i was something like 10 yo or less when i went to my cousins house and he made me play this game and i INSTANTLY fell in love with it it was something that completely blew me away (i had my fair experience with some other game systems and such and i also bought a PS2 at the time but still it felt like nothing else i had ever played) so much so that i begged my cousin to lend me this game (that i never gave back and its still here in my room as a test of time and also the first and last copy of a game ive ever owned ) and finished it something like 10 to 20 times until my PS2 broke and this game fell into my long term memory until the other month when i realised that yes my new pc is capable of emulating it and went on this journey again after 10 years or so and it felt like i never left
as a boy who never played that many games in his youth and replayed a hundred times the same games i had no idea what the platformer genre was like so it probably took me more to finish this game than the 4 (?) hours that i spent on it but still its an elite time for this kind of genre
as a 3D platformer and a great one at that theres all sorts of move sets and combat styles and whatnot but here theres a mystical and forbidden aspect that i never even dared to touch...................... the collectathon
NOW i dont have strong positive feelings about collectathons i get bored after a while and they kind of feel cheap sometimes . i said sometimes people dont kill me (comment: WELL YOUVE NEVER PLAYED BANJO KAZOOIE , reply: its true) but this one OOOOOOF this one is in its own league entirely it has the PERFECT lenght the PERFECT game loop the PERFECT movement everything is just crafted in a way that makes the collectathon genre feel not like a slog for once
so lets just talk about the story and characters and then talk about why this is one of my fav games of all times
i end up thinking that every video game place that looks like the earth if not stated otherwise is the OG human earth for me so lets say this is a planet where theres a life force called eco (not to be confused with famous furry horror vn masterpiece echo) that fuels everything and everyone and was created by some kind of sentient beings called precursors which to this day im not so sure what they look like
anyway 2 people (ugly guy and hot and sexy maia) are using dark eco to kill everyone or something actually i have no idea maybe theyre just polluting the planet anyway so the green eco sage goes to 2 guys a mute 15 yo guy and his friend who got turned into an otter but like not really an otter more like a weasel that they call ottsel ...... speechless what a duo
anyway with the "help" of the green sage (realistically he just says every 3 mins WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL HERE YOU SHOULD BE GETTING CELLSSSSSSSSSSS WHAT THE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL and gives 0 hands) and sexy hot and tempting keira (which they pronounce kiera ? dont ask) whos a skilled engineer got solid tits is jaks love interest and has the most obnoxious english VA ive ever heard thank god im italian whatever they have to save the other sages who are mysteriously vanished and beat the shit out of gol and to do so you have to fancy writing get cells
now what are cells . fuck if i know but theyre cool and very geometrically pleasing and hypothetically are a source of eco needed to traverse the land with keiras zoomer (shes gonna be like "oh im so sorry jak but my boobs are so stiff that you need 72 cells to move them out of the way" so you know how many you need to keep going) and also a medium for cool ass dramatic poses whenever you get one and theres also many ways to get them or it would get very boring EG find them exploring the world help villagers exchange them with orbs (another collectible that is basically coins and are also called globes/eggs in the italian translation why the fuck would you confuse me like that) complete platforming challenges fight enemies or find every scout fly in a level (yeah... another collectible..................) and so on
basically whatever the fuck you do in this game earns you a power cell even tho they pretend theyre some kind of artifact when in reality they be sitting on the shore just like that but yeah p much this is the whole gist of the game and honestly ? its the most fun ive ever had in my life since i was born its just so so so enjoyable and the sheer amount of movements you can make and mounts you can use just makes for a very diverse and interesting experience
eco is also not only an abstract whatever energy but has a role in the game like get blue eco > run faster/attract orbs get green eco > be cured and so on so yeah thats another really cool gameplay element
difficulty wise this isnt such a hard platformer even tho it gets somehow frustating later on in particular because the save points are scattered in a chaotic fashion and sometimes you just have to do whole platforming sessions without even a save point so yeah that can be tricky but you could also get good (something that i didnt do because i suck as a life statement)
story is alright this is def not my fav in the whole series and will never be but gets the gears going it has some moments some jokey jokes by kinda sexist machismo fueled self proclaimed casanova daxter who has always been kind of annoying but i end up loving him nonetheless this wouldnt be this fun without him around kind of like ace attorney larry butz effect but the 100% secret ending cliffhanger was something that ate me alive like why would you leave me longing for a continuation like that + jak getting famously cockblocked
what i do enjoy the most is that the world is interconnected and just walking in one direction can get you in another level and it just feels like this is just one big world instead of having a hub and level selection thats just something that entirely blew my mind and even tho now it can feel like something v bland it was unbelieavable at the time why am i talking like a 50 yo anyway yeah thats something that i had never seen in a platformer and to this day feels fresh and engaging and possibly contributes to the timeless feel that this experience holds in its palms
whats also timeless is the graphics that somehow didnt age ONE BIT its just like playing it in 2010 or something all over again its just UGHHHH the colors the character designs the world its just toooo much just too too much of an incredible game and i would just play it again and again and also in retrospect these graphics for 2001 were probably the second coming of christ for the people who lived through it so pay respect
i remembered the final boss battle as something grand and massive but it didnt live up to my nostalgia still it was an okay ish final fight so i wont complain on that
music is cool i like the music it IS simple and minimalistic but it still conveys the mood the game is trying to idle in beautifully + i got 0 music knowledge so you can basically make the most absolute garbage and id say its cool (olivia rodrigos album sitting at 0.5 in my RYM may want to say something about this so)
all in all its still the jak and daxter that i remember and hold dear in my heart and i just know i will get back to this game in the next years because i just cant get enough of this iconic duo
the big ass fish eating you alive when you get too far from the shore is the reason why i suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks now
i loved the poses jak and daxter made when they got a cell so much that i used to try to replicate them and injure myself in parts of my body i didnt know existed
playing this on real engine with like 144p resolution on a 4:3 cathode ray tube TV was the pinnacle of gaming for me and id give my soul to anyone that would allow me to go back in time to those halcyon days
i dont usually play games in italian because i end up not liking it very much (not that different from the english voice acting i would always put the japanese dub if possible english is second base and italian is last resort) BUT this one i NEEDED to play in italian it felt like something was off while booting it in english it felt like it wasnt my jak and daxter and also because i know most quotes by heart so it was crushing with my consciousness so hard i rage quitted and switched to italian and fell into deep memory lane
i can recite the intro by heart look at me ho passato la vita cercando di dare risposte alle domande che mio padre e il padre di mio padre si erano posti inutilmente chi sono i precursor goes on
TRIGGER WARNING, THIRSTING
im gay rn because of jak and this game irreversibly shaped the kind of people im attracted to and even though hes kind of baby looking and innocent but still kinda cute and all in this game rest assured that i WILL be having a more convoluted and structured thirsting session on jak 2 and breathes heavily jak 3 so be prepared
me when jak: Not to vent or anything, but I’ve never had a boyfriend before. So I don’t know what to do!! I’ve been craving and burning to be held by a mAaAn!! My friend goth always looks at me like I’m weird when I tell him, so I need to bother someone else. Even he has a boyfriend! UGH!! I’ve never been too much of a fan of sports, but there’s a guy that I would mind shooting hoops for.. he was flirting with me and I completely missed it!! His names jock. But we figured things out and we’re together now! But..my friend goth the boyfriend he’s with I think I have a crush on. He’s really cute and I- my heart flutters when I’m near him. What should I do?
as a boy who never played that many games in his youth and replayed a hundred times the same games i had no idea what the platformer genre was like so it probably took me more to finish this game than the 4 (?) hours that i spent on it but still its an elite time for this kind of genre
as a 3D platformer and a great one at that theres all sorts of move sets and combat styles and whatnot but here theres a mystical and forbidden aspect that i never even dared to touch...................... the collectathon
NOW i dont have strong positive feelings about collectathons i get bored after a while and they kind of feel cheap sometimes . i said sometimes people dont kill me (comment: WELL YOUVE NEVER PLAYED BANJO KAZOOIE , reply: its true) but this one OOOOOOF this one is in its own league entirely it has the PERFECT lenght the PERFECT game loop the PERFECT movement everything is just crafted in a way that makes the collectathon genre feel not like a slog for once
so lets just talk about the story and characters and then talk about why this is one of my fav games of all times
i end up thinking that every video game place that looks like the earth if not stated otherwise is the OG human earth for me so lets say this is a planet where theres a life force called eco (not to be confused with famous furry horror vn masterpiece echo) that fuels everything and everyone and was created by some kind of sentient beings called precursors which to this day im not so sure what they look like
anyway 2 people (ugly guy and hot and sexy maia) are using dark eco to kill everyone or something actually i have no idea maybe theyre just polluting the planet anyway so the green eco sage goes to 2 guys a mute 15 yo guy and his friend who got turned into an otter but like not really an otter more like a weasel that they call ottsel ...... speechless what a duo
anyway with the "help" of the green sage (realistically he just says every 3 mins WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL HERE YOU SHOULD BE GETTING CELLSSSSSSSSSSS WHAT THE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL and gives 0 hands) and sexy hot and tempting keira (which they pronounce kiera ? dont ask) whos a skilled engineer got solid tits is jaks love interest and has the most obnoxious english VA ive ever heard thank god im italian whatever they have to save the other sages who are mysteriously vanished and beat the shit out of gol and to do so you have to fancy writing get cells
