Jak II's Hidden Depth 

YEESSS, that too!

You can shoot during that?

@@magicmanscott40k when you shoot during this you fire like 3-4 shots coming out

This trick makes the Scatter Gun so much better. Just roll and shoot and hit anything around you, even behind you. Auto-aiming also makes the Vulcan Fury go at full speed right away, so you can rolljump or uppercut into an encounter and stunlock the enemy instantly.

@@Geta92 wow

Only on the mission where you have to take out 30 invisible MH

I used to play Jak 2 like it was DOOM with infinite berserk packs fun times except when i ran out of juice for my dark form

@@ericholcomb6405 punch + scatter gun is my fave combo

Don't forget dark jak and ooohhh ooohh ohh.... The infinite dark jak and gun ammo unlocks. The only jump spinning I did was with dark jak and that...... That Fuuuhuucked everything and it's mamma up.

@@gentlemanmadness607 the funny thing is, in my recent playthroughs of jak 2 and 3, I rarely _ever_ used dark jak. I used it in jak 2 a grand total of 2 times (excluding the times when the game forces you into it). The first time because I kind of _accidentally_ hit the button and was like, oh well, I'm already surrounded, might as well dark bomb to save some ammo. The second time was on the final boss to cut the enemies down with a dark bomb so I could keep focusing the peace maker on his first phase and cut him down quick. That was also the only time in the game that I used the peacemaker. In Jak 3, I can't recall a single time that I actually used dark jak and wasn't forced to. Thing is, I probably would have used dark jak and the peacemaker more if the checkpoint system restored your ammo and dark eco upon death. The possibility that you could use your peacemaker ammo, or dark jak, die anyway, and then respawn with nothing, made me not want to bother, because I couldn't rely on any strategy centered around those moves, because you'd have to execute it flawlessly on the first attempt or else you're shit out of luck. Thing about strategy is that sometimes you have to try and fail a couple times to really perfect it. Can't do that if the very next attempt prohibits you from executing the strategy because the starting conditions are different for some reason.

Same here, I had no idea people did that

Spray and pray I only used it on Kor because those flyers were too much for me as a kid

Me neither I’ve never played like that

Agreed I always thought it was just an option for dealing with swarms if small 1 hit melee enemies.

I think he was over exaggerating, but people do use that a lot

It's the lowest selling PS2 exclusive. The best jak game is the first one. The second one copies ratchet and clank wand grand theft auto without understanding how to implement the mechanics well. Awful open world design, terrible missions, shooting mechanics without strafing etc. There is a reason the PS3 jak game never went into production. Jak was best as a refined collectathon, for everything else ratchet did things better (and is why that franchise is still alive)

@@wile123456 you have the right to be wrong, and btw the best one is Jak 3

@@slayerBO2EPC meta critic and amounts of copies sold shows I'm not wrong. Jak 1 is the most popular

@@wile123456 yeah and fortnite is popular, doesnt mean its the best game ever. Your opinion is bad and you should feel bad.

I hated driving through Haven city. The only tip I have to give is don’t hold X while you’re turning lol I hated switching to low hover bc i always end up hitting a crimson guard.

yeah they're built in game mechanics, you can hardly even call them "strategies". It's almost like saying shooting in megaman is a strategy LOL

The aiming is kinda annoying at times imo.

@@jakehunter3434 I can agree with that, but at the same time I got better with just playing the combat. Although it still didn’t work the way I wanted at times.

@@Twin_Dilf69 I watched a video explaining each gun and which situations are best for which gun. I never put that much thought into it back when I was a kid lol.

yeah, I feel like they ruined the combat in Jak 3 by making the guns so overpowered

@@stevencraeynest7729 Not to mention making some other guns and upgrades completely obsolete and inconsequential. In Jak 2 each gun serves a purpose and has a usage for a particular strategy depending on the situation. With Jak 3 though a lot of older and newer upgrades are just practically made useless with only a small handful actually serving some sort of utility or purpose (IE Beam reflexor, Needle lazer, and Super Nova)

@@stevencraeynest7729 If Jak2 had the same OP gun upgrades that jak3 had, I dont think people would be complaining as much about the difficulty.

