YMMV / Jak II: Renegade

• Awesome Music: Woo boy, a new era of Jak deserves some kick-ass dystopian music!
• Alternative Character Interpretation: When Praxis reveals his piercer bomb, was he trying to destroy the city, or was he revealing the Precursor Stone to Jak?
• Americans Hate Tingle: While the shift to a Darker and Edgier tone is a bit divisive in America and European communities (though this has mostly smoothed out over the years), the Japanese userbase hated this direction compared to the first game. It's telling that the sales over in Japan was pitiful, barely selling above 35,000 units, and that the third game and Combat Racing never saw the light of day there until the trilogy got digitally remastered on PS4.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The climaxes of each Act are all fun challenges of your platforming and combat skills, but special mention to the Tests of Manhood in Act 2, which combines platforming, puzzle-solving, and even a Crash Bandicoot-esque boulder sequence. It's all a very fun time.
  • Any level that averts the typical frustrating elements. One such mission is the one to protect Jinx and his crew as they carry explosives deep into the sewers. The Metalheads can be a pain to deal with, but you're walked through slowly enough that you can kill all of them reasonably safely and can collect their dark eco. Collect from every kill, and you'll have a full Dark Jak meter for the final assault. You're intended to clear the first wave with a load of Vulcan Fury ammo provided for you, then go Dark Jak as soon as ammo runs out and use a Dark Bomb to clear out the rest. It's no walk in the park, but it's fun, and you get to listen to Jinx's quips all the while.
  • The boss fight against Krew qualifies for Best Boss Ever even though he's also That One Boss. A number of unusually generous accomodations are present: the Krew tubelets only do one health slot of damage (when nearly every enemy in the game does two), and they drop health. Enemies do not drop health at all throughout the rest of the game, with health packets otherwise found exclusively in crates. Speaking of, the crates not only respawn to provide more ammo, but are programmed to give ammo for whatever weapon you recently used, so you can let loose with all four of your weapons, including the Peacemaker, without worrying about running low. Most of the challenge comes from surviving the jelly Krew swarms as they surround the player.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Titan Suit sections. No one, at any point, mentions a mech suit for Jak to use. Neither he nor Daxter even comment on them (Outside of tutorials for the player). How many there are, how they get to these areas and who's putting them there is a mystery.
• Catharsis Factor: Simply beating Erol in his race, which is considered one of the hardest mission in the game and a major reason why the game is viewed as one of the hardest PS2 games, is very satisfying. Heck, finishing any level notorious for Checkpoint Starvation and Continuing is Painful is rewarding enough, especially on Hero Mode.
• Complete Monster:
  • Kor, the leader of the Metal Heads, sought to destroy Haven City to obtain and consume the last Precursor Life Force. To this end, he disguised himself as a kindly old man to help La Résistance, while making deals with Baron Praxis for Eco in exchange for softening his attacks—which he then undermines by sending Jak to sabotage Praxis's Eco supply and having Kaeden attack Haven City's defensive systems. When the systems are finally disabled, Kor kidnaps the younger version of Jak and promises to tear the city apart to find the Precursor Egg and murder all its inhabitants. Said to be the one to have wiped out the Precursors, Kor was driven entirely by his lust for death, destruction and the devouring of the last Precursor.
  • Baron Praxis is the despotic ruler of Haven City, which he conquered by waging war to overthrow the good-hearted King Damas. Leading his people to poverty and suffering, Praxis's rule is so barbaric that even his own daughter attempts to betray him, which leads to him threatening to have her killed. Kidnapping civilians as part of his "Dark Warrior Program", Praxis has them infected with Dark Eco, creating mentally unstable Super Soldiers for his army. Ostensibly enacting his cruel ruling policies to keep his Haven City able to combat the Metal Heads, Praxis is actually supplying his "enemy" with Dark Eco to keep the war going and himself in power.
• Contested Sequel: This game is one due to how much of a departure it is from the first game. Some prefer the more traditional Collect-a-Thon Platformer gameplay of the first game, dislike the increased difficulty and think the Darker and Edgier setting and tone were a dumb attempt to make the game more "mature" and combined with the genre shift resulted in the series suffering an identity crisis, while others like the new gameplay additions and enjoy the more complex story and fleshed out characterization compared to the first game.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Metal Head Squids in The Underport section. Due to clunky controls of Titan Suit, it is sometimes difficult to target and destroy them before they can entangle you, which takes out over quarter of your health.
  • Invisible Metal Heads. True to their name, they are hard to notice before they open fire on you.
• Difficulty Spike: Even disregarding the optional side-missions, the difficulty of the game can fluctuate wildly from mission to mission. Generally speaking, if a mission includes any elements besides platforming, JET-boarding, and run-and-gunning, prepare to restart a lot.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game: The game's notorious difficulty makes it a chore to play through, but its story and writing are top-notch.
