Monday, March 28, 2011

The "Jak and Daxter" Series

I've said it a billion times on this blog. I love Jak and Daxter. And now I'm going to break down why I love this whole series.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
The first time I played it, the bright and beautiful Sandover Village sucked me in and never let me go. I remember struggling the first few times I played it all the way through. It's kind of a tough game- some missions are pretty hard.

But it's all worth it. After all, the environments, characters, and everything else are all working together. The game is kicking on all cylinders. I can keep playing the game over and over because it's almost like I miss some things that go on- every time I play it I love it even more.

Once I got all of the power cells in a save file. That unlocked a custscene that was the link between the first game and Jak 2! It shows how they find the time-machine thing. Which is cool. I didn't really follow the hype for the new game, and was surprised when I found out that...

Jak 2
It's in the future! There's guns! Jak can talk! When did this all happen? Why did this all happen? This is change! I don't like change! Make it stop! Why can't this just be Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy 2?

This ran through my 10-year-old mind as I opened up my copy of Jak 2 on release day. That was a big day in my life. October 14, 2003 was not only when Jak 2 came out, but also when a horrible, horrible disaster occurred.

Point is, I was scared. I was scared this game would let me down. It was a long and difficult game, but... it awesome! I loved racing around the city, and the open world part/GTA thing made you feel like a "renegade".

The story was good, and it got me excited for...

Jak 3
For some reason, I didn't even buy this game. And honestly, I'm glad I didn't.

I played a lot of the game, but didn't finish. I liked the feel of the desert, the feel of the temple, and the gameplay wasn't all too bad. But it just... wasn't as good. And I needed it to be good.

Maybe if it were an IP, with different characters, I'd like it. But I was comparing it to the earlier games. Relative to the past entries, it just didn't compare. I've recently watched an LP of this game, and now I know everything that happens to our friends. It was a funny ending, but...

What if the series would have just stayed on the course of Precursor Legacy? What would happen? I think a similar thing would happen. I would just compare the series to the first game. Jak 2 gave me a totally new flavor, something completely different. Because of that, I was able to look past the first game and not compare it to the first game. But when Jak 3 was so similar to Jak 2, it failed in comparison. This is pretty interesting stuff, I guess.

Thanks for reading.

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