For a while, I've been thinking about the Jak & Daxter series and how it's my all-time favorite series of platformers and I don't like how the series ended. The Lost Frontier was so bad in comparison to everything else the series had to offer, I honestly have trouble believing that this is how Naughty Dog wanted to end the series. So, my question is, why? Why did The Lost Frontier turn out the way it did?
When I was a kid, I just thought High Impact Games was a shitty developer but after reflecting on it more, and thinking and thinking, I think the way the game turned out had just as much to do with Naughty Dog as it did with High Impact Games.
Naughty Dog were the ones working on this game before handing it off to High Impact Games to work on Uncharted. Because of that, much of what we see in the game may be artifacts of plans Naughty Dog had for the series. Of course the glitches are entirely the fault of the developer, same goes for the artstyle. However, much of the story, as well as the decision to put the game on the PSP were likely made during the planning phase, which would put it on Naughty Dog's shoulders.
So let's tackle the PSP issue first because the more I think about it the more it makes sense. The Lost Frontier was made to be a PSP game in its entirety before a port for the PS2 was made. This, in fact, may have been the entire reason certain mechanics were either changed or left out entirely.
If you look at the PS2 controller the Dual Shock 2, you'll notice it has a d-pad with four buttons, four face buttons, four back buttons, a start and select button, and two analog sticks. The PSP is missing quite a bit of that.
The PSP only has one analog pad which would be used for movement but the one for camera control is missing. The PSP also only had two back buttons, the L and R buttons. The way camera control in Jak & Daxter normally works is that the camera is only intended to go side-to-side, meaning that up and down only zoom in and out. So for camera control, this would make L and R easy replacements for the Analog stick, however, the absence of L1, L2, R1, and R2 meant that any mechanics tied to those buttons had to be removed. L1 was responsible for the crouch and roll, which meant those mechanics were removed, which also removed the high and long jumps. Lack of L2 removes Dark and Light Jak, which were present in Jak 3. Removing R2 removed the Jet Board. And though the R1 button would mean a removal of the Morph Gun, the Gun Staff's presence would suggest they found a way around it. I don't remember what it was, but considering that the Triangle Button wouldn't have much to do other than interact, I could see that as a fire button in place of the L and R buttons. Bearing in mind, I played the PS2 version which had a different control scheme.
This doesn't justify it in any way and ultimately device power doesn't excuse a bad game for being bad, but the limited button layout does mean that the mechanics we were used to seeing on the PS2 had to be removed. If the PSP were just a Dual Shock 2 with a screen, this might've changed things but, as they are now, they clearly had a limit to work within.
As for the plot, this I don't know who to blame. On the one hand, a story tackling Dark Warriors similar to Jak sounds like an interesting concept and would've also presented an interesting set of challenges where Jak's Dark powers could be tested and improved. The Eco system the game has in place even suggests that the developers were open to experimenting with Eco Powers. A little more tweaking and it could've been really cool.
On the other hand, however, the absence of Dark & Light Jak seem to suggest that that may not have been entirely the plan. Obviously, when games change hands during development, things that are present in the game are also going to change with the developers. Because of that, I'm not really certain which bad ideas were whose fault or if it was anybody's in general. The decision to port the game to PS2 seems to suggest that the developers were able to make PS2 games but that begs the question: if the PSP couldn't handle what they wanted to do, why not just make it a PS2 game to start with? The PS2 has more power than the PSP, it has more buttons to work with, and it was also likely easier to develop for since it had already been around for at least five years by that point.
So, if I were the one developing The Lost Frontier, what would I change?
Firstly, I would stop development of the PSP version. Remove the PSP from the development cycle entirely, then focus solely on the PS2. Most fans of the Jak & Daxter series who were going to play this game probably already had a PS2 anyway so that seems like a smart, or at least safe decision to make. Then, maintain the elements from the previous games, the crouch, roll, long jump, high jump, the Morph Gun, and Dark & Light Jak. The Jet Board isn't necessary since there aren't any courses or level design contrivances they could make to justify it and have the R2 button be used in Conjunction with the the regular Eco Powers.
