It’s a pirate life for Marr – Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier Review
Developer: High Impact Games | Platform: PS5 (PSP) | Playtime and Platinum: 8:10
I already detailed my opinions on the whining of fans on certain topics in my previous article, “These Games didn’t kill your family, please stop crying about them”, so I’m not going to touch on them here.
The final game in the Jak and Daxter series (save for the HD Remaster collection on PS3) as well as the latest game canonically, The Lost Frontier has made its way to PS+ Premium. As a big fan of the Jak series, I was excited to play this one (and Daxter which was since added to the service). Developed by High Impact Games following their work on Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank for the R&C series, the community generally looks down on this one however I wanted to form my own opinion. While it’s definitely the “Least good” game in the series, there are still aspects worth praise here.
Taking place after the trilogy and Jak X (knowledge of the latter isn’t required), the game follows Jak, Daxter and an oddly redesigned Keira on a journey to The Brink, the end of the known world, in search of a way to resolve the world’s Eco (energy) Crisis. Fate has them form an uneasy alliance with Captain Phoenix of the Shadow Blade and his crew, on a quest to save the world. Storyline wise the following is a fairly basic plot with your betrayals and whatnot. Not as good as the twist in Jak II but better than whatever the (JAK 3 villains were).
Much like Jak II and Jak 3 having vehicles, The Lost Frontier also does but swaps buggies and hoverbikes for jets and other aircraft as the game is split roughly 50*/50 between being up in the sky and boots on the ground. Asterisk on the ground gameplay, see later.
Ground gameplay is what you expect from the previous games, a mix of melee and gun combat. It doesn’t feel quite as refined as previous titles, there’s a lot less flow. The aiming of guns also seems a little bit off, randomly unfocusing from the target. It’s definitely serviceable but makes tougher sections like bullet spongey bosses even more difficult.
For story reasons, Jak cannot tap into his Dark Eco powers (and cannot use his Light Eco powers, maybe due to the shortage? It’s not really elaborated on) however his use of the other coloured Eco – Green, Yellow, Blue and Red is vastly improved on. Back in The Precursor Legacy, the colours were used for healing, a projectile, speed/jump and melee power but now the options are available at all times and can be used for different applications in combat and throughout the game as puzzles. Green Eco can be used for a shield or creating platforms, red for explosives, blue for teleporting and slowing down time. It’s nice to see these elements brought back after being mostly dropped from the intervening games. Dark Eco is instead collected as a currency and can be used by Keira aboard the games hub, the Phantom Blade to upgrade Jak. Everything from more health, damage and specific upgrades tied to powers and guns.
The other majority of the game is spent in aircraft. As you’d hope, and are perhaps surprised about, it controls really well and is fully featured. Over the course of the game you get access to 5 different models. Each model is identical in stats but has a different arrangement of slots to use. These slots are where you put either Weapons or Tools. Weapons are self-explanatory and have a cool little range of missiles, lasers, tesla coils and the like. Tools dictates things like ship speed, turning capacity, armour, healing etc. Every Weapon and Tool can be upgraded to Level 5. These upgrades are on the thing itself not the ship, so you can mix and match. Upgrades and Mods can be purchased with scrap gained from destroying enemy fighters and engaging in some of the races available. Mods can also be scavenged from enemy fighters with Daxter, provided you can keep up with the rather harsh quick time events needed.
A feature of controversy is the third gameplay style - the Dark Daxter sections. There’s three of them in the game, each of them top down brawler like sections with some mild puzzle solving. Despite having never played them, I do wonder if they were inspired in no small part by the Were-Hog sections of Sonic Unleashed. I’m neither here nor there on these bits, they’re fine? Each runs perhaps a little too long but whatever. The complaints people have is towards the narrative but the way I see it – even under Naughty Dog’s guidance there’s not been any consistency to how Dark Eco works. It turned Daxter into/revealed Daxter to be a Precursor in the original game, why can’t it also turn him into a monster like it does Jak? I can see the issue but you have to acknowledge the inconsistency that got us here.
It's hard to quantify with words but The Lost Frontier feels better than the sum of its parts. It may very well be that Naughty Dog established the vibe so well that even a lesser game could coast by by being just another adventure with the guys. As I said earlier, it’s easily the least good game, but I implore fans to have a look at what’s on offer here, they might just find something to enjoy.
