee and shooting were made at the same time and so was better altogether. I will say yes jak 2 has its problems but that was by todays standards back in 2003 this was the peak of platforming if you found a fault in the game back in 2003 you werent really going to find any better elsewhere.
You keep saying character designs aimed at children. It is stylized for sure but this is like saying South Park is character designs aimed at children. At least argue WHY you think it is aimed at kids for some reason. I don't really see it.
Jak 2 is so weird to me. I do prefer it over The Precursor Legacy (please don't kill me for that), but it could've been much better. At least Jak 3 fixed some issues.
Having played through Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy with my other half around a year ago a couple times, and it's a game he played alot when younger, I got him Jak 2 and 3 for Christmas. We just finished playing Jak 2 yesterday. Having waited 'til then to watch this video, I am pleasantly surprised at how it echoes our sentiments. We discussed how the open world city felt like a GTA rip off (and how it felt like artificial padding because it was pointless with no real content), and how driving at the low level is preferable because there's no penalty to hitting civilians, and outrunning the guard is easier/quicker than constantly smashing the other drivers. The game is only really 'hard' because of a lack of checkpoints over lengthy, difficult areas, and particular areas that are unreasonable (the water slums). The suddenly noticeable lack of a Y axis to the camera. The lack of real aim with the gun, which is worst when the game asks you to retaliate against enemies at higher elevations. The list goes on. Rather amusingly, the game either doesn't mention the jump, spin and blaster combo, or we forgot about it when it was introduced. We only 'discovered' it during the fight with the metal head leader, i.e. the end of the game. It made dealing with the swarms of small enemies he spawned much easier, as well as evading/attacking simultaneously. The lack of it for our run of the game very much highlighted this crucial aspect of the manoeuvre, and how it trumps most anything else you can do in many situations. You didn't focus on it much, but the tonal shift is incredibly jarring, and feels like it's trying too hard; there are so many cliches and your suggestion of looking at it as a sarcastic reflection the genre/itself is incredibly fitting.
Quick note on the spin shot. If you time your shot so that you shoot as you land, it will still increase fire rate and you will fire a burst in whichever direction you're aiming. No need to deal with inaccuracy. You can even see it in this gameplay, he stutters the fire and you get the trail end of it.
Regarding the camera, ive heard that Naughty Dog really pushed the PS2's hardware limits by rendering the absolute minimum of objects onscreen, so the lack of up-down camera mobility may well have beem to obscure parts of the environment that didnt exist, like ceilings and tall structures
I freaking love this game up until today. The lvls still stick to me and is still appealing to me since I was a child. I just have to buy it again for the ps4 to replay this game!
Here from Joseph Anderson's recommendation. Love your content. Honestly you may have convinced me to go back and get a PS2. I've been wanting to get a Japanese model for rhythm games and now this nostalgia trip...
These reviews are fantastic! I think that you are throwing mechanical issues into a dark room. The way you talk about them makes it seem like they serve no other purpose or do not tie into larger function of the game. Haven city is not used for a lot of missions but does it have a larger purpose? Does its design and other elements of world building contribute to the game? You do state that your focus is purely mechanical though so I guess it is not part of the focus discussion. Nice work, subbed.
Yeah, I think Dark Jak is pretty useless. Jak 2 isn't hard because of individual enemy encounters, it's your health slowly getting sapped over the course of a level with only the rare health pack to supplement it. Your guns are more than powerful enough to defeat most enemy encounters quickly, but you still get clipped every now and then, and enough mistakes like that lead to death. With that in mind, a melee berserk mode/screen nuke isn't very useful in dealing with how the game challenges you.
You know, when I listen to you say all these things they are definitely true... But I still love the game and enjoy it a lot even today. And the spinning blaster move should never have existed. I never use it, just to give myself an extra challenge :)
All your points are fair. This is my favorite one of the series though. I love this game so much. I went back and played it about two years ago and going through it I was dumbfounded that I beat it when I was 8 years old. I could barely scrape through it two years ago. I think I'm devolving as a gamer lol
Great stuff as always. I agree on those driving sections.. I played the trilogy recently on the Vita, loved the first. But I just could not finish the second or third. Too much padding.
Lovin' these videos so far, great job man. With regards to Jak 2 I just want to say that I agree with absolutely everything you said, but from an artistic standpoint I always felt like the whole came together as something a bit greater than the sum of its parts. Not MUCH greater mind you, but as a kid I remember being completely enamored with certain elements that admittedly serve no mechanical function other than to lazily pad out the game's duration. While I of course admit that functionally Haven City really IS just an inefficiently excessive hub world, I to this day still feel like the layers of atmosphere and immersion it offered made it well worth the time it took to traverse to me personally. It was also fairly unique for its time in particular, as even though GTA 3 may have coined that sort of immersive sandbox, Jak 2 was one of the first games to do that with a visually impressive Sci-Fi world, rather than a realistic one like GTA or a fantasy one like Zelda or Fable (neither of which featured cities of that insane scope, though they were tighter and more efficient for their discretion, true). I felt the same about the hodge-podge of mechanics for the most part as well - I thought it just lent Jak a very pleasingly versatile feel as an action star, even if the world wasn't expertly crafted around his abilities. But again, that's just a personal feeling and not to discredit anything you said. Mechanically the game can be very cruel and lacking. To this day I can't beat that fucking escape the docks mission without employing the Dark Bomb sentry-destroying glitch. I also never understood how Krimzon Guard aiming worked, so thanks for that!
see, for the reason why Daxter's name isnt in the title anymore... it's more because Jak and Daxter: The PRECURSOR Legacy is about the legacy of the last precursor... Daxter... and is friend Jak... For Jak 2/3 it's strictly about Jak's story. (what i mean about daxter is, in Jak 2, the Precursor stone is actually the last Precursor Egg, when hatched into the last Precursor, it travels into the past using the time rift, hopefully you cn see where i'm going with this)
While I agree on a lot of your points mechanically, some of them feel knit-picked and far reaching. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this video quite a bit as a huge fan of the series. Jak 2 was definitely my favorite, and Jak 3 kind of just felt like an extension of it (or DLC) but the story lacked in comparison. To say Jak 2 didn't do anything particularly well isn't agreeable with me. The narrative that you didn't really flesh out on was done outstandingly, as well as the pacing and character development. Riding around from mission to mission didn't feel boring (at least to me), It felt realistic and gave a sense of purpose, even when you slightly bump into a KG and have to outrun them. It felt like the environment was alive. Fast travel probably would have made me enjoyed the game less at the time. As for the Simon Says portion, it definitely isn't like that metaphor about giving a kid a GDL test you gave lol. That was kind of reaching... and the hoverboard mechanics were crazy fun, and exciting when you were able to take it out into the city. Then finding out there were practical mechanics for it in Haven. The time trial missions were great as well... these things really fleshed out the heroic development of Jak as a character. The "uncommitted tone" that you touched on about how the world and story was dark and gritty then having Daxter be silly was something understandable, but it is a T rated game. The line between adult and child. Of course there would be dark undertones with comedic relief. Especially when the animation is Disney-esque (or at least cartoonish). This isn't to say Jak 2 is perfect, but it is awesome. You really played devil's advocate and found a lot, some I've overlooked as a blind fan. Though I have beaten Jak 2 three or four times, It's been years. Seeing your analysis really made me realize the things I didn't like about it that I couldn't put my finger on. While I didn't agree 100%, I just wanted to play devil's advocate to yours :) Great video!