Dark and Light Jak should be implemented the way they are in Jak 3. Hold L2 to charge it up, release it to activate Dark Jak, hold it while pressing a face button to activate Light Jak. Maintain Light Jak's Heal, Flash Freeze, Flight, and Shield, and combine these two forms with the Eco System. Some of the Eco Powers that are in the regular game can be removed because Light Jak already covers them, so the Eco Shield and Eco Reflexes can be removed and replaced with other powers since Light Jak already has the Light Shield and Light Flash Freeze, respectively. You can also remove the Super High Yellow Eco Jump and Hover if you want since Angel Mode covers that as well. The stat boosts can stay if you really want them, those don't harm anything so it's fine.
Then make the other Eco powers a combination of R2 and a Face Button. Eco Construct should be placed on the Triangle Button because it's a Green Eco ability and the Triangle button is Green. Eco Construct is an ability that I think can still be implemented into level design if we're careful. Then, remove Eco Teleport because that has no actual function in either combat or platforming.
So now we have three buttons left, what do we replace them with? Well, since Eco construct is a green ability, the other three should be yellow, blue, and red. The Blue Eco ability should be a super sprint, and attached to the Square button so you can move around and jump with it. The Red Eco Ability I'm honestly tempted to make a straight damage dealer but I'm going to avoid that and instead make it something more creative. Instead, I'll make it the ability to convert his Morph Gun Ammo into Eco of whatever type the Gun is. And the Yellow Eco ability is honestly the hardest one. However, if I'm being completely honest, I would probably make it an air dash just to get out of the way of certain enemies or to help yourself recover from a bad jump.
As for the premise, I would change it entirely. While the Dark Warrior concept is cool and can be combined with combat sections that can test Jak's Light and Dark abilities, the area and the people surrounding it are honestly really stupid. The edge of the world is pretty stupid in and of itself but, if you think of the planet as a flat surface and not an actual sphere, as the brink would imply, then we can accept it. However, the other characters have no place here, Phoenix's romantic subplot with Keira is honestly dumb and even if we accept that Keira is becoming an Eco Sage to augment the supply of Eco I don't see why the other characters need to be present in order to justify that.
So instead, I would have Jak & Daxter explore the world around them for some additional Eco. The Eco shortage really was never hinted at until The Lost Frontier made it it's primary focus but it is true that there are no Eco Sages seen during the time of Haven City. Even if we assume that Samos was an Eco Sage before he traveled back in time with the child Jak, that's only one of five total sages accounted for. Meaning that the plot of this game could surround finding all of the Eco Sages.
First off, Samos is old, which is probably why Keira is becoming an Eco Sage to replace him so the world doesn't run out of green eco. However, while we can keep that, that's fine, Keira would only be able to generate green eco due to what she's learned. Hell, we can even make that a primary theme: every eco sage is getting old and requires an apprentice to take on their wisdom and keep the eco from running dry. Keira wouldn't have to be dealt with much since she's probably already started on a path of creating eco. However, that still leaves three sages, four if we must include the dark eco sage.
In fact, let's run with that. We need to go around the outside of Haven City to find the Eco sages and apprentices for them. Obviously, all of them will be new characters, no sense turning Torn into an eco sage if you understand that analogy. So, we have to find the eco sages and find them apprentices. In fact, we can vary it up: the first eco sage we find, the blue eco sage, already has an apprentice and has started training him but we need to kick up his motivation. Either he's too lazy and needs more energy or he's too energetic and can't maintain focus, we can work with either of those.
Then, the second eco sage, the red eco sage, is currently looking for an apprentice but is still relatively young himself so he doesn't have to worry too much about the consequences of not finding an apprentice right this second. And the third eco sage, the yellow one, does not have an apprentice and is running low on time but has an ability to project his knowledge and wisdom into anyone he touches, which is how he'll pass on his knowledge before he runs out of time.
Finally, once that's done, we need to find a Dark Eco sage, not because there's too little dark eco but because there's too much that needs to be contained. However, since there is no sage, whoever does this needs to be incorruptible by dark eco and must already have a working knowledge of how it feels to channel and deal with it. If you haven't already guessed, Jak is the obvious choice here and toward the end of the game this needs to be handled one way or another.
However, while Jak can handle a fair amount of dark eco, he still has trouble controlling it, so he'll need the other sages to work together to generate light eco to help him control the dark eco. This is a basic outline for how the story will unfold.
In terms of an antagonist, that's not really too much of an issue. While the Dark Makers were dealt with in Jak 3, and Jak X doesn't seem to have any metal heads that we can find, The Lost Frontier takes place between those two games, so the general enemy could just be what's left of the metal head horde.
In any event, I talked more about this game than I honestly wanted to so I'll put this to bed and see you next time.
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