This is almost exactly what insomniac did in spiderman 2 recently with the symbiote for venom

“I cant control it” never transforms again until the final boss

I noticed it in jak 3

Dark Jak is the reason for the season. Happy birthday!

The precursor statue in the water slums teaches Jak how to control it in exchange for metal head skull gems... learning control is literally part of the game, so I don't know what you mean by it breaking the immersion?

i really played Jak II this year, and yes completly Underdeveloped and Underutilized. First, no cinematic with him. Second, the game was so hard for me that i kept the form from the ultim need because it was not easy to recharge the power fast. You couldn't use it many often. I couldn't get the all bonus because i finished the game far away before. I didn't play the 3 but i think the one will be the best for ever.

man this series needs a reboot or remaster, its so awsome. RIP to this old mascot (and to Sly). at least ratchet is still alive *barely*. zwz

You know what? Story based transformations would be crazy! I'm thinking something similar where instead of having the option to opt in when the meter is full, we have a forced transformation every time it fills up. Imagine the subtle gameplay aversion where you're literally steering Jak from running near dark eco crystals while they come to him anyway. Then keep it that way until we get light eco in Jak 3; that's when we transform at will so it feels like earned progression.

I think it was meant to he implied that Daxter was actually flipping him off, the only reason we don't see him actually do that is because they never intended for people to see Daxters hand off camera so they didn't do the animation for it

No he shouldn't have existed at all. Jak and Daxter was a pretty good platformer for the time. Then Naughty Dog saw GTA 3 and vice city and said lets do that now.

I whole heartedly agree with this. Always thought it was weird that they immediately dismiss Daxter getting his human form back 3/4 the way into the first game. Then in Jak 2, he has these powers but they have no use other than destroying a group of enemies. He only turns into DJ forcefully in the beginning and they barely mention it in the story. Jak 3 handled it better with the “Yin Yang” concept, but TLF completely ruined that by taking away light and dark eco powers

OpenGOAL Modders need to watch this video and read the comments.

I did enjoy Dark Jak’s kamehameha in Jak 3

Ngl I never used it after breaking out of prison. Once I got guns I just forgot it was a thing.

Your right I never use dark Jak at all

Dark Jak is a metaphor for changes in Jak as a person. I think they used the mechanic just enough to make this point. I agree Dark Jak could have more explicitly been used as a reason for Jak to visit Oracle, but I disagree with everything in your second point. The second point makes fundamental changes to the core design to highlight a mechanic that has already received appropriate attention.

Cool ideas! I think it could have helped a lot to make Dark Jak feel more uncontrollable and dangerous if they had added just one simple mechanic: If your dark eco-meter is full but you don't activate Dark Jak, there is a random chance Dark Jak will activate on its own. The longer you wait before releasing Dark Jak, the higher likelyhood of Dark Jak activating on its own.

The worse part is how well OpenGoal runs, natively

Id like you to keep in mind, that even though this game was rated T it was, on a level, advertised to children. I think the developers were aware many children would buy their game thus less of a Dark Jak plot.. I also believe that the auto shifting was actually a mechanic in one of the earlier versions somewhere down the line until it was "updated.. As far as environmental uses this was handled more in Jak 3 I believe the Developers were trying to give the public just a taste of this mechanic to see how they would respond.. Given the climate of this comment section I would say its positive.. Your not wrong, per say, but Dark Jak was a lesser component to the game, the focus was meant to be on saving the world and finding Mar.. In each Jak game the eco is a tool, not meant to be "worshipped" when we cross that fine line things get out of hand.. very useful.. living even.. but still a tool to help one navigate further in the game. Excellent Video

