Here, I will be discussing Jak 4, the 4th potential mainline entry in the series known as Jak and Daxter. Before I do, though, I want to explain where I'm coming from. Jak 2 was one of the first games I ever officially played, being one that I played after my dad beat it on the PlayStation 2. I got The Precursor Legacy and Jak 3 some time later, and loved every single minute of it. I also played Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, and while I didn't like it at all, after contemplating its existence since my initial rage quit, I can understand some of the design choices that they made with the game. I don't think it justifies the experience but there you go.
Here, I will be doing what I did for the Action Genre Aspects series, only this time in short-form, on a much smaller scale, and specifically in relation to a Jak and Daxter sequel Platformer. So I believe the first thing we want to cover is the mechanics.
Jak and Daxter pretty much has a set of mechanics and controller layouts that's pretty iconic in and of itself and thus I don't think it needs too much focus, but I will briefly go over the mechanics and controls right here so we know what we're dealing with:
Square = Dash Punch, Dive Punch (While Airborne)
Triangle = Interact
Circle = Spin Kick
X = Jump, Double Jump
Left Analog Stick = Run
Right Analog Stick = Camera
D-Pad = Morph Gun
L1 = Crouch (While Still), Roll (While Moving)
L2 = Dark Jak, Light Jak (In combination with a face button)
R1 = Fire Morph Gun
R2 = Jet Board
Now, these controls do vary somewhat, since certain things have been altered over the course of the series. For example, in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Interacting with stuff was Circle, which I can see why they did that, but I'm guessing they changed that to Triangle in Jak 2 and 3 because they realized it did absolutely nothing in the previous title. Likewise, Dark Jak, Light Jak, The Morph Gun, and Jet Board didn't exist in The Precursor Legacy either, which means those buttons did pretty much nothing. Hell, Light Jak wasn't even in Jak 2 either, which means that Dark Jak was a button press that activated him in that game, whereas in Jak 3, you could hold L2 and Jak won't turn Dark or Light until you do something like either releasing that button, or hitting one of the face buttons respectively.
However, the controls I listed are fairly standard for what was set in Jak 2 and 3.
That said, there was a fair bit of interplay within these mechanics. If you jumped while crouching, you would perform a high jump; if you jumped after a roll, you would perform a long jump, if you pressed circle while you were in the air, the spin kick would give you a bit of extra height on whatever type of jump you just used; if you spin kick while in the air and fire any of the following morph guns, namely Scatter Gun, Blaster, Vulcan Fury, Beam Reflexor, Arc Wielder, and Needle Laser, you will usually increase your starting rate of fire. If you punch while crouching, you will perform a jumping uppercut; you can perform this same maneuver if you jump right after punching. If you perform the dive then jump right as you hit the ground, you will perform a jump that's about as high as the high jump; this can also be achieved if you jump right as you hit the ground after the rolling long jump.
So now that we've got our basic mechanics, we should probably perform some revisions on some of them to improve certain mechanics, particularly in relation to the morph gun. In Jak II, the Morph Gun was really good, well implemented, and balanced so that each different gun could be used in a different situation and be done so effectively. Despite what some people say, all of the Morph Gun mods were useful at some point during the game.
The thing is, though, that the Morph gun mods could stay balanced because there was only 4 of them. Jak 3 raised that number to 12, so obviously there were going to be some that didn't quite hit the mark. That said, though, I do think that the lackluster mods, or some of them anyway, could've been really great elements of strategy and depth in any given situation if they were given a bit more fine tuning.
So, to those of you reading this asking "Should we raise the number of mods the Morph Gun gets in Jak 4?" My answer to that is, no, 12 guns is a lot, no matter how you look at it. Instead what I suggest is, switch out some of the lackluster mods, for mods that are somewhat different but achieve the intended goal a lot better.
So, before we go any further, we need to identify which Morph Gun Mods will be returning, and which ones will be swapped out. Like I said, Jak 2 only had 4, but the thing is, every mod that was in Jak 2 returns in Jak 3, so there's not really much point in talking about Jak 2 as though it has anything different. So I'm going to be looking exclusively at Jak 3 for this one.