You gotta do punch jump spin to dodge attacks, then on your way down shoot the blaster. It should auto aim to the nearest enemy

@@stevencraeynest7729 I think it's because of enemy balance. If you go into the desert with guns that can't kill those cars then that creates an insanely frustrating scenario for the player.

Nice assessment

Agreed. Both jak 2 and ratchet 2 feel like super jak and super ratchet. (Like from mario to super mario) And the 3rd one was like they were getting ready for a long slow goodbye.

Exactly how I feel. I use to rage a lot on this game but each time I tried it just got more and more satisfying. The series is just a classic and a challenge to enjoy.

for me Jak3 actually is best in beginning and end, the mid section feels like filler. But I agree about Jak2, that game is awesome the whole time

@@stevencraeynest7729 Jak 3 is too easy unfortunately. Too many life and too strong weapons

It's funny cuz I played that sequence dozens of times over the years and every single time that I ever beat it I was on my hoverboard and I just moved right past all the fighting never touched a person. Way easier

I used the blaster most for bosses. Its never good to run into a boss while low on ammo anyway

I seem to be seeing a lot of people saying they used scattergun and melee. Which I find interesting because I used melee a lot but rarely the scatter gun (though I guess i never realized you could effectively cancel the end lag, might've used it more if i had). The only gun I used often was the blaster, but I always tried to be more precise with it. I only really used the spin-spray when I was REALLY surrounded, because like you said, it seemed pretty inaccurate. I think I didn't mix guns and melee much, at least not directly, I might've rarely stun-locked with blaster while I ran up to punching-range lol. I think I knew about the triple-shot melee thing, but I tried not to use it much 'cause like I said in another comment, I'm always really (probably excessively) conservative with resources (also why I preferred to try to shoot blaster really quickly rather than just use vulcan, lol).

@@thesuperMasterSword you know you can skip the slow start-up speed with the vulcan by using the punch-shoot combo move with it. Knowing this helped me master that particular mod, and it's honestly one of my favorite things about Jak II. I love doing the water-slums mission now [the hard way, that is]

Well they don’t really explain the gun combos you can use. I personally found out the gun combos by accident. It definitely improved my gameplay tho.

who sais they dont understand it? its just pointless... rather risk randomness than having to deal with frustration

Most Reviewers are irreliable.

Underrated? Wasn’t Jak and Daxter one of the most iconic video game characters at some point? Up there with all the other greats at the time.

You don't know what the word underrated means lmao

@@ArtoriasNX I know what it means pal! While it got a lot of love from the gaming community at the time, I personally love this series so much that I don’t think it gets enough from gamers today. Everybody talks about Fortnite, the Witcher III, GTA V, Elden Ring, and so on. But almost every other list that Jak and Daxter could fit in, it normally gets left out. It’s underrated in my opinion (and most likely for other fans in the series).

@@andreassmed2255 Nope. It wasn’t.

@MinimalChill Yope. It was.

natural* lol

I recently bought the jak collection, not playing any of the games when they came out and I have to say... I'm sorry to anyone who likes it... but this game is awful. I can't say its not still hard... and honestly completely broken. I played it the proper way, I tried everything, this game devastated me. Like this game was bad even for a PS2 game. It did things that PS1 games did bad. Some sections of this game were like badly scripted PS2 shovelware games. Which is sad seeing as I can tell alot of work went into this game. The score boards they have in the minigames are awful, the Pot one with the quick time button mash, defies human senses, and is eye straining. There are alot of times that when I walked away and I came back I did better, and granted I am getting older, but I don't think that has anything to do with why I suffered through this game. The gameplay is just awful, the amounts of enemies, the difficulty spikes, all of it is poorly thought out. Its only saving grace is its amusing cast of characters, the rest of the game though I can do without. You can tell in Jak 3 they learned alot from Jak 2, it doesn't suffer from nearly as many of the same problems. Until you start getting later into the game. THe mini games start out ok, Check points are plentiful and in the right places and so on. But then, every once in a while, you'll have a mini game that feels like it was added only to pad out the run time for how bullcrap it is. Like the Invasion gun turret on the beach, where you have to fire at the legs and shoulders of the invaders while firing at their projectiles so you don't get hurt, It took me forever to figure out how I was supposed to kill them in a blind playthrough, It's not clearly communicated to you, I think I fired at the same spot on one of them for nearly 5 minutes just wondering how much health these things had. It feels like stuff like that is intentional, a thing made to cover up the tracks of shoddy programming because its the same kind of thing people did to bad NES games in the 90s. and the camera, don't get me started on the camera. Crash Bandicoot had bad camera, but they managed to make it work, it got better, this game feels like it didn't learn anything from crash bandicoot's camera. Like the Bolder chase which was an obvious callback. The screen was way too close for you to judge your jumps, the platforms moved differently in frames in one section making it impossible to have muscle memory. Jak 2 is a game I never want to revisit, ever. Jak 3 is better, But its really starting to grate on my nerves with some things I've noticed I hoped they had learned from. Most disappointing naught dog game.

@@chaosdirge4906 You're a little player. Jak II is the best, even for the checkpoints, that makes the game more difficult and it's a real challenge, even if sometimes very frustrating. And why do you complain about the gameplay...? Jak 3 is too easy, too many life and too strong weapons... Not an interesting game experience

@@chaosdirge4906 I don’t know how recently you’ve played Jak II, so let me speak from personal experience. I first played Jak II seriously when I was 16, which was five years ago. I had the same issues as you; overwhelming numbers of enemies, lacking checkpoints, and an abundance of unfair minigames. I agree that this game is hard, and in my second and current playthrough of this game, I learned a valuable lesson that applies to gaming in general: know when to take a step back. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean to not play the game, but to take a moment to reflect on how to approach the obstacle(s). This video covered combat so let me analyze another element of Jak II: zoomers. People complain about how slippery it is to turn and operate the vehicles while simultaneously driving them at top speed. It’s like a regular car; you’re not constantly pushing down the gas. If you don’t press the accelerate or brake buttons, the zoomers slow down just enough to make tight turns (this makes racing Errol easier). If you analyze, and in some cases “demystify” the game, you could find more enjoyment from it.

@@bonesbornagainch.8384 I played it fairly recently. And racing I don't have so much of a problem with. It was more the escort missions with the enemies. I don't really have the time to take a step back, I work 40 hours a week, my schedule is entirely random the days I have off and the days. I feel up to even play games as I get older feel few and far between. I know that when I was 16 if I had played such a game like jak 2 I would not have had the patience to play through it completely. Old or young the fact is the game just is really awful. I love alot of ps2 games and I can understand difficulty. But alot of the things that jak 2 does are just the kind of things you would see on nes shovelware.

Many if not most, reviewers on YT follow Nostalgia Critic style of criticism. Saying a bunch that sounds witty or smart but doesn't really mean much.

cause they poo poo in third person games

Lol ong

Yeah exactly, that's what I started doing years ago

i played the game recently after a few years since my last playthough, and I just naturally used more of the actual gunplay over the X+O+R1

I hate the turret mission

The only part I remember ever giving me the most trouble was the final boss fight any thing else just required a change in how I tackled it

Right mate a few missions were a bit of a pain mostly the races for me lol but the shooting no problem 🤣😅

Jak 3 is the best hands down bro

It all depends on how you play it

I love this game and can fight the guards and get to the end as intended but I do also like the jet board way and would argue it's even harder because there are some NPC's you can go through but some will stop you in your tracks if you don't jump over them. That mission is tough either way so props for doing it that way!

Glad to know I'm not the only one that does that 😆

I actually remember trying to do this. I couldn't, so I ended up doing it the normal way lol

The Dunehopper is my bane.

Jak 3's biggest problem was it's plot, things happened off screen and nothing made any sense lore wise

I was still pretty young back then, but i remember this being bad ass as a kid, loved the change and for the most part as an adult i still do but theres something about the original jak and daxter that the sequels can't really match.

This game was Shadow the Hedgehog done right.

The sand shark is the most stable all of them

Fun fact: you can Dark Bomb the water to destroy the bot, making the water safe to hoverboard on.

@@Chimeragui well the thing about that, I was unable to pull that trick off safely. Even if I did it the waterbot, it'll just kill me after retreating. I don't know if it's the timing I'm not aware of or what.