Right

I think you don't understand why some of us like Jak 2 over 3. Jak 3 did add "environmental abilities," with the dark laser being used to crush random walls blocking your path...it was boring, a "been there, done that" nothing burger of a mechanic. Ontop of that, things like the "triple jump" miss the whole point of the form, and one of it's genuinely plot significant aspects, that being the fact it's not some controllable skill during Jak 2. Jak being able to use dark eco in a sophisticated, strategic manner, goes against everything dark eco and dark jak conveys, as well as essentailly ignoring how Jak can't actually channel eco like he used to (the lost frontier does not count). Things like the peace maker are the only ways a human can properly use dark eco. Jak lost the "pure gift," that being eco channeling and access to precursor relics. This is why Dark Jak manifests as a form, something he cannot just control as a normal person. ND intentionally decided to make Dark Jak less sophisticated and controlled than Jak is usually, with them removing things like the ability to use guns, as well as removing any voice lines indicating that Jak can talk when he is fully transformed into this feral monstrosity. This is why he had to be blessed by the precursors to use light eco, he NEEDED an entire form for it to be compatible with him again. Hell, the Oracle is arguably the reason Jak has ANY control over his dark form, as before you ever meet it, all Jak does is random, animalistic swipes. As for it somehow not being uncontrollable due to our ability to activate it, narrative dissonance I suppose. The most the game tells us is that it's related to anger, which is ironically one of the reasons one would activate DJ in Jak 2 since it's so hard (I'm so quirky). My point is that this is a classic case of players seeing the phrase "missed potential" and just brainstorming things without thinking about the deeper implications on the lore or gameplay. I for one find Dark Jak better as a visual representation of Jak's experience in prison, over....idk, even more of a shoehorned Hulk dynamic? As for gameplay, I'm even less of a fan, what I personally like about Jak 2 is the fact you can usually complete it's missions in any way you want, or at least, have a lot of creative control over how to do it (the seal piece at slums mission of all things has around four unique methods of completion). Trading that for scripted sequences is actually, and I mean no offense, one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. It falls victim to the mentality of future Jak games, serving as one of the few flaws in Jak 3 (Again, smashing rocks with a laser is some of the most boring shit imaginable, and most of the bosses are a lot less freeform than Jak 2's), to one of the major reasons the Lost Frontier is so awful (basically most things not ripped off from the trilogy are automated). Moreover, it sounds too much like the flaw of games today, that being the scripted sequences taking away the game aspect, instead of using gameplay to convey the story. So tl;dr, I'm glad Dark Jak was "underdeveloped" if it meant Jak 2's story actually got to be fleshed out, and it's gameplay freeform and creative. I don't need a million sequences to have dark eco's effects conveyed to me, it is done via Jak himself, with the dark eco changing him in general, dark Jak just exists to represent that change visually...and to have some sick screen nukes. Yes by the way, I rather have the fun gunplay NOT be overshadowed, and dark giant on it's own is enough to allow creative use besides a built in panic button (destroy ship at drill platform: dark blast to kill the hidden KG before the 40 man onslaught that awaits, very useful on hero mode).

I've always loved the idea of the eco transformations. But they only every used dark and light jak. I've always wished they found a way to get all the eco type their own transformations

The "Dark Jak vs. Paxis' mech" idea reminds me of the Egg Dragoon boss battle from Sonic Unleashed. In fact, Dark Jak and the Werehog are kinda similar, aren't they?

I think that Naughty Dog's mentality with Dark Jak in gameplay is they tried to treat it like your standard, short-lived OP Super Mode, like God of War's Rage of the Gods/ Titans/ Sparta, or Devil May Cry's Devil Trigger. But Dark Jak isn't OP enough to fall into that category

I think at lot of games will have something like dark jak or some other gameplay feature that gives you an advantage at the cost of some energy or what ever but it always annoys me because i try to save the power for a big fight or something but never end up needing it or remembering to use it Spoiler srota for dying light An example from the game dying light that always bothered me was that near the start of the game in a scripted event you get infected and it rarely ever comes up in the story or should I say you are almost never affected by it or the seizure it gives you outside of 1 or 2 scripted events

It would also be cool to see if Dark Jak made a negative impact on the plot. Not just being useful gameplay mechanic but also negative, maybe Keira gets scared of Jak and doesn't want to get near him or maybe Jak was given a mission but through anger he couldn't control himself and makes the bad decision ultimately failing the mission. And for gameplay, Dark Jak randomly occurs breaking the flow that you had going for fights and even attacking and moving randomly out of your control. although that last part might be hard to implement without making the game annoying

This is a very well written and paced video. I'm glad to see so many views on a video about a Jak game.