• Even Better Sequel: In terms of story and writing, this game is considered a huge step up from it's predecessor, and often the best in the series. The complete revamp in gameplay, however, is more divisive, with it either being seen as an overall improvement over the stale formula of the first game or an unnecessary genre shift with too many difficulty spikes.
• Fake Difficulty: To a prohibitive extent. Much of the game's design indicates poor or absent playtesting, and the ammo and eco systems are extremely unforgiving. Super Butter Buns indicates that the biggest issue is a massive shortage of checkpoints, which makes sense. In a combat platformer, players are supposed to die a few times while completing objectives—but the actual deaths aren't supposed to be anywhere near as punishing as in Jak II. This was rectified in Jak 3.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • In the part of the game where you storm the palace, and when you leave the small conference room near the baron's throne room, ever wonder why you're greeted with a turret stationed outside? Simple: the Baron uses that to assassinate his rival diplomats when they leave!
  • Why was Jak the only person who even tried to make a direct assault on the Baron's palace, let alone be crazy enough to infiltrate it by one of its giant, dangerously high up support cables? Because he's just that obsessed with getting even with the Baron—Jak lost most of his friends and two years of his life and his innocence in a horrible world he was forced into, and his very life is at risk due to his Dark Eco corruption, all personally thanks to the Baron. And unlike the Underground who wanted to just overthrow Praxis and salvage Haven, Jak made it clear to Torn that he was in it entirely for himself and no one else, so Jak had nothing to lose—it was entirely personal to him, and as such, he was perfectly willing to go out of his way to find any chance to attack the Baron on his home turf and, at the least, get his vengeance before he eventually would have died.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The Krimzon Guard. You do NOT want to hit one or otherwise give them cause to chase you during a mission, because they WILL fuck up your attempt. And then there are the missions where they automatically chase you...
  • Scorpion Metal Heads. They go down in one hit, but they are quite fast and there is never only one.
  • The other racers in the well, races. Repeated attempts at the time trials make beating them easier, but as attempts pile up it becomes clear they're only there to ram you to obstacles and steal the boosts you desperately need.
• Good Bad Bugs: A well known bug which allows the player to access and explore Sandover Village as it appears in the game's opening. This is achieved by opening the disc tray during the opening cutscene, pressing triangle, and reinserting the disc. The game will drop Jak outside Samos's Hut, complete with Metal Heads flying out of the opened rift gate. At this point Jak will be unable to move; this is easily fixed by choosing 'restart mission' from the start menu. The area fully accessible, though its surroundings only lead to bottomless voids. There has been some debate regarding the presence of Krimzon Guard crates in the village houses — some people claim that this proves the glitch was intentional, while others attribute it to the area simply being copied and pasted from the first game, with the Krimzon Guard crates automatically replacing Scout Fly Crates because of how it was coded.
  • You can farm orbs by activating any timed orb challenge, jumping above the orb, and pausing the game. Choose restart, and the game will unpause and fail the mission. If done right, Jak should fall to the orb, collecting it just before the restart. For many, it is the only way to get "The Collectationator" trophy in the remasters. This was semi-patched in the PS4 version, as the trick now requires frame-perfect precision in order for it to work.
  • At one point in the HD remaster, Kor's face is all black. It's unknown why this happens, and it clearly looks like it wasn't intended to be such, but for some, it's amusing to look at^note it happens in the cutscene with The Reveal. Some sources claim this only happens the first time the PS3 itself plays the cutscene, though, so enjoy it while you can.
  • By using a high aerial spin followed by quickly swapping between the Blaster and Peacemaker, you can stack up to five Peacemaker charge shots at once, allowing you to insta-kill most enemies and make short work of bosses.
  • The hover glitch, which can be performed by doing a quarter-circle motion and rapidly tapping L1 while on the JET-board, allows Jak to gain infinite height and bypass any barriers in his way.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Clancy Brown would voice another ruler of a kingdom with a (somewhat) rebellious daughter fifteen years later, voicing King Frederic in Tangled: The Series. However, unlike Praxis, Frederic genially cares for Rapunzel, and is only strict out of parental concerns.
  • In The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, towards the end, Tip the Penguin is eaten by Undertow the Shark. They're respectively voiced by Max Casella (Daxter) and Clancy Brown (Praxis). In a way, Tip gains his revenge on Undertow by rescuing his prisoner and helping him overthrow his tyranny in this series.
• Ho Yay: Torn to Jak after finishing a race mission.
  Torn: You can be MY driver ANY time...
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: A common complaint about the game. Jak's max health is fairly low and checkpoints aren't as common as in most games, so dying usually sends you back several minutes. The game also tends to rely on Fake Difficulty, as enemies can attack from off-screen, most attacks take 2 bars of Jak's health, several missions are at least partially based on luck, and enemies tend to come in very large numbers that are difficult to fight off without the game's most powerful weapons... which also happen to have the least ammo spawns. Speaking of ammo, both it and dark eco don't reappear in your inventory if you die, so parts you got through by using them become even more difficult.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Jak time traveled to the future. That didn't help the trailers reveal the twist first.
  • Krew dies.
  • Kor is the Metal Head leader.
• Moral Event Horizon: Krew crosses this when he tries to use his latest weapon to crack open the Precursor Stone, attacks Jak for quitting, and sends Sig on a hopeless mission in the Underport.
• Narm Charm: The first game was a child-friendly platformer, and for some reason Naughty Dog decided the sequel should have the protagonist kidnapped and tortured, meet up with a guy who plays with a knife and sounds like he has throat cancer so Jak can get revenge on the corrupt leader of the dystopia they are in, and turn Daxter into a Lovable Sex Maniac who gets drunk onscreen. It still works. Helped by the facts that the game still doesn't take itself too seriously and plays the edginess for laughs. The sheer Mood Whiplash is easily the most memorable part of the game, if not the series.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • While the Titan suit looks and feels awesome, it's incredibly impractical and more often than not is clunky to control.
  • The driving mechanics aren't bad, per se, but the best word to describe them is "Tolerable". Turning with any amount of speed is difficult and the vehicles aren't that durable.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: This game is considered to be significantly harder than its predessesor.
• That One Boss: Krew, even though he comes near the end and the competition is pretty stiff. He lets tons of his untouchable (else you take damage) clones fight for him, you have to take them out all before you can even damage him, and when you finally can, he shoots back at you. Clones can leave some healing for you, but that happens only very rarely.
• That One Level: About 3/4 of the game qualifies.
  • Escaping the water slums with the piece. Want to fight the Krimzon Guards? You're getting overwhelmed by their sheer number. Want to hover through the water? The perimeter defense system will kill you on the spot. Want to simply run like hell? Good luck avoiding the aircraft fire and not accidentally falling into the water with the aforementioned defense system. The Krimzon guards themselves are actually pretty easy with the scatter gun, but they are accompanied by indestructible turrets that will hit you unless you keep roll-jumping. The game also actively misleads you, as the one of the guard ships - which you are inclined to follow since in most cases the route forward is filled with enemies - is hovering over the wrong way, seemingly only so the player would think they need to go there.
  • Two of the Jetboard missions—the one to destroy the dig site's equipment and the one to destroy the eco wells at the strip mine—stick out. In the former, constant bombardment by bombs will prevent the player from completing the mission until they painstakingly get off the jetboard and kill each individual guard. In the latter, the player is sent on a mission to destroy the eco mines by tossing bombs into them...without being told how and while on a timer. The game never tells you how to do this and it's a one-time mission the player won't have had a chance to pick up beforehand. You have to press X to toss the bombs in, but not only are you not told this, but you're also not told about the tight and demanding window, meaning a player might die upwards of thirty times before realizing what it is they're supposed to do.
  • Blowing up ammo in the fortress is an early example indicating what you've gotten yourself into. The beginning of mission features being chased by the tank through the obstacles, while camera shows you from the tank's perspective and its lock-and-shoot is quite unpredicable.
  • The first part where you are finding the Precursor artifacts. That one rockslide? Good luck trying to make it through without getting hit even once.
  • At one point in the Tests of Manhood, after Daxter ends up being chased by a spider, the part with Jak requires him to climb up a ledge through the use of poles and platforms. It's a lot harder than it sounds.
  • Escaping the Palace near the end of the game following Ashelin's subverted Face–Heel Turn. The first part is a Luck-Based Mission given Jak could be shot off one of the three moving platform if caught by the guards. And there are portions that require tricky jetboard moves....while guards are shooting at Jak.
  • The Under Port quests are almost as notorious as Erol. Especially since Checkpoint Starvation is in full swing except for the middle.
    • The first half is underwater and requires the Titan suit, but oxygen is not unlimited, and Jak must seek out vents to survive. But that's not the hard part. There are mines and Metal Head Jellyfish throughout, and if they touch the Titan suit, a good chunk of health is taken off. The hardest part is the need to jump over a ledge towards the end, which can only be achieved if you jump right as a platform you are standing on reaches the top, making this a Luck-Based Mission.
    • The second half after meeting up with Sig is somewhat easier, but the mission requires loads of jumping, has no room for mistakes, and there are segments where Jak needs to use his gun to advance. Unfortunately, there are no ammo crates throughout the whole mission, which means the second part becomes Unwinnable if Jak uses up all ammo. It is best recommended that Jak enters with full ammo, and once Sig is reached, either disable autosave, or make a backup save in case ammo runs out.
