Released: November 3rd, 2009
Developer: High Impact Games
Publisher: Sony
Genre: Platformer
Wow...
This game supposedly takes up where Jak X left off. Even though the story does not directly continue on. Jak and Keira are searching around the edge of the world to find more Eco, since the world is running out. Eco is the life force that ...makes life live basically. Little spouts of it can give people unique powers for a short amount of time, or damage them if it's a certain type of Eco. They get attacked by Eco pirates, crash, get repaired, then go back up. Oh, and Keira is training to become an Eco Sage. Eco Sages are basically the head hancho's of a certain Eco type (green, blue, dark, ect...) They can channel it, use it in special ways, and have extensive knowledge about it.
That was as serious as I could tell you the story. It's awful. It only gets worse. In the beginning, you go inside some city inside a huge ship. Then you meet some people...and it's so cliche. You'll know the main villian 10 minutes into the game. I won't directly say who, but it's so fucking obvious. Why the hell is it so cliche? In Jak and Daxter, you did know who the villian was, but it didn't cliche the hell out of it. In Jak 2, they did a superb job in hiding it. In Jak 3, it wasn't quite so hidden, but it still wasn't cliche to pieces. Anyway, after you leave, Keira gets kidnapped by the pirates, and you randomly become their ally. No explanation, no nothing. Keira just throws a hissy fit.
Seasoned Jak fans will already see problems. Jak's personality is already different. Why the hell would he just ally with an enemy for no reason? He wouldn't have done that at all in the previous games. Why does Keira explain nothing? She's not nearly so bitchy to Jak in the previous titles. New players will just be completely lost. "Dark powers?" "Eco?" "Sages?" "Pirates?" What is this? Little to nothing is re-explained to new players of the franchise. They never understand that Daxter (the little Ottsel, otter and weasel mix, on Jak's shoulder) fell into a pool of dark eco to get that way. They don't explain Keira or her "sage duties" until the very last moments of the game. So it's mentioned twice the entire time.
Anyway, the gameplay is basically a slow down version of the previous games. Jak can double jump, punch forward, do a spin attack, do an up attack, then a down attack. It's slow, can you can't connect attacks like you could before (in the other games, you could say...punch forward, do an up attack, spin, then do a down attack) In this game, you can't. One attack only, pause, then you may press another button. He only gets this..Gunstaff in the game. Why was this needed? It looks ridiculous. It's all huge and orange. Why didn't they stick with the Morph Gun? At least that makes sense. You can't put away your weapon either, so you run around towns just pointing your gun at all the civilians. (you can't kill them either, they just grunt and move on when you shoot them)
For the game, you have 2 main modes of playing. One is the normal way. You run around on foot, shooting monsters and collecting items. The other part takes place in the skies. While on the main pirate ship, you can purchase different ships and upgrades for it. You then take it out, and fly to your next mission. Sometimes a mission requires that you go around and shoot enemy ships. Those missions take forever. You're the ONLY person flying out there trying to defend your base while Daxter and Keira nag at you. At least in Jak 2 and 3 they give the illusion of other ships helping you out, having them all fly around, even though they never did a thing. It's so tedious. At times, you can shoot Daxter at a ship so he can destroy it (by ripping the wires out and such) It's just a mini-game. You press the buttons that appear on the screen. I know the others had it too, but it was only maybe twice in those games, but here it's all the time. Jak has to rip open a box! So you have to sit there and press the buttons that pop up. It's not even challenging, it just wastes time.
Another time, you have to defend the pirate ship while actually being on it. You're the ONLY person up there. The enemy ship is crapping monsters out on you, and it's firing by it's own turrets. Your turret(s) are spread out soooooooo wide apart. You have to physically get up and out of them and run to another one to shoot enemies. That's completely pointless. In the other three games, you sat in one turret, and could shoot everything. Some turrets don't point down enough, others don't point up, some are just out of range...it's a really sad attempt to make the game more challenging.