From what I remember, the ONLY time I really, really needed to use Dark Jak was in one of the sewer missions where you face a horde of Metal Heads in a tight, enclosed space. Aside from that, the form was kinda useless.

Your fist idea to add more story beats based on dark jak is garbage but your second idea to deepen the controls for the game is amazing

None of the themes are worth it, tbh. I've seen better custom-made ones for PS3 and PSP, which are free, to boot.

Im just seeing this video, but all of this is facts. I never transformed unless i needed to one and done a crowd. The way jak 3 did it is much better. The only way they can make up for this is a jak 4 (lost frontier doesnt exist). Side note: Jak and daxter was so well designed and one of the best games of it's time by far.

Jumping over buildings with dark Jak wouldn't really have worked because the buildings served the function of culling parts of the environment for the renderer. And also the hoverboard served the function of speeding up traversal without a zoomer.

I think Jak 3 did a lot of justice to dark jak, but still underutilized it. Same with the light powers. Some times their sequences of use were never used again. Example, how often did we really use the light shield? (Aside from flight glitch)

A scripted scenario with Dark Jak: the best example I could think of is when you're tasked with killing stealth Metal Heads in Haven Forest. Jak relying on pure killer instincts along with his powers; the counter starts at 30 or 50 enemies, then, after reducing that number, Dark Jak goes from uncontrollable to HONED. The Dynamic Audio going from staccato to a sort of dark, menacing flow/wave/pulsating effect. The darkness is still there, potent as ever, but Jak has mastered HIMSELF (to a better, more positive degree). What do you guys think? Could a scenario I put here work in a re-imagining of the Trilogy (R&C Rift Apart style)?

I've been hoping some indie developer would create a spiritual successor to these games with mechanics like these in mind

I thought having Dark Jack running four legged for faster movement would increase the savagery of his appearance

In Jak2 Cover it looks Like Dark Jak has a Sword which is Intresting.

one cool thing ND could've done with Dark Jak is have an escape sequence with Daxter. Like a scenario that forces Jak to go wild and Daxter has to escape from either the carnage Jak is causing or Jak directly.

Shouldn't this be _How_ Dark Jak Was Underdeveloped and Underutilized? 'Why', to me, implies a retrospective on the development of Jak II and why certain aspects may have been rushed or not fleshed out well. I was expecting dev diaries or interview clips or something. It was still a good video and I agree with all your points, the title just threw me off slightly. I think the best title would actually just be 'Dark Jak Was Underdeveloped and Underutilized'