Red:
- Scatter Gun: Essentially the Shotgun, has a short range and deals about as much damage as your default punch, but hits a wide radius in front of you, which makes it good when you're backed into a corner, or you need to hit a certain number of enemies that are all right in front of you.
- Wave Concusser: Creates a wave that radiates from your body to separate all enemies from where they are around you.
- Plasmite RPG: Fires a bomb that will explode after a certain amount of time, or hits a target. Has a wide radius where it hits, and one-hit kills anything caught in the explosion.
Yellow:
- Blaster: Standard Sniper Rifle, has long range, laser sights, and fair rate of fire, does slightly less damage than the Scatter gun but, if you perform a melee attack right before firing it, you can rapid fire shots to increase damage done in a small space of time.
- Beam Reflexor: Basically the Blaster Rifle, with the small but impactful change where shots bounce off of walls to redirect themselves toward targets.
- Gyro Burster: Sends out a flying saucer to deal armor-piercing rounds to kill targets. EDIT: The purpose of this mod is to hit enemies in all directions.
Blue:
- Vulcan Fury: The Minigun, has the highest default rate of fire, deals the least single bullet damage but will get off the highest number of rounds in a single second, at least among the first mods.
- Arc Wielder: Fires a stream of lightning to electrocute whatever it hits. Has a wide reach that behaves somewhat like a whip, so hitting enemies around you or in front of you is largely based on your skill.
- Needle Laser: Fires homing needles that destroy targets around you. Has the same rate of fire as the Vulcan Fury, but has three barrels, which means it fires more needles in a single second. Has the lowest single bullet damage of any morph gun mod, but you're never gonna fire just one. Best used in crowd control situations.
Dark:
- Peace Maker: Sig's absolute favorite, a gun that fires an electrical ball of death that destroys most things it hits, save for bosses. If enemies are clustered together, a single shot will kill around 5 of them in total.
- Mass Inverter: Reverses gravity on enemies, causing them to float around in the air. Deals no damage, necessarily, but the trick in this mod is to get enemies to float over bottomless pits so that they die relatively easily. If used successfully, you can clear an entire room of enemies without ever having to take damage.
- Super Nova: Essentially a Mini-Nuke. Nothing special here.
Now, I hope, for those of you who have played the Jak and Daxter games, that you know why I put the distinctions of Red, Yellow, Blue, and Dark over them but, for those of you who don't, in Jak and Daxter, there is an energy source known as Eco. There are six types: Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Dark, and Light.
In Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, you largely found and channeled eco as you found it but, as of Jak 2, eco had been weaponized and put into packs where you could use it in larger quantities. However, since Green eco can only heal, it was put into health packs. And Light Eco is also largely supportive, and also hard to find, which means that it was largely absent until Jak 3 and, even then, the one offensive ability it had was to allow Jak to wield the Morph Gun, which Dark Jak didn't.
Now, of these twelve mods, there are about 3 that I think need massive revisions. The Blue mods are pretty safe, all things considered. I would somewhat increase the damage output on the Needle Laser, but even without that, it's still a reasonably solid weapon and one of my personal favorites. The Blue Mods don't really have any bad guns necessarily.
The others have one each. Namely the Wave Concusser, Gyro Burster, and Super Nova. I would like to revise these so that we can, hopefully, find some mods that can increase the overall utility of the Morph Gun in Jak 4.
The Wave Concusser is the most obvious one to start with, since it's a Red Mod, so let's start with it. Now, to be honest, I really do like the idea behind the Wave Concusser. It wasn't executed particularly well but I like the idea behind it. The Wave Concusser would've been a way to get enemies off of you when you were surrounded. Nice in theory, but there are a few problems.
First and foremost, the Wave Concusser deals no damage, or at least not any noticeable damage. If it did deal damage, I didn't notice. So it was basically only useful for pushing enemies back and, even then, the charge time necessary to get any decent blast radius prevented it from keeping you safe for any longer than just long enough to charge your next shot for the same amount of time. What I'm saying is that its charge time was too long for it to be beneficial.
