After the pretty straightforward Jak and Daxter, the sequel is essentially cartoon GTA, and there are some good parts to this, namely the existence of a plot, the expansion of Jak's moveset with guns and Dark Jak, and all the visuals in and around Haven City. However, the mission structure makes the game surprisingly linear, even though it is technically an open world. Outside of the game's missions, there's not that much to do in Haven City, so you'll mostly just drive from one mission to the next. I appreciate what the game is trying to do in order to evolve past the collectathon foundation that the series emerged from, but it doesn't totally work. On difficulty, in my experience, it is by far the hardest game in the Jak trilogy, but only a couple points in the game are genuinely hard, and I never got stuck for too long. Overall, it's a creative direction for the series to go, even if not everything about it works.
In a nutshell, the game is technically impressive but deeply flawed and therefore hard to recommend. Despite this, I still enjoyed revisiting it, but I feel like this had more to do with my current state of mind and the satisfaction of conquering a game that had given me a lot of trouble when I was younger.
To start with the good, you simply cannot argue with Naughty Dog's technical prowess. This remains one of the most impressive games on PS2 and I'd argue it still looks attractive over two decades later. This is largely due to the strong art direction, high-quality models and effects and superb animation work. The cartoony style of the visuals also helps, of course. The quality of the animation is the single most impressive thing about this game, as far as I’m concerned. It’s just so fluid and satisfying to watch both during gameplay and in cutscenes. The cutscenes themselves have aged very well, with the models being much higher quality compared to what you get during gameplay. The voice acting is also great and the story is reasonably entertaining overall. It gets a bit bogged down with all the artefacts and prophesies by the end, but it’s solid. Jak II is probably Naughty Dog’s first proper story-driven game and a huge step up from their earlier efforts. Like in the first game, the music is not especially memorable, but it’s enjoyable to listen to while playing and it doesn’t grate on you.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good ends and the questionable and plain bad begins. If you’re looking for an exhaustive and well-structured analysis of the game’s gameplay issues, I recommend a video called “Jak II Analyzed” by “Novacanoo” on YouTube. I agree with most of his points. Anyway, my biggest gripe with Jak II is the open world portion of it. Naughty Dog clearly took inspiration from Rockstar’s GTA III and VC, which probably makes sense, because these games were huge at the time. Haven City is light years ahead of Liberty City visually and the number of NPCs and vehicles you can have on screen at the same time is nothing short of impressive. However, it’s dull, lifeless and tedious to navigate. Naughty Dog completely failed to grasp what made the early GTA games fun to mess around in. Apart from some side missions, there’s nothing to do or find and no real incentive to explore. The NPCs have no lines, they don’t interact among themselves or with the player. They just go about looking dejected, while all you hear around the city is the Baron’s tyrannical speeches and his militia’s harassments (lest you fail to notice that it’s a dystopian setting 😅). There’s no radio to listen to, no collectibles or stunt jump ramps or anything of the sort. What’s worse is that the handling of the “zoomers” you get to drive is quite awful (think GTA 4, rather than III) and the layout of the place is absolutely nonsensical, so getting places takes even longer than it should and you still find yourself getting lost even late into the game.
There’s also the infamous difficulty of the game which you’ve probably heard of have memories of. Yes, the difficulty level is higher than you might expect, if you go in blind after the first game. And yes, most of it has to do with poor design such as a finicky aiming system, unforgiving checkpoints and no replenishing of your ammo after a respawn, nasty difficulty spikes and more. But, honestly, as with many other games from my teenage years that I’ve returned to as an adult, I didn’t find it to be nearly as bad as I remember. That’s not to say that the issues aren’t there and that it doesn’t get frustrating at times, but it’s totally doable. I still managed to find enjoyment in the platforming and combat and it’s during these sections that the game is at its best. There are also many tricks and strategies that people have discovered over the years which can make your run a lot easier, so don’t hesitate to look up walkthroughs.
The really, really hard stuff is all side content (getting the high scores for the races, gun challenges, etc.). The difficulty can be genuinely unreasonable and inconsistent for some of those, but I’m willing to let it slide, because, you don’t really have to do them, unless you’re after trophies. For some reason, I decided to invest the time, even though I probably normally wouldn’t. I think I just enjoyed conquering a game that conquered me back in the day 😁.
In conclusion, even though this was the game I was least looking forward to revisiting out of the trilogy, I still found myself kind of enjoying it. It probably had more to do with my personal state of mind at the moment, because underneath the technical polish, the game definitely has a number of fundamental gameplay issues and I would think twice about recommend it to others. I wouldn’t call myself a fan and I don’t think I’ll ever play it again. Make of that what you will 😁.