  • Destroying the Drill Platform ship is a mission that features an incredible stack-up of inhibiting factors. You are held in place and can't dodge enemy fire, and are tasked with destroying fifty-ish flying Krimzon Guard drones. Think it sounds easy? The KG drones come in waves very quickly, and if you haven't cut down the whole wave when the next one comes in, they'll chew through your health even fast. Enemies can and will quite often float offscreen or behind solid objects so that you can't hit them, while they can still hit you. Killing any single drone is ridiculously testing, since any single strike causes them to bounce and drift like a drunk driver, so most of the frustration comes in chasing them all over the screen trying to put them down. While all this is happening, you're in a turret that will soak up a pathetic amount of damage and can overheat if you fire too much, forcing you into cooldown. You can forget clearing this mission on Hero mode.
  • Erol's race challenge is infuriating for having rings that mislead the player, tight corners and turns across Haven City, and civilians that get in the damn way. You can make the challenge a bit easier by damaging Erol's Zoomer with Dark Jak's aura to the point where it's on fire, making his Zoomer a tad slower than your Zoomer. Just try not to destroy his Zoomer or the challenge won't start.
  • One of the most hair-ripping ones is a challenge near the end requiring the player to solve a puzzle, then run from an advancing Metal-Pede. Sounds easy, except you have to do it with wonky camera from the Metal-Pede's POV, dealing with collapsing platforms the entire time in a room you can't see all of—you have to learn the pathways through trial-and-error while also moving fast enough to not get eaten. Then there's the fact that this chase stops halfway so that Jak can clear another puzzle that is involved and slow-paced, before the second half of the chase is initiated and the pain starts all over again. There are no checkpoints at all in this entire fifteen-minute sequence. Fall in a chasm or get eaten after finishing the puzzles? Too bad, do it all again!
• That One Sidequest:
  • If you're going for all 286 Precursor Orbs, be prepared to swear up a storm at the coliseum races. Finishing the races is difficult. Winning them takes immense patience. But to get all the orbs, you have to beat a certain time on each race, and that time is much lower than what is required for 1st place.
  • There's also one challenge where you have to drive all the way from one corner of the city to Torn's hideout. In less than 90 seconds. There is no room for error in this and if you keep bumping into stuff or your zoomer gets blown up (which will happen, since you have to drive through a crowded overpass to make it in time), you may as well restart. Ruthlessly demanding, there are no shortcuts or cheats and if you manage to clear it, it'll be by nanoseconds.
  • Ring Challenges are mostly manageable, but the one that forces you to follow walkways in industrial section is extremely annoying due to how easy is to fall down when on vehicle (which equals failing challenge and starting over) and the fact you have to use vehicle.
  • Finding all Precursor orbs lying in the open is quite difficult on itself, as they are much better hidden than in previous game. For example, do you see those isles with windmills near the Pumping Station? There is one orb hidden on one to which you can swim without getting killed by Border Patrol. Worse yet, there are 7 of these orbs hidden in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon ... which is also One-Time Dungeon, so if you don't get those orbs before you off Final Boss, getting all orbs becomes impossible without resorting to Good Bad Bugs.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: There are a sizeable number of fans who were not happy with the Darker and Edgier turn that the series took with this game.
  • Special mention goes to Japan, where the change in tone did not sit well with Japanese fans of the first game, which resulted in this game not selling well in that country, and the next sequel not having a Japanese release (it still managed to get a Japanese translation and dub, but only in the game's Korean release).
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The ability of Titan Suit to throw blocks is used all of once or twice in the entire game.
  • To many people, despite its large presence in advertising, Dark Jak falls under this as not even the game's narrative makes a big deal out of Jak having a Superpowered Evil Side outside of fueling Jak's vendetta against Praxis, and its gameplay doesn't really bring a lot to the table outside of crowd-control, which is something the Scatter Gun and Blaster does at a more consistent level. It doesn't help that you have to commit to the transformation until the Dark Eco gauge runs dry, making it a classic case of Too Awesome to Use since it takes way too long to get a full charge, and misfiring a Dark Bomb or Dark Strike makes it waste sting all that much more. What's worse, the two most useful abilities of Dark Jak, invincibility and Dark Giant, are inaccessible until Act 3, and there's a good chance you might not even have the gems required to unlock them until after you beat the final boss, reducing them to Bragging Rights Rewards unless you have Hero Mode unlocked.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Jak II was claimed by some to be a thinly veiled protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Bush administration (as supposedly represented by the MetalHead War and Baron Praxis respectively), particularly accusations that they are wars that were fought solely for political and/or economic gain by governments that had illegitimately gained power.^note With Baron Praxis's usurpation of power supposedly paralleling the Presidential election of 2000. There is no proof of that Naughty Dog had any sort of political agenda when they made the game and for that matter had been in development well before the controversies regarding the Iraq War began.