On the other hand, if the Mass Inverter taught us anything, it's that environmental combat can be fun if played with in the right way. As a result, I suggest the following. A red mod that leaves a mine on the ground when you fire it. Any enemy that lands on it, will be exploded and destroyed. Of course, you could make the argument that the Peace Maker and the Plasmite RPG do the same, but those are weapons much more suited to direct fighting, whereas this weapon would be much more about planning how you deal damage.
The next obvious one, the Gyro Burster, is one that was intended to send in a drone to take care of enemies at long distance, without having to give away your position or get into the line of fire. I see where Naughty Dog was going with this one, and again, I really do like it. The problem is that its gliding speed is far too slow for it to get anywhere fast, it's height is far too high in the air for a punch or kick to speed it up, and the timer on it goes off way too fast for it to kill any enemies that are not right in front of you.
What I think would be a good replacement is a turret launcher that is on a hover pad, like the Jet Board, that travels forward at a reasonable pace and does not actually fire until it runs across an enemy. It will have to have its own ammo storage, like say, 50 shots, and then dissipate once it runs out of ammo, but I think that's a nice way to balance it. EDIT: You should also be able to kick it to propel it forward a little faster. That would be a nice quality of life trick.
Finally, the Super Nova. The Super Nova is by far my least favorite gun because, while it's built up to be this ultimate gun of death, the way it kills enemies doesn't register as kills in the game, which makes situations where you have to kill a certain number of enemies a chore because you have to kill them with something other than the Super Nova. Okay, there is incentivizing the use of other weapons, and there's making a weapon useless. This is definitely the latter.
To be honest, what I suggest may be a bit graphic for a T rated series but I'm going to suggest it anyway. Replace the Super Nova with a mod that fires black holes. These blacks holes will absorb a certain number of enemies and actually kill them. This is perfectly justifiable since it is technically a Dark Mod, which means black holes should not be outside the scope of this weapon.
So now that we've improved the Morph Gun, let's talk about what is perhaps the most under-utilized aspect of Jak and Daxter, namely Dark Jak. The reason I say under-utilized is because, while Dark Jak is certainly quite powerful, most of his abilities use up all his eco, independent on the amount he actually has and, even if unlimited Dark Jak is on, in Jak 2 Dark Jak will still turn off after an unspecified amount of time, and in Jak 2 and 3, Dark Bomb and Dark Blast still turn Dark Jak off and it has to be reactivated.
Dark Jak is quite a powerful beast, much more so than probably any other character and any other form in the entire series. All of his attacks deal massive damage, his melee has some degree of tracking and attacks faster than normal Jak, Dark Bomb and Dark Blast are each powerful enough to wipe out an entire section of a boss' health bar, which would roughly make each attack about ten times more powerful than the Peace Maker, and Dark Jak even becomes invulnerable, at least according to the game's text.
The issue is that, while all of this stuff has the potential to put Dark Jak on par with other transformations in gaming like, for example, Devil Trigger, Dark Jak deactivates far too often and far too easily for that potential to be fully realized. So, what do we do about it?
Well, I think the most obvious answer is to give Dark Jak a bit more longevity in terms of his stamina. And I don't even mean increase the amount of Eco Jak can store. . . We can still do that, if you really want, but because Dark Jak's abilities primarily cost the entire bar, and don't seem to be on any number variable, increasing the amount of Eco he stores will still not solve the problem, at least not entirely. What I suggest we do instead is make Dark Jak's abilities cost based rather than Meter Draining.
What's the difference? Well, a Meter Draining ability will use up the entire meter in exchange for one super attack, independent of how full the meter actually is. If you've seen the anime Konosuba, specifically the Black Mage who only uses the strongest of Black Magic, even if it renders her useless, you know exactly why this type of ability is not exactly ideal, at least not if it's your entire moveset.
Now, to be fair, Dark Jak also has Dark Strike, which is a cost based Projectile fired by pressing and holding R1 but, because it's the only ability out of 3, technically 4 Dark Jak abilities that is cost based, this simply isn't enough.