I know it's not a popular opinion, but 'Jak II' is my least favorite of the trilogy, mainly for 2 reasons: 1) It's a vast shift from the first game, which takes away many of the good aspects from it. 2) The far-between checkpoints, which leads to some huge frustration. I'm not against hard games, but when the thoughness comes more of the need to go back to the beginning of the level than from though but fair challenge, it's not a good game design. Don't get me wrong, I still like 'Jak II', it has a lot of good elements: The dark futuristic setting is nice and original, if a little empty, the shooting is fun and the driving is well-designed. The game also has a lot of variety, and most of the levels are pretty good. but the other two games were much better. 'Jak III' felt like an improved version of his predecessor, and sort of solved the two problems I mentioned earlier: While Still feeling closer to the second game than the first game, the third entry brought back some elements from the first entry. 2. Checkpoints were again more frequent, removing the needles frustration
My first PS2 game. I could choose between a PS2 and a PS2 bundled with this game. I didn't have enough money so I bought the regular PS2 in the blue box. And to my surprise, Jak II was in the box 🙂Got really lucky there and I got to play the game which maybe I would not buy without the happy accident. CAN'T WAIT FOR OpenGOAL to make Jak II playable on PC... A dream comes true...
The "going back to the hub world is like replaying a level" argument is a weak comparison for a number of reasons. For starters, the player isn't bound to the same beginning and ending points for every mission (or even the same distance) and the world is much larger and detailed than the first stage of SMB. The missions are also fairly well dispersed so pretending as if 3 hours of the total game time is spent driving from one end of the slums to the other is being plainly dishonest at best. Secondly, the area changes throughout the story, from previously blocked off sections of the map being revealed, to set pieces being destroyed/replaced, to guards changing their gear, to full scale enemy invasions at the end of the game, it's not as if it's a literal desert with nothing to observe or do. You also conveniently neglected to mention the various side challenges that are scattered throughout the hub-world for collecting precursor orbs, as well as the fact that the gun-play in general is a functional successor the eco powers from Jak 1, with the color of the weapon corresponding to the ability of the eco power up. Overall, I enjoyed the video, especially the bit about the character-relative shooting mechanics, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your final evaluation.
"that the gun-play in general is a functional successor the eco powers from Jak 1" I never saw any link between them except the colors... Ecos are timed powerups, not weapons you carry with ammo and ready to use when you need it... " You also conveniently neglected to mention the various side challenges" Like in all reviews I saw from him, he DOESN'T take into account elements giving nothing but 100% progression. That's even highlighted in the review from the first Jak (I assume you watched it) where he says he is forced to talk about every power cells because they are both partially required to end the game and fully required for the 100%.
Diran You say that, as if it completely overrides whether or not that open world is mechanically satisfying to traverse. I love Haven City for its oppressive atmosphere, but I have never once appreciated having to drive from one long location, to the next. The spaces, both below and above, are tightly cramped with endless traffic. And even when an opportunity to speed through is presented, it won't be very long until you're cautioning to other drivers directly in your way. Jak 2 just doesn't have the proper space, and layout to make driving feel fun, fast paced, or rewarding. And as much as I love the Jet Board as a concept, it only *hurts* navigating the open world. It never gets any faster, you lose health and seconds of time just by gliding into any guards, it's only cumbersome. I feel that Jak 3 improves over many of the previous elements when it comes to quicker transportation.
I think the skull gems don't attract to you the way dark eco does, because skull gems are meant to be collectibles (like precursor orbs). Also, I find enjoyment BOTH in a game that can do 1 or 2 things well and a game that can do 4 or 5 things passably. Jak II is one of my favorite games of all time. Part of this is bias for it being the first game series I played extensively. Part of this is my love for the game being able to do tons of different things. However, the biggest reason why I love this game, particularly THIS one the most out of the series, is because it forced me to do something instead of saying "look what I can do." I like a game that makes me wonder about it's story, or one that makes me prove to myself that passing each level is not a fluke (as long as you work for it). That being said, as an avid fan of the series, I highly respect this review. You touched on points that no one even thinks to mention. I particularly appreciate the thorough gunplay analysis.
Jak 2 has to be my least favourite game of all time. I'm sure there are games out there that are technically more broken or with worse writing. But in context of the excellent Jak 1, Naughty Dog took everything they did right in that game and threw it away in favour of a shitty GTA clone.
3:50 they always give you the option to see the enemies before you jump in, dunno what u mean. And there’s no problem with the zooms there or not so idk what the problem is
I'd like to see you analyze I-Ninja, it was a platformer with a bunch of different concepts worked in but I thought it turned out much better. It reminds me almost of Sly Cooper in concept
Damn this was a harsh review on a game I loved yet I can’t disagree with what you said. I’m probably a sucker for a good story. Which I think it did have.
I have several problems with Jak II and 3, no offense to the fans of those games, but I think that the biggest may have been the fact that such a drastic change was what directly followed a game like Jak 1. While you and I may not appreciate this game, there is a large fanbase and group of people who do like this game, so I presume that Jak II did a lot of things right, but when you call a game "Jak II", people will expect more of Jak I. I was completely caught off guard by how different the game was - the box art was definitely a hint that I should have picked up on, but it's remarkable that such a dramatic shift happened at Naughty Dog, even today the transition from 1 to 2 is jarring. Perhaps if there were a few games in between Jak 1 and 2 that slowly added new mechanics to the Jak 1 formula, it would adjust players to the tonal shift that Naughty Dog was going for, as well as given more time to flesh out the new bells and whistles like guns, cars, hoverboards, etc. However, Naughty Dog insisted on pushing the envelope with Jak II, to be as different from the kid-friendly Jak 1 and to presumably attract as many tweenagers as possible, and they may have gone too far by changing so many things at once. Thus, a Jak 1.5 would have helped ease the rough transitions from Sandover Village to Haven City. The other option would to completely start a new franchise with Jak II, with a new setting, characters, story, gameplay, etc., leaving Jak 1 as its own thing, so that the two very different games wouldn't be compared. This would leave the 100% ending of Jak 1 unresolved, but it was already a lame reward in its own right. Starting a new franchise would mean that the developers wouldn't have to keep anything from Jak 1 that didn't work in this new formula (i. e. Daxter, the lighter tone, Power Cells, the location of Sandover Village), and Naughty Dog could have fully commit to a more mature direction, instead of feeling compelled to add more "childish" humor to please fans of the first game. Also, am I the only one who's super peeved that Jak II is in Roman Numerals, but Jak 3 isn't? Anybody?!