now what are cells . fuck if i know but theyre cool and very geometrically pleasing and hypothetically are a source of eco needed to traverse the land with keiras zoomer (shes gonna be like "oh im so sorry jak but my boobs are so stiff that you need 72 cells to move them out of the way" so you know how many you need to keep going) and also a medium for cool ass dramatic poses whenever you get one and theres also many ways to get them or it would get very boring EG find them exploring the world help villagers exchange them with orbs (another collectible that is basically coins and are also called globes/eggs in the italian translation why the fuck would you confuse me like that) complete platforming challenges fight enemies or find every scout fly in a level (yeah... another collectible..................) and so on
basically whatever the fuck you do in this game earns you a power cell even tho they pretend theyre some kind of artifact when in reality they be sitting on the shore just like that but yeah p much this is the whole gist of the game and honestly ? its the most fun ive ever had in my life since i was born its just so so so enjoyable and the sheer amount of movements you can make and mounts you can use just makes for a very diverse and interesting experience
eco is also not only an abstract whatever energy but has a role in the game like get blue eco > run faster/attract orbs get green eco > be cured and so on so yeah thats another really cool gameplay element
difficulty wise this isnt such a hard platformer even tho it gets somehow frustating later on in particular because the save points are scattered in a chaotic fashion and sometimes you just have to do whole platforming sessions without even a save point so yeah that can be tricky but you could also get good (something that i didnt do because i suck as a life statement)
story is alright this is def not my fav in the whole series and will never be but gets the gears going it has some moments some jokey jokes by kinda sexist machismo fueled self proclaimed casanova daxter who has always been kind of annoying but i end up loving him nonetheless this wouldnt be this fun without him around kind of like ace attorney larry butz effect but the 100% secret ending cliffhanger was something that ate me alive like why would you leave me longing for a continuation like that + jak getting famously cockblocked
what i do enjoy the most is that the world is interconnected and just walking in one direction can get you in another level and it just feels like this is just one big world instead of having a hub and level selection thats just something that entirely blew my mind and even tho now it can feel like something v bland it was unbelieavable at the time why am i talking like a 50 yo anyway yeah thats something that i had never seen in a platformer and to this day feels fresh and engaging and possibly contributes to the timeless feel that this experience holds in its palms
whats also timeless is the graphics that somehow didnt age ONE BIT its just like playing it in 2010 or something all over again its just UGHHHH the colors the character designs the world its just toooo much just too too much of an incredible game and i would just play it again and again and also in retrospect these graphics for 2001 were probably the second coming of christ for the people who lived through it so pay respect
i remembered the final boss battle as something grand and massive but it didnt live up to my nostalgia still it was an okay ish final fight so i wont complain on that
music is cool i like the music it IS simple and minimalistic but it still conveys the mood the game is trying to idle in beautifully + i got 0 music knowledge so you can basically make the most absolute garbage and id say its cool (olivia rodrigos album sitting at 0.5 in my RYM may want to say something about this so)
all in all its still the jak and daxter that i remember and hold dear in my heart and i just know i will get back to this game in the next years because i just cant get enough of this iconic duo
the big ass fish eating you alive when you get too far from the shore is the reason why i suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks now
i loved the poses jak and daxter made when they got a cell so much that i used to try to replicate them and injure myself in parts of my body i didnt know existed
playing this on real engine with like 144p resolution on a 4:3 cathode ray tube TV was the pinnacle of gaming for me and id give my soul to anyone that would allow me to go back in time to those halcyon days
i dont usually play games in italian because i end up not liking it very much (not that different from the english voice acting i would always put the japanese dub if possible english is second base and italian is last resort) BUT this one i NEEDED to play in italian it felt like something was off while booting it in english it felt like it wasnt my jak and daxter and also because i know most quotes by heart so it was crushing with my consciousness so hard i rage quitted and switched to italian and fell into deep memory lane
i can recite the intro by heart look at me ho passato la vita cercando di dare risposte alle domande che mio padre e il padre di mio padre si erano posti inutilmente chi sono i precursor goes on
TRIGGER WARNING, THIRSTING
im gay rn because of jak and this game irreversibly shaped the kind of people im attracted to and even though hes kind of baby looking and innocent but still kinda cute and all in this game rest assured that i WILL be having a more convoluted and structured thirsting session on jak 2 and breathes heavily jak 3 so be prepared
me when jak: Not to vent or anything, but I’ve never had a boyfriend before. So I don’t know what to do!! I’ve been craving and burning to be held by a mAaAn!! My friend goth always looks at me like I’m weird when I tell him, so I need to bother someone else. Even he has a boyfriend! UGH!! I’ve never been too much of a fan of sports, but there’s a guy that I would mind shooting hoops for.. he was flirting with me and I completely missed it!! His names jock. But we figured things out and we’re together now! But..my friend goth the boyfriend he’s with I think I have a crush on. He’s really cute and I- my heart flutters when I’m near him. What should I do?