The benefit to having Dark Bomb and Dark Blast be Meter Draining is that, you can use them to the fullest of their abilities without actually requiring a full meter, so a smart player can utilize these abilities toward the end of Dark Jak's limits to maximize his overall longevity and damage output. However, since, in Jak 2, when Dark Jak deactivates is not made entirely clear to the player without extensive testing, and, in Jak 3, you're constantly surrounded by enemies that want to kill you, which motivates you to use your strongest abilities first, this strategy is really hard to execute.
The other problem with this is that Dark Jak can't use the Morph Gun. This is the major thing that separates Dark Jak from Light Jak. Light Jak still has the ability to use the Morph Gun, which gives him some degree of offense on top of his defense. Of course, Light Jak's defense is significantly greater than Dark Jak's, which makes sense, however, Light Jak's use of the Morph Gun still gives him 10 or so separate means of attack that are not melee, while Dark Jak only has 3, and 2 of them shut the form off entirely.
As a result, I think it's best to rework Dark Jak's abilities somewhat. We can keep Dark Bomb and Dark Blast the way they are, as long as there are other abilities to make up for their weaknesses.
Now, since Dark Jak is unable to use the Morph Gun while it's active, it's safe to say Dark Jak deactivates any use of the d-pad. So, what I suggest, is putting the extra abilities on the d-pad and activating them by pressing R1. I mean, hell, we already have one ability that would work perfectly with this system: Dark Strike. Just attach Dark Strike to one of the d-pad buttons and allow it to be switched out and, boom, we've got our solution.
We'd put Dark Strike onto the Up button, so that leaves 3 buttons left to attach Dark Powers to. But before we do that, I want to specify why these have to be new, unique abilities and not abilities that have appeared in the series beforehand.
Dark Bomb and Dark Blast are obvious, they work within Jak's default melee moveset, attaching them to the d-pad would just make them overly cumbersome to use efficiently. Invulnerability is a passive effect, it doesn't need to be activated or deactivated by the R1 button. Dark Giant, may very well not even be canon and even if it were, you activate it by activating Dark Jak a second time, so not really an issue. And Dark Jak Invisibility, if you really want to turn that cheat into a canon ability, is activated by pressing Triangle, so there's no need to add it to the d-pad either. Every ability that Dark Jak has ever had, save for Dark Strike, works without needing to attach it to the d-pad. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
So, what abilities should we add to the other d-pad buttons. Well, one idea comes from the Mass Inverter. The Mass Inverter removes gravity on certain entities, so it's safe to say that Dark Eco has some gravity-based properties. So, what if Dark Jak could fire a gravity bomb, one that shoots forward, hits an enemy, and then crushes that enemy. Of course, something like that is also quite brutal but, remember, this is Dark Jak we're talking about, I think we have a bit of leeway when it comes to brutality. We can put that on the down button.
That just leaves left and right. Well, since Left is usually associated with the Blue mods, which are pretty much the only mods universally associated with speed, mobility, and energy, I think we can do something like that for this next ability.
Dark Jak can generate streams of electricity that are composed of Dark Eco, so this could work out just fine. In terms of what to do though, I have one small idea that I'm going to steal from a particular anime about evil spirits. You'll figure out which one it is based on what I say, I'm fairly certain of that.
Let's make it an ability like Dark Strike. However, instead of charge time, moderately slow movement, pushing, then explosion, we do an ability that has a smaller radius that it hits, has no charge time, moves really fast, and has armor-piercing properties, meaning that after it hits one enemy, it will go on and hit the enemy behind them. That seems fairly reasonable. Of course, I'm not suggesting automatic fire like the Blue Mods. No, you press it once, you fire it, then you have to press it again in order to fire another one. This ability would also go right past shields and barriers, like the ones the Dark Makers had in Jak 3 without losing damage output or velocity. This will go on the Left button, obviously.
So that just leaves the right button, which is pretty much nothing but damage. And that's a bit of a problem in terms of concept for two reasons: reason number 1, every ability is Dark Jak, which means all of them are straight up damage. But the other reason is because, the gravity bullet on the down button was the only ability Dark Jak could have that was not already taken by some other ability or made redundant by the other Morph Gun mods.