Wow! I agree with you on most things but from a gameplay perspective Jak 3 is so much better. That would make a great video. Also, there are a lot of reasons why this game lacks in areas. The first is the timing put into learning the game coding. The next was rethinking their game at a time when those sort of video games were far and few between. Jak 2 is challenging and maybe you disagree with its mechanics, I would argue that the controls, like in jak 3 compliment different play styles. Finally, I would add that the open world traveling, though pointless, builds the environment and presents a challenge that is outside of the box. You unlock areas as you go along so there is a sense of exploration, but the streets are hard to go around, so there is a danger that is not forced on you in the way a mission does. Also you can do side quests literally everywhere in the city so its not barren. Anyways, great video
Man you were preaching to the choir for me, but I won't lie I outright HATED Jak II and Jak III. I even remember thinking to myself that it was just a hoshposh of popular PS2 stuff. But you explained your reasoning very well, better than I ever could. Good job!
Jak 2 altho different it's still got certain things right. Platforming is good, introduction of weapons is interesting and fun, open world aspect it great. BUT it falls short due to it's lazy driving/vechile mechanics, frustrating camera controls that makes certain missions (cough cough Drill Station) tedious/unplayable. And i believe those broken features is what mask this game as "difficult" which is cheap in my books. In the end Jak 2 is not a fully terrible game but I honestly don't believe it's the best out the 3 series.
This game was so hard that i never beat it i had to get a vehicle for that part were you get swarmed by the guards and i got stuck in the part were you get the roblot and destroy metalheads under water
strange hearing about difficulty. remember beating this with some challenge and having a harder time with its predecessor from the inherent differences in gameplay. wait i cant blast everthing, wtf?
Man, I played this game as a kid and it was hard af. Your suggestions on how the game could be made "better" really just sound like they would make it harder. And that would piss me off. lol Great video though.
Even with its flaws, I still like Jak II a lot. Jak 3 is superior, though. Btw, anyone else find it weird that they used roman numerals for II, but a regular 3 for the third game? Never quite understood why they did that. Not that it's a problem, I just find it a bit odd and inconsistent.
There's no difference at all, because you are comparing the same game... According to the US wikipedia, "renegade" is added in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Africa. But according to the French wikipedia, it's the name given in the USA... wtf? That's like Ratchet and Clank 2 and 3, which don't have their subtitles in Europe.
I never had any problems with the aiming and in fact, preferred the blaster over all other weapons. I found that if you move Jak towards the enemy's direction he would auto lock to the enemy.
A funny thing about the Water Slums mission at 23:05 you can actually throw a dark bomb into the water to kill that security turret, and then just skate free under the bridges to the end of the mission with a breeze. And this wasn't a glitch either. Naughty Dog put it there on purpose (at least I believe) because this trick doesn't work in hero mode (NG+).
Jace Cotton I actually remember doing this.
Never new that, thanks for the tip. I always hoverboarded over the pathways, if you were fast enough you could do it before the transports dropped the crimson guard.
Jace Cotton i wish i knew this back in the day. i always just used the hoverboard to get over walkway.
Jace Cotton yeah is because they want to remind you you have Dark Jak Use it!!!!
It was actually probably a quick, cheap fix after realizing the mission was too hard.
Absolutely fair and detailed review. This is my absolute favorite game of the era. And I've never seen anyone analyze this game like this so it's refreshing.
I really liked Jak 2 (the whole trilogy in fact) but your video was fair. Jak 2 does have flaws and your video does a good job at putting them into words.
I would have agreed with you, until his nonsensical rambling about the level design. I mean, he literally complained about the fact that Jak 2's platforming consisted of platforms to jump on and pits to avoid, while completely disregarding the wealth of interesting obstacle arrangements and design setpieces which permeated nearly every mission and helped make the game endlessly replayable and memorable. I haven't watched his Jak 1 review yet, but I'm interested in seeing how he can justify his statement at the end of this video that Jak 1 had superior platofrming level design, given that much of the platforming in Jak 2 consists of fleshed out ideas that were already present in Jak 1.
As an example, Jak 1 contained a mission which consisted of chasing down lurker enemies with your zoomer that moved around in preset paths, in a fashion which was designed more or less randomly. Jak 2 has a similar mission where you had to chase down lurkers with your hoverboard, but this time their movement patterns took you through a serious of carefully designed obstacles which made it feel as though you were actually accomplishing a challenge that the designer laid out for you, rather than simply driving around in circles.
That brings me to another criticism: He treats the hoverboarding as though it were a completely separate game mechanic, but in reality it was simply an extension of the game's platforming mechanics which was used in a small handful of levels (not a dozen like he claimed)... other than the first mission you get it where you have to do a bunch of tricks, it wasn't used for any other purpose besides platforming.
i treated jak 2 as a mechanical workout tbh
the game didn't require me to be clever, or challenge me to be creative with its mechanics despite me opting in to doing so myself cause i like spectacle gaming
the combat was a min/max exercise, the platforming was linear, and the two were rarely combined in creative ways despite the mechanics of the game being fair enough to do so (at least imo)
watching this vid i had forgotten about the flipping platforms and the metalhead that chases you, completely forgotten about those two elements and its fair to ask why the platforming and combat rarely met in the middle and instead stayed their own two separate halves, and this is coming from someone that loves jak 2
and yo real talk that game was bastard hard, couldn't finish it first time i picked it up, had to wait for some hair to grow on my chest first
PFBM
I'm surprised he criticized mars tomb for the reasons he mentioned, it is imo one of the best levels in the series. Its also one of those levels that fleshed out some of the platforming concepts of the first game.
I feel like I must be one of the only ones who really enjoyed the driving/open world in this game. Many people complain about traffic banking up or obstacles in the way etc - comparing the low and high roads as equally bad, but I feel like they are missing the point completely.
Switching constantly between low and high to find the best line seems a lot more natural and far more fun, if you ask me.
I enjoyed this video, but I enjoyed playing Jak II a whole hell of a lot more..
actually 3d driving not 2d like everything else even real life your only going forwards backwards left or right no up or down at will.
This was my favorite of the series and one of my favorite games ever.
better then jak 3... which was a mad max ripp off
@@thewintersoldier8387
Because Jak 2 was so original in its own right.
Didn't agree whatsoever with the assessment but I still found your perspective Interesting and well thought out.
This game is actually my favorite in the series and one of my favorite games of all time, I thought the platforming was fluid and the open world set up an irresistible atmosphere.
Thanks! I'm glad to be attracting people who can disagree with me and still get something out of the video!