I agree with the points you have made in this video and I'd like to continue the brainstorm and share my ideas: A. Mission Integration I agree with Dark Jak being largely underutilized in story as well as gameplay compartments, as it isn't used a lot apart from cutscene content and first level of the game. Dark Jak was also used in some cutscenes in Jak 3 and there were two scripted transformations: First Arena Fight and Dark Strike tutorial. Making more scripted content for Dark Jak is a must. But how we should go about it? Option 1: scripted levels and segments. That means, there should be content added that is only playable with Dark Jak, but in order to do that, we should first signify Dark Jak advantages over his normal self, and if there aren't many (SPOILER ALERT! There aren't many), then we should rework the gameplay part of Dark Jak. Option B: random transformations. Meaning, that throughout the story we will use a certain plot device to add Dark Jak transofrmations, unintended by the player. The mechanism for that is in both Jak 2 and 3 first levels, where Dark Jak activates, and pressing L2 turns him back, only for it to activate again. The amount and intensity of the transofrmations will also increase or decrease with the progression. But making transofrmations random and out of nowhere will probably just annoy the player and ruin the balance of the game, even if it signifies a major plot point. Jak 2 and 3 are setup in GTA'esque environments, and a lot of player interactions with the world around him can have consequences. One of them, is GTA style wanted system, whereas if you kill Haven citizens or KGs you get wanted level, although, not as sophisticated as in GTA. GTA is also more violent and mature rated game, it also has crime score and, well, it requires player to kill a lot of people, or rather, not requires, but pushes the player to lower the significance of harming and killing citizens, policemen, etc. Jak world is a little bit different to that, It's much more idealistic by nature, and based on kind principles, as it's made for a lower aged audience, and is meant to have a positive message. And so, Jak is referred to as a Hero and Champion of all time. This leads me to the idea, that there should be some sort of an in-game meter (not active and constant) of Jak's (or players) status, kindness, positivity, conscience, the 'good' meter, whatever you want to call it, I'm going to name it "Hero Score" for the sake of this comment. The idea is simple, any violent act of harming citizen, KGs, stealing Zoomers, destroying them, etc. will result in a deduction of Hero Score, while helping citizen fend off Metalheads, completing missions, generally destroying metal heads, etc. will award player with Hero Score, but we are not going to make it very obvious to the player and constantly active in your HUD, rather make it appear once in a while, maybe, in between acts, to signify the players performance. Now, what's that going to mean from player's perspective. That creates a plot device of Dark Eco experiments being an important ordeal for Jak, and each deduction of Hero Score brings him more to his Dark side (no pun intended). Haven City and it's aura can be described very well by the Grey colour, even without additional downgrades, but we can probably affect the gameplay more with Hero Score. Deduction will result in color scheme changes, weather changes, people reaction (the reduction of people in areas Jak is in, people running away and being terrified if you any near), KGs reaction (open fire on site, disdainful comments on defeat, etc.), additional content on speakers around town, mentioning your crimes, changes in Jak's appearance resembling more of his Dark form) and Daxter animations and comments (being noticeably scared of Jak, verbal attempts to stop Jak's rampage, if he starts one, maybe even segments, where Daxter jumps off his shoulder, during enemy or KG fight, etc.) On the other hand, higher score, will result in positive comments from citizens and their more friendly approach, areas where Jak appears, being much more livid. With this, we can introduce a mechanic, where lower and lower Hero Score will result in unexpected Dark Jak transofrmations, and the lower the score the stronger Dark Jak should become. Maybe, with the lowest score we can make Dark Jak invincible to enemy attacks, but causing Damage over Time, there are a lot of different ways. Perhaps, we can also alter the ending depending on your score. B. Story Integration Giving Dark Jak more screen time can also improve the transition between second and the third game. So let's say, we get the same ending as in original Jak 2 game, but with Dark Jak defeating Metal Kor and so the question of Jak's inner state is still left in the air. Maybe, after events of the second game, when Jak and the company are leading the Freedom army to war against metal heads and KG robots, increased exposure to eco and involvement in fights can make Jak less stable, causing unexpected transformations and more aggression, so people and higher-ups of Freedom becoming afraid of him, comparing him to a monster like Metal Kor, and effectively blaming him for all the failures in the battlefield. We should also rework Jak's trial and banishment which seemed pretty illogical at the beginning of Jak 3. Let's say that when they form the Haven council, some HQ members are also present in the formation, and one of the members is count Veger. Knowing who Jak is and his importance for this fight, he figures that he cannot gain control of the Freedom HQ as long as they have an asset like Jak, so he starts an agenda of revealing information about Dark Warrior program and labels Jak as Dark Eco Freak. Although, there are zero ways of him overpowering the head of HQ and Jak, he can atleast cause mass confusion in the public which leads to Jak's trial, so perhaps he is using the same nethods as Praxis used against Jak's father. Veger can play very well with Jak's emotions, so he can provoke him during the trial. Just as we see in the intro cutscene of Jak 3, he might resist taking into custody and try to breakout, which is vastly different to how he was captured in the previous game intro. Maybe, Jak can even lose his cool for the moment and transform during the trial, guaranteeing Veger his victory. At this point, even Jak's allies like Ashelin, Torn, Samos and Keira too, maybe, lose their faith and Jak and become a little bit afraid. So, for the old times sake, Ashelin tries to contest with the council/judges, or whatever, but Jak's behaviour leaves her no chances, and it's not like she will try very hard to stop Jak's exile anyway. In my eyes, that makes sense, to why, she didn't stop Jak's banishment in the first place, but she could do it later, as they saw their chances at victory diminishing without Jak. We can also tie this in, with the introduction of Light Jak. Having less and less control of Dark powers, we can see Jak transforming during First Arena Fight. Damas seen it too, so at some point after capturing leapers in the desert mission we can include a cutscene or atleast a transmission of Damas advising Jak to visit the Precursor Temple in the desert, to search for something that might help him, rather than have this mission just popup as you unlock the specific vehicle. And knowing Jak's state of mind, the Precursors award him with the light of hope being Light Jak abilities of regeneration to balance with his Dark Eco powers. It's only natural for Ashelin come to Jak and seeing him more stable to be more sure of asking him back. C. Gameplay changes. As I was writing this I already forgot what I wanted to explain here on top of what you've said. But yeah: 1) enhance Dark Jak's moveset in a way, it gives you possibilities that normal Jak don't have; 2) also, depending on your Hero Score we can make enemies lose morale, throw back and retreat whenever you transform; 3) I completely agree with unique Dark Jak QTEs and finishers, but there is a small problem. We want to encourage players to use Dark Jak instead of morph gun, so instead of making Jak lose Dark Eco meter when doing certain actions like attacks, we should have these just frame actions, where perofrming them will actually fill your Dark meter a little bit, allowing you to chain your combos, Sick Smokin' Style without running out of Eco in a minute, and that also encourages players not to just clear screen with Dark Bomb but rather be more effective with it. That's about it, of what I could remember. I'll hope to find more Jak and Daxter content on your channel