Just to give you an idea, the Peace Maker fires a ball of electricity, which Dark Strike pretty much covers, and The Super Nova was a Mini-Nuke, which does not leave very many creative possibilities. Even if we replace it with the Black Hole Generator that I suggested, that's still the same concept as the Mass Inverter, just in the opposite direction.
That said, I would probably take a page from InFamous, and have the last Dark Jak ability be arc lightning, where you fire a stream of lightning out of your hand, and whatever enemy it hits, it will arc into another nearby enemy, which will arc into another nearby enemy, and so on. Even if you say "It's not real electricity, it doesn't work like that" the Peace Maker does already have the precedent for this built into the canon and lore of the Jak and Daxter Franchise.
So now, let's compare the abilities of Dark Jak and Light Jak:
Offensive:
- Dark Jak
- Dark Bomb
- Dark Blast
- Dark Strike
- Dark Crush
- Dark Bullet
- Dark Thunder
- Dark Giant (?)
- Light Jak
- Morph Gun
Defensive:
- Dark Jak:
- Invulnerability
- Invisibility (?)
- Light Jak:
- Light Heal
- Light Shield
- Light Flash Freeze (For Escape)
- Light Flight (For better vantage points)
So, overall, that makes Dark and Light Jak fairly equal in terms of their roles: Light Jak as a support, and Dark Jak as all damage. The reason I put a ? next to Dark Giant is simply because, like I said, it may not even be canon as far as we know. Also, for Light Jak Offense, Morph Gun counts as one because all of the Morph gun mods put together would amount to the mass destruction of probably 1 Dark Jak ability, depending on which it is, so I would only give it one space.
Now, for the remaining mechanics, "How do we revamp Light Jak?" And the question I like to ask when I start on this is that "Is revamping Light Jak even necessary?" It seems like a fair question, because while Dark Jak had under-utilized potential and the Morph Gun wasn't perfect either, Light Jak has a pretty sturdy kit, all things considered. Light Heal, Light Flash Freeze, and Light Shield all have cost based effects on them, and Light Flight increased the draining rate of the Light Eco Meter. Light Jak seems pretty solid.
That said, though, many of you who are fans of the first game much more so than Jak 2 may be asking me "Well, what about the other 4 eco types? Light Eco is comprised of them and they had unique effects that Light Jak does not cover." And, if you're saying that, good, it means you've been paying attention to the series for a long time. However, the effects that the other four Eco types had that Light Jak doesn't cover is very minimal. Red Eco doubles Jak's strength and, while Light Jak doesn't cover that, Dark Jak does. Same for Yellow Eco's Energy Blasts, which Dark Jak definitely covers. Blue Eco unlocks certain vaults and allows jump pads to be usable. If you want to give Light Jak a Super Jump, I suppose that's reasonable, Light Jak still covers that with the infinite flight glitch, but I guess you could make the argument that a super jump would get you higher faster, so that's reasonable enough.
Unlocking vaults, however, I don't really see how Naughty Dog, or anyone else for that matter, could implement that into Light Jak's moveset without it impeding gameplay somewhat. Green Eco purifies Dark Eco plants, which Light Jak has no way of doing that, let's be honest. There's simply no way to implement that into Light Jak's moveset, and even if there were, it would only be for very context specific sequences.
The only abilities we could add to Light Jak's moveset are the Super Jump and the Light Eco blast we saw at the end of the first game. And, really, the only way to implement either of those, would be to remove Light Jak's ability to use the Morph Gun. Please note, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that idea.
If we remove the Morph Gun from Light Jak's Utility Kit, then we simply put the Light Blast on the Up button and R1, put the Super Jump on Left and Hold R1 and X to perform the Super Jump and that would be it. It's not ideal but if you have any ideas, please suggest some.
EDIT: After consideration, I think a fair enough change to make would be to allow the player to transition from Dark Jak to Light Jak by holding the L2 button follows by the corresponding face button, which would deactivate Dark Jak, give you the Light Jak ability you want, and allow the combat difficulty to increase by allowing active switching between the two.
