unintelligent orange
Member
There are so many elements of these games that are too good to just leave the series dead.
From what Naughty Dog tried to do before with rebooting Jak & Daxter, I think they had the right idea, but their execution was just.. not what it needed to be. Trying to make Jak & Daxter with a more realistic art style is not a bad idea in my opinion, but it takes some very careful handling to do it right.
These could easily pass for a Jak & Daxter level still, the style is on point:
Where as this looks forced and a bit off from what we've saw of these characters previously - too re-invented:
You look at the concept art that was released for the cancelled reboot and the problem I see is not with the overall art style but specifically what they tried to do with the presentation of the characters people so fondly remember. I think the correct approach would be to present the characters of Jak and Daxter in the CG-like art style captured in the wallpaper for Jak 3 below. It would be a natural evolution for today's current graphic fidelity:
There is no need to re-imagine the characters in the way they were trying to do in their cancelled reboot. The level of realism in the above picture is ideal - more detail could be added to this even still, but the core of the artstyle (of the characters specifically) should not be changed. You can also see an animated version of this type of CG artstyle in the Jak 3 commercials:
Aside from artstyle and how they should handle that, the storyline and gameplay of Jak & Daxter is a goldmine in the context of a reboot where things aren't as tightly tied down to previous entries. There is definitely room to expand on existing concepts and add new ones still. One thing in particular that I wish they would re-incorporate more gameplay wise is the blue eco jump pads and general function of blue eco from the original game. In general, a restructuring and retelling the original story with better development/handling of potent ideas (Dark Jak, internal struggles, etc. etc.), and then moving forward with it from there (please dont let this die again..) would be killer.
From what I've read about regarding why Naughty Dog cancelled the existing reboot they were working on, I gather the main reasons for cancelling it were as follows:
It's not really something they should be putting off forever, though I think ND's concerns that they weren't making a real J&D game were valid due to how they were approaching it. I believe the J&D series would lose it's soul if they mishandle new entries too hard, so I can understand why development was cancelled if they were feeling that it wasn't right. But they still need to take the time to figure it out and successfully reboot the series - the sooner the better.
Damn lol, with the amount I care about these games I should just work at Naughty Dog...
What are your thoughts on a Jak & Daxter reboot and how that should be handled? What would you like the devs to explore or expand on? Ideas and concepts you'd like brought back from previous titles?
From what Naughty Dog tried to do before with rebooting Jak & Daxter, I think they had the right idea, but their execution was just.. not what it needed to be. Trying to make Jak & Daxter with a more realistic art style is not a bad idea in my opinion, but it takes some very careful handling to do it right.
These could easily pass for a Jak & Daxter level still, the style is on point:
Where as this looks forced and a bit off from what we've saw of these characters previously - too re-invented:
You look at the concept art that was released for the cancelled reboot and the problem I see is not with the overall art style but specifically what they tried to do with the presentation of the characters people so fondly remember. I think the correct approach would be to present the characters of Jak and Daxter in the CG-like art style captured in the wallpaper for Jak 3 below. It would be a natural evolution for today's current graphic fidelity:
There is no need to re-imagine the characters in the way they were trying to do in their cancelled reboot. The level of realism in the above picture is ideal - more detail could be added to this even still, but the core of the artstyle (of the characters specifically) should not be changed. You can also see an animated version of this type of CG artstyle in the Jak 3 commercials:
Aside from artstyle and how they should handle that, the storyline and gameplay of Jak & Daxter is a goldmine in the context of a reboot where things aren't as tightly tied down to previous entries. There is definitely room to expand on existing concepts and add new ones still. One thing in particular that I wish they would re-incorporate more gameplay wise is the blue eco jump pads and general function of blue eco from the original game. In general, a restructuring and retelling the original story with better development/handling of potent ideas (Dark Jak, internal struggles, etc. etc.), and then moving forward with it from there (please dont let this die again..) would be killer.
From what I've read about regarding why Naughty Dog cancelled the existing reboot they were working on, I gather the main reasons for cancelling it were as follows:
- As development progressed, the game was not playing to Naughty Dog's current strengths of crafting realistic worlds (as apposed to J&D's stylized cartoony world)
- Naughty Dog felt like what they were making wasnt really Jak & Daxter, team working on it wanted more of the studio working on it but they were busy with Drakes Deception
- Naughty Dog felt like they'd be doing the fans a disservice by releasing something that wasn't really Jak & Daxter but calling it Jak & Daxter (which they wanted to avoid after The Lost Frontier)
It's not really something they should be putting off forever, though I think ND's concerns that they weren't making a real J&D game were valid due to how they were approaching it. I believe the J&D series would lose it's soul if they mishandle new entries too hard, so I can understand why development was cancelled if they were feeling that it wasn't right. But they still need to take the time to figure it out and successfully reboot the series - the sooner the better.
Damn lol, with the amount I care about these games I should just work at Naughty Dog...
What are your thoughts on a Jak & Daxter reboot and how that should be handled? What would you like the devs to explore or expand on? Ideas and concepts you'd like brought back from previous titles?
Last edited: