After revisiting Jak II and finding it to be a really solid game (save for some huge difficulty spikes), I decided to revisit Jak 3 for old times sake as well!
I'm 3/4ths of the way thru, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. That said, I feel like this game is both a step forward and a step backwards from Jak II at the same time. On one hand, the sheer amount of variety they crammed into the game is incredible. The vehicular combat and travel is a HUGE improvement over the frustrating and claustrophobic driving thru Haven City in the first game. The new weapons and abilities Jak acquires (and there are many!) are really cool. I especially love when you get the ability to slow time to a crawl, same with the late gate weapon that allows you to negate gravity for enemies and vehicles! And in general, the difficulty is MUCH more forgiving than its predecessor. (One of of the games own developers, Josh Scherr, is on record saying that Jak II was way too hard for it's own good) And the graphics (particularly the wonderful cutscene animation!) and music are just as polished and engaging as they were in Jak II. The tone also tries to strike a balance between the brooding cynicism of II and the lighthearted wonder and humor of the first Jak & Daxter (which I haven't replayed yet), and that's reflected in the gameplay due to the addition of Light Jak to counterbalance Dark Jak.
That said...for all the things Jak 3 does right in pure gameplay and presentation , it seems to take a hit in everything else. For one thing, the games pacing is all over the place. While the mandatory backtracking from Jak II is greatly toned down, there's also way too much focus on the vehicles and minigames (i.e. racing on lizards, button pattern mashing, timed ring challenges), and not nearly enough of the actual platforming/on foot combat the series is known for. For one thing, the first hour or so of the game consists on this stuff before you get to reach the actual platforming sections at the Precursor Temple and Volcano! And while cutting slack on the games challenge is a great idea (Jak 3 is MUCH more generous with checkpoints, for one thing), Naughty Dog waaaaaay overcompensated at the same time. The new weapons, while fun, are very unbalanced and are basically made with the idea that you can spam them to your hearts content and clear whole rows of enemies in seconds. Jak II was designed with the idea of using your minimal weapons strategically in combo with your latent moves and the level design reflected that. Here, the enemies more or less exist as arcade shooting gallery practice. At times I felt like I was playing a Ratchet & Clank game more than Jak & Daxter! Even when I reigned myself in to just using the base weapon set, the combat feels far less engaging due to the grabbag enemy placement. The game also throws health packs, ammo and Light/Dark Eco at you like it's going out of style, and Light Jak's regeneration ability on top of that means you'll rarely be dying unless you deliberately choose to ignore using them, and even then the game gives you a lot more health points automatically as the game goes on. Precursor Orbs (which unlock Secrets) are also much easier to find/earn (to where Jak 3 almost feels like a Collect-A-Thon at points), which unlock a lot of cheats that basically allow you to plow right thru the game. It's not to say that Jak 3 doesn't have challenging moments (some of the Wasteland missions can be genuinely tough), but they're more the exception this time around and any challenge tends to come from the player setting their own limits. Also, some of the new abilities feel like they were thrown in for their own sake or treated like an afterthought, such as Dark Jak's new invisibility power, which gets used for exactly one level and gets completely forgotten afterward (unless you unlock a cheat code that lets you spam it).
Also, to be frank, the actual story in this game is a mess. While the cutscenes are entertaining due to the great animation and high quality voice acting (and like with Jak II, they still manage to nail the comedy), the story is very disjointed and rushed feeling. A good example of this is when Ashelin begs Jak to return to Haven City to help save them (after being banished), only for Jak to coldly refuse the offer...only for the very next game mission to immediately lead you down a path that returns you to said city anyway without any context or explanation. The narrative feels far less tight and focused in general, like it was built around ideas that they just didn't have time to expand on or properly flesh out. It makes the game hard to follow and feels far less satisfying to take in.
For a game that was made in 13 months, Jak 3 is extremely ambitious and clearly wanted the series to go out with a bang. While I am having a good time, it also feels like a game that has a patchwork, overdesigned feeling to it. It holds together, but just barely. I feel it could have benefitted from tighter game design and a less high stakes story instead of cramming so many things in all at once.