Each ship has a different feel. So if you don't like one, you can use another one. It's a smart system, but it's too bad the ship levels are too boring and tedious. The same thing "Oh...shoot this cannon. Oh fuck, you died? Start all over!" It's generous with checkpoints, but the air fighting takes too long so it feels like your at the beginning again.
The normal levels are better. You hop on platforms and shoot things. It's quite annoying how they push the story forward. First you find the Eco Seeker (I think that's it's name anyway) then you lose it, then you find it, then you have to find parts for it, then oh no attack, then you have to get energy for it, then oh no another attack, I mean comon. The story feels like it moves nowhere. It flip flops between trying to be serious (with Dark Jak's story getting involved) and just...goofy I think..(with the Castaway you find in the beginning) There are also side missions (like running to a specific orb in time to claim it, or racing people). During the game, you find Precursor Orbs. You use them on the Secrets screen to unlock things (like Jak's goatee, scene players, various gameplay cheats, ect)
Anyway, the camera is your worst nightmare. So along with the stiff controls and odd movements, you have to fight with the camera. A lot of times, it tries to set itself in one place, you move it, but it becomes a battle. It point directly at Jak or down whenever you jump so you end up falling and dying on the simplest parts. Other times, the enviroment will block the camera so your running blind. And it alwaaaaaaays focuses on Jak. In Jak 2 and 3, when you fight a boss, it focuses more on the boss so you can see what he's doing. Here, your running around trying to fix your camera but it's fighting with you and you can't turn to shoot the boss because you can't see. Other times, you play as Daxter on a slide and the camera points to the wall. You'll be sliding down, trying to avoid the holes, but you can't since the camera won't let you see. You basically have to pray you don't fall through anything. There are also times where you have to run into the camera. There is lava everywhere, you're almost dead, do you really want to risk that and have to start all over?
Dark Eco is used as money in this game. They took away Dark Jak. In Jak 2, Jak was experimented on with Dark Eco for two years. As a result, he's very pissy, and violent, and can transform into a dark version of himself with super abilities. Jak 3 introduced Light Jak, to counter his dark side so he wouldn't be so wild. It was just as cool (although over-powered) and pushed forward with the story. The excuse Lost Frontier gives us, is that if he transforms he'll die because he'll attract all the Dark Eco in this area (the edge of the world) and it'll kill him. No explanation is given for the absence of Light Jak. But wait a minute, aren't they forgetting something? Jak has been around large amounts of Dark Eco in Jak 2 and 3, yet he didn't die. So, that makes no sense. It just takes away something new players would've loved. Dark and Light Jak's abilities have been replaced by "Eco Abilties" just...lame versions. Jak can slow down time by clapping his hands (ho hum), form a shield (ho hum), fire a amplifier that he can shoot and it'll explode, ect. All the abilities were taken from Light and Dark Jak.
Keira will take Dark Eco and give you special upgrades. You can fire Yellow Eco when you punch forward, or deflect ranged attacks with Blue Eco if you do a spin attack, and various things like that. Jak also finds chests in the wild, that contain gun and armor upgrades. You have 4 guns. A shotgun, a normal single shot gun, a machine gun, and a stupid grenade launcher. Why couldn't they just keep the weapons from Jak 3? This world can support a grenade launcher and the Peacemaker...Anyway, the weapons are ok. They are slowed to pieces but at least they are there. You can attack with the weapons out too. There are moments where they force your weapon away. It's an attempt to make the game not so gun-dependent. But then it begs the question of why pirates with bombs and guns were allowed in the bar and you weren't.
The Lost Frontier tries to go back to the days of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. It was a very simple Platformer then, no big stories, no guns, no Dark Jak, no nothing. The game revolved around Jak's quest to turn Daxter back to normal (which didn't happen obviously). This is apparently by the brighter backgrounds, Eco spells. Eco Sagas, things like that. It's a nice thought, and it's an interesting story, but they screwed it up. They spent little to no time on this game. No ducking, no first person look, no swimming, no Hoverboard, can't use powers in air, you can even be hurt and killed during cinematic. The game is bug ridden. I was fighting a boss, and I jumped to avoid her, and I lost the mission. How? I was at half life, how did I lose? Daxter will sometimes disappear off Jak's shoulder for a little bit (normally when the game has just loaded), enemy ships will forget to fire at you, ect.
They even got lazy in the instruction manual. They give us a half-assed story of Jak's 1-3 (why do they always leave out X?) and cannot even get the name right. It says Jak and Daxter went to Mysterious Island in the Precursor Legacy. The fuck they did, they went to Misty Island. They try to shove 3 games into 1 short paragraph causing a mess, when Lost Frontier gets the rest of the page. Then in the back it advertises Secret Agent Clank, like I'm gonna buy that.
It's lazy. The animations are bad. Jak looks like a retarded when he talks half of the time. They completely forgot about the Castaway that "sneaks on your ship" and he lives at your base. Where is he? He's nowhere, but he randomly pops up during cinematics. But the worst of the worst is....that...what I pictured above.
Dark Daxter. So instead of keeping in a cool concept like Dark Jak, let's throw in this shit instead! Daxter randomly gets raped by Dark Eco three times in the game. He transforms into that thing, then goes on a mission. When I first saw this, I thought I was playing Sonic Unleashed. Daxter the Werehog, nice. Anyway, he can fire Dark Eco bolts from his hands, do a Tazmainian Devil whirlwind type thing, smash the ground, and pick up enemies to throw. (you just run to the exit in Daxter's levels, with some puzzle solving. Like flipping certain switches or something) Jesus christ. It's horrible. It has NOTHING to do with the story. I mean NOTHING. I beat the stupid game just to find out why Daxter transformed, and nothing! They break one of the basic rules of story writing. Don't bring in an object that is seen or referenced over and over if it has no meaning. When Jak discovers this form he's just like "durrhurr chew your food Dax!" They tried to make Daxter like Jak, and transform when he's "angry" but it's Daxter! He's never angry, he's the comic relief.
It's a complete waste of time. You see, Dark Eco kills you if you fall into it. If you're injected with it (like Jak was) it basically corrupts you and turns you evil. Daxter fell in, and turned into an Ottsel (because all Eco contains the prints of their creators...who were Ottsels) So he was blessed. Falling in it should not have transformed him like that. It's proof they just shoveled whatever the hell they wanted into this game and ignored the story and sense of the others. Ridiculous. Where is Tess anyway? Why would Daxter leave her? (his girlfriend from Jak 3) She should've at least come along.
I really can't think of much of anything to praise the game with. The music doesn't fit the game at all. It tries to be too epic, and it's not that way at all. After you beat the game, you unlock Hero mode, but why would you play this twice? The gameplay is poor, the story is poor, the controls are poor, the atmosphere is poor, the characters are poor... I do applaud it for being brave, and attempting to bring things back from the first game, but they did it wrong. I really hope Naughty Dog ignores this game when (if) they make a Jak 4.
+ It's a Platformer
+ Same basic gameplay
+ Brings back from feeling from Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
+ Customizable ships
- Characters are uninteresting
- Controls lag
- Dark Jak and Light Jak are gone
- Dark Daxter
- Dark Daxter
- Keira and Daxter nag you too much
- Cliche Villains
- Poor representation of story
- Long and tedious ship battles
- Camera is a bitch
- Feels cheap
Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier gets a 2 for the PS2.
Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier gets a 3 for the PSP.
Notable Console Differences: Supposedly, there is no way to control the camera in the PSP version. The camera is terrible. So instead of fighting with it, the camera wins and gets you kill over and over and over and over and over and over...
I also rated the PSP version higher, since they had to awkwardly work with the controls. I believe they still could've fit in Light Jak/Dark Jak and such. The PS2 version could've been greatly improved. The PS2 controller has more buttons, why not map more for them then? Porting things to the PS2 from the PSP is silly anyway.