I agree with the atmosphere thing, where Jak 2 shines is the world building. They really nailed it to make Haven City a depressing place, especially witht the music. This works especially well because you have the first game as a contrast.
For example, when jak 2 first mentioned that Lukers are slaves in Haven City I thought "when the biggest thread in Jak 1 is nothing but a bunch of slaves in this games, then there must be something big going on here."
Novacanoo I’m upset I didn’t see your response until now lol!
I’ve actually thought about it more since this post and I think the game would undoubtedly be improved by a more reasonable checkpoint system as well as strafing. I think both of those would mitigate a lot of the difficulty the games have. As the problems that do exist I think are mostly caused by a lack of these two elements.
Still love the video and I hope to see more from you down the line!
@@random135246 While this post is a month old, I actually have to disagree on putting strafing in since I think it would ruin the balance that the devs were probably going for with the guns. All of the guns are designed in one way or the other to work in tandem with each other and compensate for the lack of a strafe button. The shotgun covers pretty much the entire front space of where you're facing, the blaster travels a long distance and is good for hitting enemies from range, the vulkan is has a short range but makes up for it with really good stunning and DPS on enemies, the Peace Maker is a straight nuke.
I feel like Jak's melee doesn't get anywhere near enough credit either as it not only helps you to save ammo but it can be a surprisingly effective tool against pretty much any enemy that can be stunned in this game (which is almost all of them) and using the guns in conjunction with the melee moves makes them that much more effective (especially with the blaster and spin kick combo). All of this is probably the reason why they never implemented one even after this game, because it is uniquely balanced to take advantage of every one of jaks moves and weapons and I feel like a strafe would make one or the other feel less useful.
Just my thought's anyway, I love these games to death (specifically the 2nd and 3rd as i've never played the 1st) and i've come to really appreciate the way things are designed in them over the years although more reasonable checkpoints definitely would help smooth out the overall game.
This was an excellent watch, and as someone that loves Jak II and the series as a whole, I feel you were very fair with it. It's undeniable the game was pretty jarring in a few ways and that it was a stew of many different elements cooked together, but I think the fact it implemented all of those different elements solidly (not spectacularly) is pretty admirable.
Even with it's flaws, this is still my favorite in the series for it's greater emphasis on story and characters, overall better setting in Haven City and the fact that it laid the foundation for Jak 3's gameplay, which fixed a lot of the gameplay issues here, particularly with the difficulty (for better or worse)
22:24 man the joy I felt when I completed that mission
I remember playing Jak 2 and I loved it as a teen. Seeing this in-depth analysis now both as an adult and an aspiring gamedev is really interesting to me! Thanks so much for the video!
The atmosphere of this game is unmatched, and I really like the story. The tone is engaging enough that a lot of these mechanical issues weren't things I noticed as a kid, although I did subconsciously cope with them using the same methods mentioned here (the gun spinning move). This was a fascinating look at things I don't usually consciously pay attention to in a game.
This game and Jak 3 commits the cardinal gaming sin of not replenishing ammo with each respawn. It kind of artificially forced you to change up gameplay strategy as you ran out of ammo.
Completely agree, at least they should give back ammo from the respawn...
How does this even works? Is he magically teleported just before his death? Because that's not time travel...
17joren
Considering how easy Jak 3 is. I don't see much of a problem.
the ammo crates spawn again though iirc
To be honest in Jak 2 and 3 I spent more time punching and kicking enemies, hardly used my guns unless it was mandatory or very recommended. Although in Jak 2 that was a bit much for certain areas... and I died many times because of that.
It's not a big deal to collect the ammo again. Makes it more "realist" in my opinion (although there's nothing realistic about waking up from the death again and again and again ;), but you get the point).
I actually think that the resistance to committing completely to the dark tone humanized the story a little more.
I kinda like the fact Jak 2 is difficult.
I have such a strange relationship with Jak 2. Because it feels so disconnected from the first, my knee-jerk response is to say it's a bad Jak & Daxter game, but the more I reflect on that the more I realise I'm just personally disinterested in the direction it took. Of the entire trilogy, 2 is the one that sticks out as the worst and I found it incredibly frustrating. This analysis nailed down exactly why I thought that and it put something I couldn't really express into words.
I loved your style of writing here. A few humorous jabs here and there seamlessly woven into serious analysis discussion. I really appreciated the incredibly in-depth section on the gun play. The diagram helped to demonstrate your point and taught me a few things about how the camera can interact with gameplay. I always get excited when I see a video of yours pop into my sub box, and it's always a treat to set aside some time to watch your stuff. As always, I can't wait to see more :)
Thanks man. I really tried to avoid calling Jak 2 a 'bad Jak and Daxter' game, or overcomparing the two, and instead tried to look at why I think it's a fairly poor game in its' own right. It's why there's no disclaimer asking people to watch the J&D video first, and why the first few paragraphs set up how they're similar just as much as how they're different.
I'm glad you found the diagrams helpful. I don't want these videos feeling like school, and I was worried that might veer in that direction a little much.
I'm always critical of my own sense of humour, but I'm really happy with "This is SERIOUS you moron!" It was a happy coincidence that I was using that cutscene because it has Daxter at his stupidest, and realized that that dialog was absolutely perfect to cap off the topic.
I gotta say, I am in total agreement with your criticisms here about Jak 2, and I'm surprised to see so many people in the comments in disagreement. But what I'm noticing is that those that disagree, they all played it when they were younger, or perhaps are still young. I only played Jak 2 this year. And I couldn't finish it. I got about 70% of the way through and decided that the game was just far too disrespectful of my time and moved on to something better.
And maybe if I'd have played this back in high school when it came out, my mind would've been different about it. The sadistic checkpointing and the inadequate gunplay meant that it took me, y'know, an entire hour or more just to make ten minutes of progress sometimes. And back in high school when I had literally nothing better to do but bang my head against video games all day long, sure, that probably would've been fine. But I'm 30 now. I have a job, a house, several other hobbies that I don't have enough time for as is... I just have other stuff to do. I don't have the time to be constantly wrestling with a game that's so disrespectful of my time. So I dropped it in favor of the million other things I can be doing with my free time. It's not that I don't like difficult games. I'm a HUGE Dark Souls fan. But the difference is DS is respectful of the player's time. Jak 2 was just a clunky, confused mess that was severely unfair in its checkpointing and encounter design. Almost deliberately so, it seems.
I also hated the whole grimdark tone of the thing. I really missed the colorful, playful, goofy tone of Jak 1. But maybe the statement they were making with Jak 2 is a statement that isn't so resonant these days. At the time when the market was oversaturated with goofy, colorful collect-athon mascot platformers and Jak 2 came out and said "We pronounce the genre dead," it was probably pretty refreshing. But today? That message is not only totally lost, but now it's irrelevant, too, with the colorful mascot platformer revival we've got going on.