And just a few words on the PS3 version. I found it to be a better port than the first game. The only thing that stood out to me was that the green star in the sky is again missing for some reason. The specular effect on metals seemed to work correctly in Jak II. Once, again, you can set your console to SD from the system settings to play in 4:3, rather than in 16:9, which is cropped. Unfortunately, even in 576p, there’s still some stuttering in the busiest sections of the city, but I understand that it’s quite a bit better than the PS2 version in this regard. I did not encounter the infamous punch glitch or didn’t notice if I did anyway. Maybe I was just lucky, but I think it mostly affects speedrunners and just players who spam the punch button to move around quickly. I’m neither so I wouldn’t know.
To start with the good, you simply cannot argue with Naughty Dog's technical prowess. This remains one of the most impressive games on PS2 and I'd argue it still looks attractive over two decades later. This is largely due to the strong art direction, high-quality models and effects and superb animation work. The cartoony style of the visuals also helps, of course. The quality of the animation is the single most impressive thing about this game, as far as I’m concerned. It’s just so fluid and satisfying to watch both during gameplay and in cutscenes. The cutscenes themselves have aged very well, with the models being much higher quality compared to what you get during gameplay. The voice acting is also great and the story is reasonably entertaining overall. It gets a bit bogged down with all the artefacts and prophesies by the end, but it’s solid. Jak II is probably Naughty Dog’s first proper story-driven game and a huge step up from their earlier efforts. Like in the first game, the music is not especially memorable, but it’s enjoyable to listen to while playing and it doesn’t grate on you.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good ends and the questionable and plain bad begins. If you’re looking for an exhaustive and well-structured analysis of the game’s gameplay issues, I recommend a video called “Jak II Analyzed” by “Novacanoo” on YouTube. I agree with most of his points. Anyway, my biggest gripe with Jak II is the open world portion of it. Naughty Dog clearly took inspiration from Rockstar’s GTA III and VC, which probably makes sense, because these games were huge at the time. Haven City is light years ahead of Liberty City visually and the number of NPCs and vehicles you can have on screen at the same time is nothing short of impressive. However, it’s dull, lifeless and tedious to navigate. Naughty Dog completely failed to grasp what made the early GTA games fun to mess around in. Apart from some side missions, there’s nothing to do or find and no real incentive to explore. The NPCs have no lines, they don’t interact among themselves or with the player. They just go about looking dejected, while all you hear around the city is the Baron’s tyrannical speeches and his militia’s harassments (lest you fail to notice that it’s a dystopian setting 😅). There’s no radio to listen to, no collectibles or stunt jump ramps or anything of the sort. What’s worse is that the handling of the “zoomers” you get to drive is quite awful (think GTA 4, rather than III) and the layout of the place is absolutely nonsensical, so getting places takes even longer than it should and you still find yourself getting lost even late into the game.
There’s also the infamous difficulty of the game which you’ve probably heard of have memories of. Yes, the difficulty level is higher than you might expect, if you go in blind after the first game. And yes, most of it has to do with poor design such as a finicky aiming system, unforgiving checkpoints and no replenishing of your ammo after a respawn, nasty difficulty spikes and more. But, honestly, as with many other games from my teenage years that I’ve returned to as an adult, I didn’t find it to be nearly as bad as I remember. That’s not to say that the issues aren’t there and that it doesn’t get frustrating at times, but it’s totally doable. I still managed to find enjoyment in the platforming and combat and it’s during these sections that the game is at its best. There are also many tricks and strategies that people have discovered over the years which can make your run a lot easier, so don’t hesitate to look up walkthroughs.
The really, really hard stuff is all side content (getting the high scores for the races, gun challenges, etc.). The difficulty can be genuinely unreasonable and inconsistent for some of those, but I’m willing to let it slide, because, you don’t really have to do them, unless you’re after trophies. For some reason, I decided to invest the time, even though I probably normally wouldn’t. I think I just enjoyed conquering a game that conquered me back in the day 😁.
In conclusion, even though this was the game I was least looking forward to revisiting out of the trilogy, I still found myself kind of enjoying it. It probably had more to do with my personal state of mind at the moment, because underneath the technical polish, the game definitely has a number of fundamental gameplay issues and I would think twice about recommend it to others. I wouldn’t call myself a fan and I don’t think I’ll ever play it again. Make of that what you will 😁.
And just a few words on the PS3 version. I found it to be a better port than the first game. The only thing that stood out to me was that the green star in the sky is again missing for some reason. The specular effect on metals seemed to work correctly in Jak II. Once, again, you can set your console to SD from the system settings to play in 4:3, rather than in 16:9, which is cropped. Unfortunately, even in 576p, there’s still some stuttering in the busiest sections of the city, but I understand that it’s quite a bit better than the PS2 version in this regard. I did not encounter the infamous punch glitch or didn’t notice if I did anyway. Maybe I was just lucky, but I think it mostly affects speedrunners and just players who spam the punch button to move around quickly. I’m neither so I wouldn’t know.