Pretty sure that's the point of the combo, lol. For some reason tons of people use it as their default panic button.

Glad you liked the video mate. The problem with Jak 3 is there isn't any depth. It's pretty much built on bad design. I could definitely do an in depth look at how to fix the combat though

@@PowercellZeke That would a cool video indeed love to hear your take on how jak 3 could have fixed the combat issue. But i do understand how time consuming videos are to make. Looking forward to more of our videos in the future.

@@PowercellZeke Dude you're stuck using Blaster most of the game in Jak 2, how the hell besides lack of ricochets is that any different?

@@zenksren8206 big difference between Jak 2 and 3 is the enemy encounters, difficulty, and tools at your disposal. Jak 2 only has 4 guns, but each of those guns has their specific usecases and the difficulty of the game encourages you to strategize and use each of the 4 guns effectively. The encounters are designed in ways where enemy placements further encourage you to use different guns and use different tactics for different fights, just refer to the video. The issue with jak 3 is that they gave you so many extra guns, extra health, and light jak powers but they didn't increase the difficulty enough or put enough thought into the level design or enemy encounters to balance out how much more powerful Jak is. Because of that the game is so easy and it doesn't require any thought or effort. The beam reflexor literally does break the game because it makes the jump spin shoot tactic of Jak 2 actually become the dominant strategy since it no longer misses most of the time and instead will clear out whole rooms in few seconds because of the ricochet. the other guns also ruin the balance. However you could place self imposed restrictions on yourself such as only use the base 4 guns, which ive done, and the issue is that its still not as fun as jak 2 because the developers didnt put as much care into enemy placements and level design, it feels like they just threw hoards of enemies randomly in rooms and called it a day since they knew the guns they added were just room clearers that didn't require thoughtful enemy placement anyway. Point is the game is too easy, and with self imposed restrictions it is harder but still not as fun as jak 2.

Here's a strategy I use in that mission on Hero Mode. If you have Dark Blast and unlimited Dark Jak, stand in the area between the mobile turret and crane bridge (basically by the ledge in front of teleporter) crouch and jump punch the Dark Blast and it'll take out the first five guards, saving all the health you'll need on 40 guards. Plus memorizing where the guards will spawn is key so you can get the jump on them fast but will take some seconds to properly give them damage.

@@stardogsmasher6217 my old strategy was to hover board and skip it all entirely. But il try it next time i play.

@@iamwhiskey9741 yeah I heard about the hoverboad strategy via glitch of some sort, if I recall correctly. Pretty difficult to pull off.

@@stardogsmasher6217 very. Used to get so pissed from failing it i quit trying amd somehow did it legitly.

I wish you the best of luck. And have fun!

@@PowercellZeke Aww. Thanks!

So how did it go?

@@blaizeatri I haven't gotten to my PS3 backlog in a while. Still looking forward to playing Jak 2 though!!!

@@snailgirl6 this game tests your patience. also when you play here's a tip: Once you get the blue gun [Vulcan fury], instead of shooting with it straight away, then having to wait for it to "warm" up every time, use the punch-shoot combo with it - as in, punch an enemy first then press fire STRAIGHT after. It skips the slow firing speed and cleans up enemies in one go and makes playing with the gun instantly 10x more fun. Trust me!

That would be a cool combo for the gunners, but they only take like 2 shots before going down, so you probably wouldn't get the chance You'd think it would be an ammo drain, but the guards drop loads of ammo for all your guns, so ammo isn't much of a concern for the docks mission Idk if you know, but there's a speedrun category for TPL one handed, maybe you should give that a shot haha

I've had allot of people tell me I should speedrun, and despite how cool it would be on paper I'm not the kind of person who gets any enjoyment from efficiency, I prefer the discovery side of speedrunning. There's also a myriad of physical issues I have: high blood pressure, nerve issues that create tremors and I sometimes I can't feel anything, also my muscle memory's doesn't function normally where I can do something 200+ times and still can't do it right. Most people probably think I'm 'just complaining' but I can assure you these are all issues I deal with on a daily basis, and whenever I try and use them to explain why I don't want to speedrun people tend to disregard them like I'm making it up. So yeah I mostly just say I don't want to. :/ Yeah sorry you might have struck a nerve... Good thing I don't have that many of them! Ba doom tsk.

@@MartianBlobfish it's all good dude, it was only a joke. Sorry to hear about all that man

I didn't mean too come off as hostile, kinda just felt the need to explain it considering how much the topic seems to show up, then again, that's what you get when you spend time around speedrunners. :/ I don't actually take any offence, that part at the end was for a joke. Also you don't need to apologise for my health issues, I should apologise for bringing them up. So yeah, sorry about that.

@@MartianBlobfish nah man it's all good, don't sweat

Dude when I first played this game at 6 I couldn't get pass the first krimson guard in the fortress because I was scared of him! He ran to me and tased me and I couldn't get past him for several months because I didn't want to go up the ledge :(

Me too. Thats like third or fourth mission :D that was pretty challenging as a kid because of couple puzzles in that mission

Or just punch spam your way through the hordes. Yes, I'm serious, this works.

Yeah I know, the issue I was addressing is people saying the jump spin move is the only good move, while complaining the game is too hard, when that isn't the best move

@@PowercellZeke how are we supposed to know that its a better method though lol. The game lacks any instructions or tips

My only response for that is that it basically feels like you're calling people bad for using a technique--yet you misrepresent it heavily without bothering to show it's viability. I absolutely agree most people use it wrong, but in doing a showcase of how the game has such depth, you end up just shitting on one of the more viable options. I hope this didn't sound rude or anything, just trying to give constructive criticism to the best of my ability.

Awesome video nevertheless

Tha algorithm blessed this video. Which is cool, cuz I love the Jak series.

@@weshansen7892 I'm not calling people bad for using the move, I'm calling out people who use nothing but the move, yet complain how hard the game is. The point of this video isn't to discuss every nuance of Jaks capabilities, but to show people how each gun can be used effectively, instead of just using the same move with the Blaster, regardless of if they do the move properly

@@PowercellZeke people can play the game however they want lol. In my opinion this video is pointless.

In all fairness, the way he used it was the way practically everyone used it.

Thanks a lot mate, glad you enjoyed! Yeah exactly, Jak 2 has some depth, but you kinda have to go out of your way to find it. I wish Naughty Dog knew what they actually had and worked to flesh it out just that bit more

but there is a defense system in the water during this mission that OS you with you tried that... How did you manage to overpast this feature ?

Dark bomb into the water and glide over the water... easiest mission done.

You and me both man, it took me 2 years to finally get passed the mission with the Krimson guard swarm

I'll be trying my best to to get more videos done from now on. My work flow has been horrible for the past year, but I've finally got a good work space where I can work on videos comfortably

When I was a kid, I used to use the move a lot in both games. And honestly, it does just fine in a lot of missions in Jak 2, so I can see why people would use it. Jak 3 is an entirely different beast, the beam reflexor dominates every combat scenario

The people complaining about difficulty are the same people who got stuck on the Cuphead tutorial.

I thought the game was a bit challenging, but I also beat it when I was like 11.

Coming off of jak 1 it is.

Reviewers suck. The only time you should complain about a game being too hard is when you estimate it to be nigh on impossible for the average person, or if the difficulty doesn't serve the interest of its purpose (i.e. presenting a fun challenge).

@@snakeslife-uroborodjinn790 Nah they went overboard with the difficulty in Jak 2, the game sucks and so do you for making that comparison

I tried a hero playthrough where I didn't allow use of Light Jak or weapons above level 1. It was surprisingly refreshing with some interesting new challenges, BUT.. I recall a few moments where it actually got very tedious; there are a few grindy fights where the game just throws a relentless horde at you that are noticeably not as intentional as some of the enemy encounter situations in Jak 2. Likely due to the abundance of offensive/defensive options; there's at least a couple of situations that basically expect you to use all the super weapons and heal whenever with seemingly little strategic recourse options eg. final boss comes to mind. OR maybe I still wasn't playing the game right as I was still helicopter blasting a bit too often at the time.. XD.

Yess, I totally should have mentioned that

Something I just remembered is if you crouch jump with a gun out you jump immediately and the jump happens way faster.

Races

Zero checkpoints

Noobs