Board 8 > Best of the Collection: Jak and Daxter Bundle

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jak 1 is the only good Jak

^False.

When I first played these games on the PS2, I want to say it was 3 > 2 > 1.

When I replayed them through the compilation, it was a clearly defined 1 > 3 >>>>> 2. Good lord the design choices in 2. I never want to navigate through that city ever again.

I haven't played Jak X because of a known game-breaking bug. I'm not sure if that was ever fixed in the ports.

KCF0107 posted...

When I replayed them through the compilation, it was a clearly defined 1 > 3 >>>>> 2. Good lord the design choices in 2. I never want to navigate through that city ever again.

Exactly.

Jak 2 is garbage. Haven't played Jak X yet.

My vote is for Jak and Daxter.

3>1>2>X

1 is a completely different game from the next two but it's great

2 tried something new and 3 perfected it imo

X is a kart racer and it's fine

2 > 3 > 1

Nominate the Ratchet & Clank collection

The narrative that Jak 1 is the only good Jak is a knee-jerk reaction to the stylistic change. Honestly, the path of these games mirrors the path of the Prince of Persia trilogy.

First game is a genuine classic.

Second game is edgy trash to try and appeal to a different market and isn't actually that good in the end on a purely technical level.

Third game is easily the best of the trilogy and evolves the advancements of the 2nd game while keeping the soul of the original, resulting in the final perfected state, but because the second game was a bit of a mess nobody cares about the third one.

Cart racer....no wait....

I replayed all of these games early last year to refine my opinion on them after watching this absolutely STUPENDOUS long form analysis of the franchise from the always fantastic Breadsword (I recommend checking out his channel in it's entirety), and while I clearly don't agree with his Jak 2 take it still resulted in a newfound appreciation for the series.

Just...make some snacks.

https://youtu.be/nf7ol01Xm8Y

Ive just started this series very recently. I beat Jak 1 and 2 so far. Not sure Ill ever play the racing one. So far Im 1 > 2 because 2 was pretty frustrating for some missions, handling nearly all vehicles felt terrible, checkpoints werent frequent enough and navigating the city was just a general pain in the ass. I like what Jak 2 did story wise though more than the first game and it was cool Jak was given a voice.

Ill likely be starting 3 next week.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

"Nobody liked 2" sure is revisionist history

People who've either played it for the first time or replayed it with the collection may think it's aged poorly (can't speak to this personally), but saying it wasn't liked at the time is untrue.

I loved 2 at the time!

With a modern replaying and 2 just being the janky precursor (ehhhhh!) to 3, it's the odd man out. The traversal in the game is severely damning. 1's simplicity holds up, 2 is an experiment, and 3 feels like the completed experiment. I respect it for building to 3 but I can't enjoy replaying it.

I think people saying it was unliked at the time are likely remembering the online and occasional media backlash to the reveal of the change in direction prior to the game's release. Online discussion was really becoming mainstream around that time and takes were hot. "GTA Clome!", they cried, misspelling intentional on my part.

I rember those games being hyped as hell back in the day, especially 3.

3 > 2 > 1

Jak II is the best Jak because I'm not bad at video games. 1's a great breezy platformer. 3 is fine if you like minigames and driving and don't want to play a Jak game basically.

Oh yeah and I initially hated Jak X but replayed it in full recently and it's actually pretty solid. Modes beyond the races themselves are hit or miss, but the driving feels spectacular once you get used to the slippery controls.

I've only played the first one. Looks like it peaked there.

2 was brutally and borderline unfairly hard at the time and it's somehow even harder now

I enjoyed the game a lot but the checkpoint system was so so bad

That one jumpy car from Jak 3 was more fun than the rest of the series combined.

Great voice acting for the time, though! And adding skateboarding to regular platforming for no reason was actually pretty fun when it worked! And the first game was good when it was trying to be Crash Bandicoot instead of Banjo, which wasn't often but that one Atlantis level was good sometimes!

impulse is to vote jak 3, but jak 3 doesn't have the greatest let's play of all time