So now that we've essentially covered every single mechanic a Jak 4 might have, we now have to cover the setting, and this is where things get tricky because it seems like, after each game, Naughty Dog doesn't really seem like they know what they want to do with the setting next. Jak 1 took place in the past with Sandover Village and the other places you can head to in that timeline. Jak 2 decided that this place has outlived its interest so we're taking you to the future with a high tech city. Jak 3 seemed like it wanted to do something different but didn't know how, so it ruined Haven City and took you to the Desert. Jak X: Combat Racing is a racing game and one that doesn't take place in Haven City, for the most part. Daxter does take place in Haven City, but it covers a tale separate from the rest of the games, during a time span where such a story would be believable. And Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, which is probably the only proper Platformer outside the main Trilogy, takes away the open world in favor of a more mission-based structure.
Obviously, Open Worlds are the foundation of the entire Jak and Daxter series and removing it would just not be a good idea. But the question is, what story do we want to tell in this setting? One answer to that question I saw floating about around ten years ago was to put Jak in the time-span where Mar built Haven City, a story that would feature the past and the future in a way that would allow Jak to make history. And, this idea doesn't really seem so out there, considering that Time Travel is no stranger to this series.
And, if Naughty Dog were to make the visual style the way it was on the PS2, and NOT the stuff they showed in that art book, I think they could pull off something like "Two settings in two different time periods" and make it work.
As far as enemies go, I want to stress that enemy design is not a huge part of Jak and Daxter, and the reason for that is simply because combat is generally not the focus. That said, Jak and Daxter enemies work best when they have a single attack that deals a certain amount of damage, and a certain amount of health.
Usually an enemy should die in around 2-3 hits from the regular punching attack. In Jak 1, many enemies died in 2 hits but they could be killed in one if you had red eco. In Jak 2, several Metal Head types were too tanky to be killed in two or three hits by the regular punch and kick. Barring the Scorpions and jumpers, which each die in one hit, and the initial Red Metal Head dog things, which died in two or three, most metal heads took a supremely high amount of hits. One in particular, with the slingshot tail, took 3 hits FROM THE PEACE MAKER before it actually died. Of course, this was on Hero Mode and on Hero Mode enemy health and damage is buffed, so that thing may have actually died in a single hit from the Peace Maker, like everything else and I've just never been able to test it.
That said, dying in Two Hits to Jak's Melee attacks seems reasonable for most enemies. This was altered quite a bit in Jak 3. In Jak 3, there were certain Dark Maker types who could project barriers, these barriers would allow them to take three hits from the Peace Maker before they became vulnerable but, without the barrier, they would die in one-three hits from any given gun depending on the type. So I think 3 hits is a reasonable place to aim for.
In terms of the amount of Health Jak has, I think he should start out with the amount of health he had at the end of Jak 3. Let me explain why.
In Jak 1, Jak had a health meter that was like something you'd find in Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. He had a certain number of hits and getting hit removed one, rather than the digital number based health bars you get in a lot of RPGs or Action titles. This isn't so bad on paper, except for the fact that Jak only had 3 hits and there was no life or checkpoint system. If you had full green eco while at max health (so either fifty small ones or one big one) you could take a hit, regenerate back to full health, and green eco becomes 0. Essentially, this was an in-game way for players to have four hits instead of 3.
Jak II seemed different visually but it actually wasn't. Jak's health bar is now in a circle divided into eighths. If this were Jak 1, this would equate to around 8 full hits, but there's a catch. In Jak II, only really small enemies like the Metal Head Frogs or Scorpions would take 1. Regular enemies would take 2. So, in the vast majority of engagements, getting hit essentially amounted to 4 hits then death, rather than the 8 that it looks like. In this way, Naughty Dog didn't change anything, they were just being less gamey (for lack of a better term) about how many hits you could take.
This is why Jak 3's health system was a massive improvement. In Jak 3, you started out with the same 8 dot circle that would amount to 4 hits like in Jak 1 and 2. However, over time, you acquired Armor Pieces that would increase your health. Now, by the end of the game, you could take a full 12 hits from basically anything before you would die.