If Dark Jak had been a central focus of the game as more than an afterthought, Jak II could have become a truly inspiring allegory about the human experience of trauma and coming to terms with it. The story that we did get then could have been framed in the light of Jak's internal struggle. I wish they had gone more in that direction; it would have left a much greater impact on the player and made the story more compelling overall.

Gonna be honest Dark Jak vs Metal Kor would've been bad ass imagine just having a final boss while your Dark Jak and if he was even more in the plot gaining more control over the powers besides the oracle letting the dark eco not kill hik but he also gains control of it so during the final fight with Kor

I like your story concepts. Actually yeah it all makes sense but one thing comes to my attention. The gameplay mechanics would've been too hard to implement or we would have to lose something the game already had (like waaay too many npcs on the road) because it's to my understanding that Jak 2 and 3 pushed the PS2 as far as it could go. There probably wasn't a lot of ram left to integrate these mechanics. But yes a all dark Jak level and some framing cutscenes to tie the oracle in would love been nice.

I’m not sure, whether I should be surprised or not, considering how much it would be believable for Daxter to actually flip him off in that scene. Regardless, I’m glad to see the mystery is solved, as a Daxter Fan, it was an interesting one!

I feel like jak 3 did more with dark jak than jak 2. He was essentially exiled because he was different and they were afraid of him and he needed to get light eco to balance himself out. They also let you activate it more frequently and gave you a ranged attack with him it's even used in puzzles with dark invisibility.

Okay so, i am more curious what happened to the dark giant form in jak 3 was it caused by a imbalance or something or maybe it's a level 2 dark eco transformation if this is true what would a light eco level 2 form be? Also if jak 4 ever comes out i hope they have eco powers on top of the dark and light forms and gun gives more gameplay variety.

There's a pretty good fan fiction story by an author username Light_eco_sage. Where he's his transformations have alter egos and jak has 3 different voices in his head including himself. The author follows the games plot but expands upon each character and Jaks abilities. Honestly it was a good read and made me like the game more then I remembered playing it as a kid.

i would have loved dark jak only enemies, would actually give a reason to use him. or like in the video, door mechanisms involving dark eco and dark jak but that means it would be problematic because if the dark eco gauge is empty then you cannot progress further. and jak 2 doesn't have dark eco sources like in jak3, it would be kind of stupid as well, since we see dark eco transactions, meaning it's hard to find dark eco. idk how the eco sources work according to the lore, if it's actual eco flowing out of there or just, you know, spiritual energy of sorts. if it's raw eco then why not link it directly to the power system so in the end the only thing jak 2 and 3 were missing were dark and light jak only enemies. dark bomb for enemies with tough shells, light jak time slow down for really fast enemies or the forcefield to shield yourself from an unavoidable attack

Maybe if the community twisted Naughty Dog's arm enough and got a complete remake of the Jak and Daxter series, we could see some of these ideas for Dark Jak come to life

something cool is that if you turn into Dark Jak on co op missions The characters will comment on it. Like Sig at the pump station Ashelin during the ambush missions or Jinx in the sewers.