I don't know. Jak 2 is just an unfair mess and I hated it because I'm not a edgy teenager like the game was made for, lol. That's my tl;dr, I guess.
Dave Starr I loved this when I was 15 but I went back to it after I graduated high school and yeah I fucking hated it, it's such an unfair and frustrating slog of a game with really shitty writing. If one mechanic of Jak 2 doesn't frustrate you then another will, like I'm great at shooting and I hardly die from it but the vehicle sections is where I start to lose my cool. I wanted to love this game but it's really hard to with the mess of mechanics and frustration.
Try out Jak 3, much more fun game
Dead Spirals You took the words right out of my mouth. It seems like everyone in the comments of this video is praising the game based off nostalgia. Don’t get me wrong I love jak and daxter however I played jak 2 recently on ps4 and I wanted to rip my hair out the more I progressed through the game.
Dead Spirals Gameplay is debateable but shitty writing? The atmosphere is on point in the game
Jak II was hard to you people?
personally i dont find the open world to be a problem or bad design choice because the city is interestingly designed, and it adds atmosphere to the game/story. Also i spent countless hours taking turns with my friends to see who can survive the longest when i was young. good video though
the minigame point is good
i totally agree with the last point in general considering many games today, but not too much in this game actually. I think too many studios now try to stuff their games way too much for their own good. The driving was fluidly linked with running and gunning, you could change vehicles from the fly or take out the hoverboard and try to lose the enemies in a non vehicular area, which is why the open world works well. This doesn't compliment the story missions too often though, so it could be better.
This video is pretty old so I don't expect you to see or react to this, but there a some little things I want to address:
You said only a "very few" missions are in the Overworld. This is completely untrue. I could mention you at least 8 Missions from the getgo.
Also you completely ignored the secret Precursor eggs you can collect and that you can get them from bonus missions in the overworld.
So the Overworld is not completely empty and has something to go for. No matter how good or bad the execution of them is.
Also you completely ignored the one extremely hard mission where you have to fly trough those Rings against that one racer "Enemy".
I don't know how often this was mentioned in other comments.
I just had to clarify this, because it threw the game in a more darker light than it deserves to be.
Nevertheless, I like your video and how you clarify your standpoints :)
Nice.
Said 8 missions out of 57 can be called "very few". And even if they were great missions, it would still be wasted effort given how few of these missions there are. Imagine if in an Assassin's Creed game, there were only 8 stealth missions. Would be fair to criticize the game for calling itself a stealth game yet almost never having stealth in it.
Secret Precursor Eggs are just that. Secrets. They aren't part of the main game. 90% of players won't go for them. You never have to collect them for progression. They are optional and not even interesting ones. That doesn't make the open world interesting. It's the equivalent of saying an area in Metal Gear Solid 2 is great because it has Dog Tags to collect.
@@FraserSouris But MGS2 is great.
@@NihilisticIdealist Yes, But MGS2 doesn't require Dog Tags to be great. You could remove them from the game and the game would still mostly be the same. That's fine because the Dog Tags aren't the point of MGS2. In contrast, Jak 2 sells itself on this open world but then goes out of its way to make it a non element
@@FraserSouris I haven't played Jak Deux yet.
I absolutely adore Jak II, despite its glaring flaws. I guess it’s something of a guilty pleasure.
I absolutely love these videos. You do a great job and I hope one day you get more views!
ikr
I'd just wish he did more games
As simplistic as it may be, the punch and Blaster combo is quite satisfying to pull off.
you're playing the kinda bad version where input is 8-directional and everything lags, which might explain your frustration with the controls. Also you're using the widescreen aspect ratio which actually cuts out stuff vertically
This video came out in 2016. The PS4 version came out in 2017.
Thanks for this; I wholeheartedly agree with every point made. The only other gripes I believe missing are the weak, bumper car-esque vehicles which is only compounded by the unforgiving time trial races...and unavoidable pedestrians...and lack of checkpoints.
The other one is the unabashed errand boy exposition, and how you simultaneously have little place in this world while they're literally helpless without your efforts. At least the first game is courteous enough to establish _only you can save the world_, while you're constantly undermined as a mindless grunt in the second.
To be fair, the protagonist was just a nobody who arrived out of nowhere which justifies his errand boy treatment but it does get better later on such as when Jak kills Krew.
really didnt know so many people have so many complaint on the this game. I had a Damn near Perfect experience with jak 2... It Jak & Daxter the Precursor Legacy i had issues with I hate it's Game play style Collecting the power Cell Were so annoying. Jak 2 on the other hand had exactly the Gameplay i was looking for... Navigating the map was simple the missions Not all easy but Fun & never frustrating... Basically i Love jak 2 it has a special place in my heart....
I disagree with a lot of things. It’s one of my favorite games. But...I will give you a credit for putting your time in this video:)
i would argue that the civil war sections of the game towards the end are a good example of using the open world effectively.
I think the dark eco magnetism is more of a lore thing than a mechanical thing. Since Jak is all imbued with dark eco initially, his body craves it until he's full up. It's like what blue eco did in the first game, but on a more selective scale. When you're ready to go with Dark Jak the dark eco no longer even snaps to you.
yeah i dont think he thought too hard making this video
This was my most beloved entry of the series, i only wish you could support the baron in the fight against the metal heads haha
I have to disagree with the point you were making around 3:44. You can look around in practically any direction by clicking the camera stick (R3) and from there you can look 360 degrees around you from a first person perspective. The way you were explaining your point about the camera controls made it look like you had no idea the R3 function existed
Bryan Smith Plus you can’t aim in that mode
Well you have to consider the year 2003 - we all were stunned to move freely through a video game city. Even if it was empty.
The thing with the KG ambush at 23:20 is even though there are many enemies it is almost completely avoidable by punching and spin kicking through them to the beacon this has been proven by Lets player +Super Saiyan Paul
Your ideas are very well crafted/spoken. Very excited to see more!
Jak II is one of my all time favorite games because it was one of the few games that made me truly want to continue to play over and over. I disagree with a couple of the things you say here however your explanation of each argument is well made and well spoken. Well done sir, well done.
8:16 not really. There’s challenges you can do to collect orbs in the open world, and the world opens up new places as you progress. I never got sick of driving across the map also, because the world is fairly big but not overwhelming. It doesn’t require a fast travel system.
The missions that actually add things to do in this city, like freeing lurkers or those spider bots, shouldnt have been missions but activities in the normal open world so you have something to do between traveling to missions.
you had the side missions tho
really enjoyable in depth analysis, thanks for all the hard work you obviously put into these.
this was surprisingly critical but thoughtful and objective, one of the better jak 2 "thought videos" for sure
This was a beautiful surgical analysis of Jak 2. All your points are clearly stated and backed by evidence. I am subscribing immediately
Loved this game as a kid
I really like Jak 2 because even though it might not do anything superbly, it has a constant change of pace and never bores me. The gameplay can change drastically but always remain focused on the already introduced gameplay mechanics. The contrast of gritty and witty is one of my favourite things and Daxter getting drunk is one of the best examples. I just really like it, and I can't explain it. It has always confused me how exactly did it end up even happening in this case, but in hindsight, there was probably just somebody working in Naughty Dog, who really liked anime. I think Jak 3 does everything better though.