I suggest Jak 4 do the same, twelve hits before you die and just don't increase the amount of health you gain over time. If you start out with the ability to take 12 hits, and the ability to heal with Light Jak, both of those things, coupled with health packs here and there, should be enough to smooth out the difficulty curve in comparison to Jak 2 and 3.
Then, rather than making enemies hit harder, you make them harder to kill over time. Increasing the damage they take is one way of doing it, but I think a better way would be to give many of them barrier-like abilities or healing abilities that would allow them to survive longer. Increasing the damage they deal wouldn't be a good idea, I don't think, just because Jak II and 3 tend to be hard enough as it is.
So I guess the last thing to talk about would have to be the bosses. And, I'm going to be honest, Jak and Daxter has never had good bosses. Bosses are not really at home in a Platformer. Bosses in Jak and Daxter tend to be either puzzle bosses where you wait for an opening and then strike (Like the first fight against Baron Praxis), have some gimmick attached to them in order to deal damage (Like the Precursor Robot in Jak 3), or, if you're really looking to get hardcore, it's a straight up boss fight (Like Metal Korr in Jak 2).
Honestly, if Jak 4 were more of a Platforming Adventure game with no bosses, I would be okay with that. Bosses have generally been tolerable at best in this series so scrapping them completely may not be such a bad idea. As for a finale, just opt for an event rather than an actual boss. I think a lot of people would be okay with that.
In terms of the story, that's actually pretty tough because I'm not primarily a writer and Jak and Daxter usually, save for The Precursor Legacy and Lost Frontier, have generally had some pretty intricate stories. But that concept about Jak going from the past and future and back would be a decent start as a concept and, if the writers at Naughty Dog build from there, I'm sure they can put something together that works.
This has been After-Thoughts Concept. That's really everything I wanted to say on this particular game. See you next time and, thanks for reading.
EDIT: After consideration, I think a fair enough change to make would be to allow the player to transition from Dark Jak to Light Jak by holding the L2 button follows by the corresponding face button, which would deactivate Dark Jak, give you the Light Jak ability you want, and allow the combat difficulty to increase by allowing active switching between the two.
So now that we've essentially covered every single mechanic a Jak 4 might have, we now have to cover the setting, and this is where things get tricky because it seems like, after each game, Naughty Dog doesn't really seem like they know what they want to do with the setting next. Jak 1 took place in the past with Sandover Village and the other places you can head to in that timeline. Jak 2 decided that this place has outlived its interest so we're taking you to the future with a high tech city. Jak 3 seemed like it wanted to do something different but didn't know how, so it ruined Haven City and took you to the Desert. Jak X: Combat Racing is a racing game and one that doesn't take place in Haven City, for the most part. Daxter does take place in Haven City, but it covers a tale separate from the rest of the games, during a time span where such a story would be believable. And Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, which is probably the only proper Platformer outside the main Trilogy, takes away the open world in favor of a more mission-based structure.
Obviously, Open Worlds are the foundation of the entire Jak and Daxter series and removing it would just not be a good idea. But the question is, what story do we want to tell in this setting? One answer to that question I saw floating about around ten years ago was to put Jak in the time-span where Mar built Haven City, a story that would feature the past and the future in a way that would allow Jak to make history. And, this idea doesn't really seem so out there, considering that Time Travel is no stranger to this series.
And, if Naughty Dog were to make the visual style the way it was on the PS2, and NOT the stuff they showed in that art book, I think they could pull off something like "Two settings in two different time periods" and make it work.
As far as enemies go, I want to stress that enemy design is not a huge part of Jak and Daxter, and the reason for that is simply because combat is generally not the focus. That said, Jak and Daxter enemies work best when they have a single attack that deals a certain amount of damage, and a certain amount of health.