I love Jak II
I really enjoyed this critique. Well done!
And subscribed. Looking forward to seeing more. :>
the thing we gotta remember is jak 2 was in the early years of platforming I mean mario 64 was considered the point of revolution and that was on a system with 1 analogue stick.
jak 2 by todays standards could be considered a bit clunky but for its time it was doing stuff on par with its competitors at the time, the driving felt smoother and more flexible then GTA 3's framerate dropping driving, the hoverboarding was very clunky I mean as soon as you hit anything or went off track by a millimeter you would fuck up which at the time was on par with ratchet and clanks hoverboarding and tony hawks skating it was clunky but possible. The shooting was very clunky as it had to fit around jaks already existing melee combat where as with ratchet and clank the melee and shooting were made at the same time and so was better altogether.
I will say yes jak 2 has its problems but that was by todays standards back in 2003 this was the peak of platforming if you found a fault in the game back in 2003 you werent really going to find any better elsewhere.
> GTA 3's framerate dropping driving
On the PS2? Didn't really happen on the Xbox.
You keep saying character designs aimed at children. It is stylized for sure but this is like saying South Park is character designs aimed at children.
At least argue WHY you think it is aimed at kids for some reason. I don't really see it.
Jak 2 is so weird to me.
I do prefer it over The Precursor Legacy (please don't kill me for that), but it could've been much better.
At least Jak 3 fixed some issues.
But then Jak 3's story was quite messy. In my opinion, anyway.
***** I personally liked Spargus and Haven City in Jak 3, but I hate the Wasteland so much.
Having played through Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy with my other half around a year ago a couple times, and it's a game he played alot when younger, I got him Jak 2 and 3 for Christmas. We just finished playing Jak 2 yesterday.
Having waited 'til then to watch this video, I am pleasantly surprised at how it echoes our sentiments. We discussed how the open world city felt like a GTA rip off (and how it felt like artificial padding because it was pointless with no real content), and how driving at the low level is preferable because there's no penalty to hitting civilians, and outrunning the guard is easier/quicker than constantly smashing the other drivers. The game is only really 'hard' because of a lack of checkpoints over lengthy, difficult areas, and particular areas that are unreasonable (the water slums). The suddenly noticeable lack of a Y axis to the camera. The lack of real aim with the gun, which is worst when the game asks you to retaliate against enemies at higher elevations. The list goes on.
Rather amusingly, the game either doesn't mention the jump, spin and blaster combo, or we forgot about it when it was introduced. We only 'discovered' it during the fight with the metal head leader, i.e. the end of the game. It made dealing with the swarms of small enemies he spawned much easier, as well as evading/attacking simultaneously. The lack of it for our run of the game very much highlighted this crucial aspect of the manoeuvre, and how it trumps most anything else you can do in many situations.
You didn't focus on it much, but the tonal shift is incredibly jarring, and feels like it's trying too hard; there are so many cliches and your suggestion of looking at it as a sarcastic reflection the genre/itself is incredibly fitting.
I think it's a pretty good game
Quick note on the spin shot. If you time your shot so that you shoot as you land, it will still increase fire rate and you will fire a burst in whichever direction you're aiming. No need to deal with inaccuracy. You can even see it in this gameplay, he stutters the fire and you get the trail end of it.
Regarding the camera, ive heard that Naughty Dog really pushed the PS2's hardware limits by rendering the absolute minimum of objects onscreen, so the lack of up-down camera mobility may well have beem to obscure parts of the environment that didnt exist, like ceilings and tall structures
2:50 Don't forget that the Dark Eco is a form of energy; the skulls are not.
I freaking love this game up until today. The lvls still stick to me and is still appealing to me since I was a child. I just have to buy it again for the ps4 to replay this game!
the squirrel is extra-narrative. doesn't mean the story can't be taken seriously though.
This a 8 year old review but it’s one of the most valid critiques of this game I’ve seen. Good video!
Here from Joseph Anderson's recommendation. Love your content. Honestly you may have convinced me to go back and get a PS2. I've been wanting to get a Japanese model for rhythm games and now this nostalgia trip...
Glad I listened to Joseph Anderson's recommendation. You earned another sub, easily. Keep up the good work (y)
These reviews are fantastic! I think that you are throwing mechanical issues into a dark room. The way you talk about them makes it seem like they serve no other purpose or do not tie into larger function of the game. Haven city is not used for a lot of missions but does it have a larger purpose? Does its design and other elements of world building contribute to the game? You do state that your focus is purely mechanical though so I guess it is not part of the focus discussion. Nice work, subbed.
Joe Anderson recommended your channel and I have to say it was a great call. Good shit, I like your approach to game analysis.
Anyone else think the Onin Mini Game isn't that tough?
Yeah, I think Dark Jak is pretty useless. Jak 2 isn't hard because of individual enemy encounters, it's your health slowly getting sapped over the course of a level with only the rare health pack to supplement it. Your guns are more than powerful enough to defeat most enemy encounters quickly, but you still get clipped every now and then, and enough mistakes like that lead to death. With that in mind, a melee berserk mode/screen nuke isn't very useful in dealing with how the game challenges you.
You know, when I listen to you say all these things they are definitely true... But I still love the game and enjoy it a lot even today. And the spinning blaster move should never have existed. I never use it, just to give myself an extra challenge :)
Hey, that's cool too man. There are absolutely things to like about the game - you're allowed to agree with criticism and still enjoy it!
This is my fav platformer in the series
All your points are fair. This is my favorite one of the series though. I love this game so much. I went back and played it about two years ago and going through it I was dumbfounded that I beat it when I was 8 years old. I could barely scrape through it two years ago. I think I'm devolving as a gamer lol
I think you can still beat the game, its weither or not you have the time and patience for it
Great stuff as always. I agree on those driving sections.. I played the trilogy recently on the Vita, loved the first. But I just could not finish the second or third. Too much padding.
To answer your question at 3:43 Just press R3 and you can look both up and down but in first person.
Lovin' these videos so far, great job man. With regards to Jak 2 I just want to say that I agree with absolutely everything you said, but from an artistic standpoint I always felt like the whole came together as something a bit greater than the sum of its parts. Not MUCH greater mind you, but as a kid I remember being completely enamored with certain elements that admittedly serve no mechanical function other than to lazily pad out the game's duration. While I of course admit that functionally Haven City really IS just an inefficiently excessive hub world, I to this day still feel like the layers of atmosphere and immersion it offered made it well worth the time it took to traverse to me personally. It was also fairly unique for its time in particular, as even though GTA 3 may have coined that sort of immersive sandbox, Jak 2 was one of the first games to do that with a visually impressive Sci-Fi world, rather than a realistic one like GTA or a fantasy one like Zelda or Fable (neither of which featured cities of that insane scope, though they were tighter and more efficient for their discretion, true). I felt the same about the hodge-podge of mechanics for the most part as well - I thought it just lent Jak a very pleasingly versatile feel as an action star, even if the world wasn't expertly crafted around his abilities.
But again, that's just a personal feeling and not to discredit anything you said. Mechanically the game can be very cruel and lacking. To this day I can't beat that fucking escape the docks mission without employing the Dark Bomb sentry-destroying glitch. I also never understood how Krimzon Guard aiming worked, so thanks for that!
see, for the reason why Daxter's name isnt in the title anymore... it's more because Jak and Daxter: The PRECURSOR Legacy is about the legacy of the last precursor... Daxter... and is friend Jak... For Jak 2/3 it's strictly about Jak's story. (what i mean about daxter is, in Jak 2, the Precursor stone is actually the last Precursor Egg, when hatched into the last Precursor, it travels into the past using the time rift, hopefully you cn see where i'm going with this)
While I agree on a lot of your points mechanically, some of them feel knit-picked and far reaching. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this video quite a bit as a huge fan of the series. Jak 2 was definitely my favorite, and Jak 3 kind of just felt like an extension of it (or DLC) but the story lacked in comparison. To say Jak 2 didn't do anything particularly well isn't agreeable with me. The narrative that you didn't really flesh out on was done outstandingly, as well as the pacing and character development. Riding around from mission to mission didn't feel boring (at least to me), It felt realistic and gave a sense of purpose, even when you slightly bump into a KG and have to outrun them. It felt like the environment was alive. Fast travel probably would have made me enjoyed the game less at the time.
As for the Simon Says portion, it definitely isn't like that metaphor about giving a kid a GDL test you gave lol. That was kind of reaching... and the hoverboard mechanics were crazy fun, and exciting when you were able to take it out into the city. Then finding out there were practical mechanics for it in Haven. The time trial missions were great as well... these things really fleshed out the heroic development of Jak as a character. The "uncommitted tone" that you touched on about how the world and story was dark and gritty then having Daxter be silly was something understandable, but it is a T rated game. The line between adult and child. Of course there would be dark undertones with comedic relief. Especially when the animation is Disney-esque (or at least cartoonish).
This isn't to say Jak 2 is perfect, but it is awesome. You really played devil's advocate and found a lot, some I've overlooked as a blind fan. Though I have beaten Jak 2 three or four times, It's been years. Seeing your analysis really made me realize the things I didn't like about it that I couldn't put my finger on. While I didn't agree 100%, I just wanted to play devil's advocate to yours :) Great video!
I know it's not a popular opinion, but 'Jak II' is my least favorite of the trilogy, mainly for 2 reasons:
1) It's a vast shift from the first game, which takes away many of the good aspects from it.
2) The far-between checkpoints, which leads to some huge frustration. I'm not against hard games, but when the thoughness comes more of the need to go back to the beginning of the level than from though but fair challenge, it's not a good game design.
Don't get me wrong, I still like 'Jak II', it has a lot of good elements: The dark futuristic setting is nice and original, if a little empty, the shooting is fun and the driving is well-designed. The game also has a lot of variety, and most of the levels are pretty good. but the other two games were much better. 'Jak III' felt like an improved version of his predecessor, and sort of solved the two problems I mentioned earlier: While Still feeling closer to the second game than the first game, the third entry brought back some elements from the first entry.
2. Checkpoints were again more frequent, removing the needles frustration
My first PS2 game. I could choose between a PS2 and a PS2 bundled with this game. I didn't have enough money so I bought the regular PS2 in the blue box.
And to my surprise, Jak II was in the box 🙂Got really lucky there and I got to play the game which maybe I would not buy without the happy accident.
CAN'T WAIT FOR OpenGOAL to make Jak II playable on PC... A dream comes true...
The "going back to the hub world is like replaying a level" argument is a weak comparison for a number of reasons. For starters, the player isn't bound to the same beginning and ending points for every mission (or even the same distance) and the world is much larger and detailed than the first stage of SMB. The missions are also fairly well dispersed so pretending as if 3 hours of the total game time is spent driving from one end of the slums to the other is being plainly dishonest at best. Secondly, the area changes throughout the story, from previously blocked off sections of the map being revealed, to set pieces being destroyed/replaced, to guards changing their gear, to full scale enemy invasions at the end of the game, it's not as if it's a literal desert with nothing to observe or do. You also conveniently neglected to mention the various side challenges that are scattered throughout the hub-world for collecting precursor orbs, as well as the fact that the gun-play in general is a functional successor the eco powers from Jak 1, with the color of the weapon corresponding to the ability of the eco power up. Overall, I enjoyed the video, especially the bit about the character-relative shooting mechanics, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your final evaluation.
"that the gun-play in general is a functional successor the eco powers from Jak 1"
I never saw any link between them except the colors...
Ecos are timed powerups, not weapons you carry with ammo and ready to use when you need it...
" You also conveniently neglected to mention the various side challenges"
Like in all reviews I saw from him, he DOESN'T take into account elements giving nothing but 100% progression.
That's even highlighted in the review from the first Jak (I assume you watched it) where he says he is forced to talk about every power cells because they are both partially required to end the game and fully required for the 100%.
The hub world still would've benefited greatly from being much smaller. It's tedious to drive from mission to mission.
The side-missions actually challenge your knowledge on the overworld layout, so its another point as to why i find his open-world rant fruitless.
Diran I like Jak II, but did you honestly play those dull side missions?
Diran You say that, as if it completely overrides whether or not that open world is mechanically satisfying to traverse. I love Haven City for its oppressive atmosphere, but I have never once appreciated having to drive from one long location, to the next.
The spaces, both below and above, are tightly cramped with endless traffic. And even when an opportunity to speed through is presented, it won't be very long until you're cautioning to other drivers directly in your way. Jak 2 just doesn't have the proper space, and layout to make driving feel fun, fast paced, or rewarding. And as much as I love the Jet Board as a concept, it only *hurts* navigating the open world. It never gets any faster, you lose health and seconds of time just by gliding into any guards, it's only cumbersome. I feel that Jak 3 improves over many of the previous elements when it comes to quicker transportation.
nice to see an analysis on the most played video of my childhood lol
I think the skull gems don't attract to you the way dark eco does, because skull gems are meant to be collectibles (like precursor orbs).
Also, I find enjoyment BOTH in a game that can do 1 or 2 things well and a game that can do 4 or 5 things passably. Jak II is one of my favorite games of all time. Part of this is bias for it being the first game series I played extensively. Part of this is my love for the game being able to do tons of different things. However, the biggest reason why I love this game, particularly THIS one the most out of the series, is because it forced me to do something instead of saying "look what I can do." I like a game that makes me wonder about it's story, or one that makes me prove to myself that passing each level is not a fluke (as long as you work for it).
That being said, as an avid fan of the series, I highly respect this review. You touched on points that no one even thinks to mention. I particularly appreciate the thorough gunplay analysis.
you're videos are awesome! can't wait for jak 3 and are you gonna do the sly series to?
Thanks! After finishing the Jak games, I'll have done 8 platformers back to back, so if I ever do the Sly games it won't be soon.
24:00 what does that judgement mean? The arrangement of the combat systems are unfair? I don't quite understand.
Jak 2 is the Best
Jak 2 has to be my least favourite game of all time. I'm sure there are games out there that are technically more broken or with worse writing. But in context of the excellent Jak 1, Naughty Dog took everything they did right in that game and threw it away in favour of a shitty GTA clone.
3:50 they always give you the option to see the enemies before you jump in, dunno what u mean. And there’s no problem with the zooms there or not so idk what the problem is
I'd like to see you analyze I-Ninja, it was a platformer with a bunch of different concepts worked in but I thought it turned out much better. It reminds me almost of Sly Cooper in concept
Damn this was a harsh review on a game I loved yet I can’t disagree with what you said. I’m probably a sucker for a good story. Which I think it did have.
I have several problems with Jak II and 3, no offense to the fans of those games, but I think that the biggest may have been the fact that such a drastic change was what directly followed a game like Jak 1. While you and I may not appreciate this game, there is a large fanbase and group of people who do like this game, so I presume that Jak II did a lot of things right, but when you call a game "Jak II", people will expect more of Jak I. I was completely caught off guard by how different the game was - the box art was definitely a hint that I should have picked up on, but it's remarkable that such a dramatic shift happened at Naughty Dog, even today the transition from 1 to 2 is jarring. Perhaps if there were a few games in between Jak 1 and 2 that slowly added new mechanics to the Jak 1 formula, it would adjust players to the tonal shift that Naughty Dog was going for, as well as given more time to flesh out the new bells and whistles like guns, cars, hoverboards, etc. However, Naughty Dog insisted on pushing the envelope with Jak II, to be as different from the kid-friendly Jak 1 and to presumably attract as many tweenagers as possible, and they may have gone too far by changing so many things at once. Thus, a Jak 1.5 would have helped ease the rough transitions from Sandover Village to Haven City. The other option would to completely start a new franchise with Jak II, with a new setting, characters, story, gameplay, etc., leaving Jak 1 as its own thing, so that the two very different games wouldn't be compared. This would leave the 100% ending of Jak 1 unresolved, but it was already a lame reward in its own right. Starting a new franchise would mean that the developers wouldn't have to keep anything from Jak 1 that didn't work in this new formula (i. e. Daxter, the lighter tone, Power Cells, the location of Sandover Village), and Naughty Dog could have fully commit to a more mature direction, instead of feeling compelled to add more "childish" humor to please fans of the first game.
Also, am I the only one who's super peeved that Jak II is in Roman Numerals, but Jak 3 isn't? Anybody?!
Btw the peacemaker is not scarce just get all your weapons to max ammo and all the game will give u is peacemaker ammo. Like Crimson guard areas
Amazing analysis
Jesus Christ "Analyze" is a bit of a understatement
I like Jak 2's gunplay. I think it works fine with the autoaim
Wow! I agree with you on most things but from a gameplay perspective Jak 3 is so much better. That would make a great video. Also, there are a lot of reasons why this game lacks in areas. The first is the timing put into learning the game coding. The next was rethinking their game at a time when those sort of video games were far and few between. Jak 2 is challenging and maybe you disagree with its mechanics, I would argue that the controls, like in jak 3 compliment different play styles. Finally, I would add that the open world traveling, though pointless, builds the environment and presents a challenge that is outside of the box. You unlock areas as you go along so there is a sense of exploration, but the streets are hard to go around, so there is a danger that is not forced on you in the way a mission does. Also you can do side quests literally everywhere in the city so its not barren. Anyways, great video
25:00 i played this mission 3 days and in m childhood udk how fking frustated i was so a checkpoint wouldn't be bad
No checkpoints in that mission whatsoever.
Man you were preaching to the choir for me, but I won't lie I outright HATED Jak II and Jak III. I even remember thinking to myself that it was just a hoshposh of popular PS2 stuff.
But you explained your reasoning very well, better than I ever could. Good job!
Jak 2 altho different it's still got certain things right. Platforming is good, introduction of weapons is interesting and fun, open world aspect it great.
BUT it falls short due to it's lazy driving/vechile mechanics, frustrating camera controls that makes certain missions (cough cough Drill Station) tedious/unplayable.
And i believe those broken features is what mask this game as "difficult" which is cheap in my books.
In the end Jak 2 is not a fully terrible game but I honestly don't believe it's the best out the 3 series.
This game was so hard that i never beat it i had to get a vehicle for that part were you get swarmed by the guards and i got stuck in the part were you get the roblot and destroy metalheads under water
If you jump you are more likely to be hit with a shot from Krimzon Guards. So don't jump. ROLL.
Sorry for the fans that love this game, but this guy it's right on almost everything on this video.
I actually still like this game. :)
It's easily one of my top 5 games of all time. It's easy after you've beaten it over 20 times.
My only problem is how weak they made Dark Jak.
strange hearing about difficulty. remember beating this with some challenge and having a harder time with its predecessor from the inherent differences in gameplay. wait i cant blast everthing, wtf?
Man, I played this game as a kid and it was hard af. Your suggestions on how the game could be made "better" really just sound like they would make it harder. And that would piss me off. lol Great video though.
does jak3 have better graphics?
Matthew Zaragoza
Well,from experience(on PsVita)Jak 3 graphics have improved,it’s not huge improvement but it’s noticeable
Even with its flaws, I still like Jak II a lot. Jak 3 is superior, though.
Btw, anyone else find it weird that they used roman numerals for II, but a regular 3 for the third game? Never quite understood why they did that. Not that it's a problem, I just find it a bit odd and inconsistent.
Iido's Gaming Den they could have used the iii and fit all 3 jaks into it, weird they went back to the Arabic number
Iido's Gaming Den I guess because Roman numerals are ‘edgy’.
What is the difference between Jak II to Jak II renegade?
There's no difference at all, because you are comparing the same game...
According to the US wikipedia, "renegade" is added in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Africa.
But according to the French wikipedia, it's the name given in the USA... wtf?
That's like Ratchet and Clank 2 and 3, which don't have their subtitles in Europe.
But the open world was made to give an even more nonlinear game than the first
same here thanks :)