Usually an enemy should die in around 2-3 hits from the regular punching attack. In Jak 1, many enemies died in 2 hits but they could be killed in one if you had red eco. In Jak 2, several Metal Head types were too tanky to be killed in two or three hits by the regular punch and kick. Barring the Scorpions and jumpers, which each die in one hit, and the initial Red Metal Head dog things, which died in two or three, most metal heads took a supremely high amount of hits. One in particular, with the slingshot tail, took 3 hits FROM THE PEACE MAKER before it actually died. Of course, this was on Hero Mode and on Hero Mode enemy health and damage is buffed, so that thing may have actually died in a single hit from the Peace Maker, like everything else and I've just never been able to test it.
That said, dying in Two Hits to Jak's Melee attacks seems reasonable for most enemies. This was altered quite a bit in Jak 3. In Jak 3, there were certain Dark Maker types who could project barriers, these barriers would allow them to take three hits from the Peace Maker before they became vulnerable but, without the barrier, they would die in one-three hits from any given gun depending on the type. So I think 3 hits is a reasonable place to aim for.
In terms of the amount of Health Jak has, I think he should start out with the amount of health he had at the end of Jak 3. Let me explain why.
In Jak 1, Jak had a health meter that was like something you'd find in Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. He had a certain number of hits and getting hit removed one, rather than the digital number based health bars you get in a lot of RPGs or Action titles. This isn't so bad on paper, except for the fact that Jak only had 3 hits and there was no life or checkpoint system. If you had full green eco while at max health (so either fifty small ones or one big one) you could take a hit, regenerate back to full health, and green eco becomes 0. Essentially, this was an in-game way for players to have four hits instead of 3.
Jak II seemed different visually but it actually wasn't. Jak's health bar is now in a circle divided into eighths. If this were Jak 1, this would equate to around 8 full hits, but there's a catch. In Jak II, only really small enemies like the Metal Head Frogs or Scorpions would take 1. Regular enemies would take 2. So, in the vast majority of engagements, getting hit essentially amounted to 4 hits then death, rather than the 8 that it looks like. In this way, Naughty Dog didn't change anything, they were just being less gamey (for lack of a better term) about how many hits you could take.
This is why Jak 3's health system was a massive improvement. In Jak 3, you started out with the same 8 dot circle that would amount to 4 hits like in Jak 1 and 2. However, over time, you acquired Armor Pieces that would increase your health. Now, by the end of the game, you could take a full 12 hits from basically anything before you would die.
I suggest Jak 4 do the same, twelve hits before you die and just don't increase the amount of health you gain over time. If you start out with the ability to take 12 hits, and the ability to heal with Light Jak, both of those things, coupled with health packs here and there, should be enough to smooth out the difficulty curve in comparison to Jak 2 and 3.
Then, rather than making enemies hit harder, you make them harder to kill over time. Increasing the damage they take is one way of doing it, but I think a better way would be to give many of them barrier-like abilities or healing abilities that would allow them to survive longer. Increasing the damage they deal wouldn't be a good idea, I don't think, just because Jak II and 3 tend to be hard enough as it is.
So I guess the last thing to talk about would have to be the bosses. And, I'm going to be honest, Jak and Daxter has never had good bosses. Bosses are not really at home in a Platformer. Bosses in Jak and Daxter tend to be either puzzle bosses where you wait for an opening and then strike (Like the first fight against Baron Praxis), have some gimmick attached to them in order to deal damage (Like the Precursor Robot in Jak 3), or, if you're really looking to get hardcore, it's a straight up boss fight (Like Metal Korr in Jak 2).
Honestly, if Jak 4 were more of a Platforming Adventure game with no bosses, I would be okay with that. Bosses have generally been tolerable at best in this series so scrapping them completely may not be such a bad idea. As for a finale, just opt for an event rather than an actual boss. I think a lot of people would be okay with that.
In terms of the story, that's actually pretty tough because I'm not primarily a writer and Jak and Daxter usually, save for The Precursor Legacy and Lost Frontier, have generally had some pretty intricate stories. But that concept about Jak going from the past and future and back would be a decent start as a concept and, if the writers at Naughty Dog build from there, I'm sure they can put something together that works.
This has been After-Thoughts Concept. That's really everything I wanted to say on this particular game. See you next time and, thanks for reading.
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