Jak II/Palace and Temple

This page covers two sets of missions. The first is a group of three missions to collect artifacts from the Mountain Temple, The second is a series of missions leading to a confrontation with Baron Praxis.

Mission Group: Find Artifacts in Mountain Temple

 * Location: Mountain Temple

The following three mission all start with the same cutscene and all take place in the same area. You can do the missions in any order.

Follow the tent icon to Onin's tent in the bazaar and go in.


 * Cutscene: "Meeting Onin and Pecker"
 * Daxter immediately makes a bad impression with Pecker, Onin's translator. Pecker is a combination monkey and parrot, and the only other talking animal in the game is Daxter so it's natural to wonder if Pecker had a similar accident with dark eco at some point. Onin herself is mute and so relies on Pecker to communicate for her. But Pecker is too impatient to translate Onin's long winded mystical ramblings word for word, so he just gives you the gist. In this case, Onin wants you to find three artifacts from the Mountain Temple, located west of the city.

Follow the mountain icon to the garden section and exit the gate there. There is nothing else to do here but use the Warp Gate; this takes you up the mountain. There is an upside down platform floating here, shoot to turn it the right way and use it to hop to the next ledge. Then ride the lift down. There is a passage with a mysterious locked door in the right, a side passage on the left, and a round building with three open doorways on the far side.

When you've gotten all three artifacts, you hear Pecker's voice passing along Onin's promise to investigate what significance they have.

Mission: Find Lens in Mountain Temple
Take the side passage left, eliminating the Metal Head with shield as in the Drill Platform. Scale some ledges to a waterfall, then drop down on the far side to face a large bull-like Metal Head with armor. It always charges in a straight line so dodge to one side to avoid being hit. You can't shoot through the armor but, as Daxter will hint if you wait, it is vulnerable while it rears on its hind legs. It's tough though, so don't expect it to go down right away. Now jump on the brown disk to make ledge appear on the far wall, then hop onto it to continue.

Defeat another Metal Head with shield, then cross a suspicious looking bridge and when you get to the other side the bridge collapses leaving three floating platforms. One of these moves up and down, so use it to get to the next level up.

Continue across the upper part of the waterfall you saw earlier, defeat yet another Metal Head with shield, and jump on another brown disk to make ledges appear to take you to the next higher level. The building here is you destination. There is a short cutscene ("Daxter Gets Burned") where Daxter burns himself getting the lens.

Mission: Find Gear in Mountain Temple
Go to the round building from the middle doorway on the far side shoot the floating platforms and use them to ride down to the valley below. Defeat the bull-like Metal Head as the previous mission, then jump on the brown disk to make ledges appear. These lead to a passage which takes you to a cliff with endless boulders rolling down it.

These aren't quite as hard to navigate as they look, though you may have to practice a bit. Wait for gaps in the flow and hop up ledge by ledge until you get to the top. There are two health packs in KG crates on the right side to help you along.

Follow another passage to more floating platforms you need to shoot, then follow the ledge to a large moving piece of machinery. There is a short cutscene ("Crushing the Machine") there Daxter picks up the gear and the whole thing collapses.

Find the platform on the far side which takes you back to the round room.

Mission: Find Shard in Mountain Temple
Go to the far side of the round building and go through the doorway on the right. Follow the passage to some ledges where you are attacked by a swarm of small Metal Heads. Then go down a hill to defeat a Metal Head with Shield. Scale the ledges here and continue to a pool of dark eco with a box in front of it.

This is actually a nice puzzle of a mathematical nature. You can only push the box from the outside from the direction you're standing, while you can push any existing side from the inside. When you push the box, the bottom remains on the ground while the rest rolls in the direction you push it. In this way the box is gradually flattened and after five pushes it leaves a trail of squares behind. Idea is to unroll the first box to make a trail ending in front of the second box, then unroll the second box to lead to the front of the third box, and so on. There are five boxes altogether and you want to unroll the last box to lead you to the far side of the pool. The brown button in front of the first box resets the puzzle so go back and press it if you can't continue.

The first thing to notice here is that only the first three pushes matter, after that you either have only one choice or you have two choices which end on the same square. So we'll only list the directions for the first three pushes. We'll use the abbreviations F: push the box forward, L: push the box left, and R: push the box right. One solution then is:
 * Box 1: Start FLL
 * Box 2: Start FLF
 * Box 3: Start FRR
 * Box 4: Start FFR
 * Box 5: Start FFR or start FRF

When you've created the bridge over the dark eco, get to the large ledge on the other side and fight the bull-like Metal Head as with the other two missions. Just beyond is the destination and there is a short cutscene ("Good Vibes") where Daxter picks up the shard which vibrates in his hands.

The ledge where you fought the bull-like Metal Head happens to overlook the passage where you started, so just drop down two levels to get back to the round building.

Mission: Turn on 5 Power Switches

 * Location: Haven City (Industrial section, slums)

Follow the lightning bolt icon to the power station and go in.


 * Cutscene: "Vin, buddy. We need a Favor."
 * Following up on the lead given to you by the mechanic at the stadium, you ask Vin to switch on the power for the elevator in the palace support tower. He complains that the power for that section hasn't worked in years but with a bit of reverse psychology you get him to come up with a way. The only problem is that you need to activate 5 switches scattered around the city, and all of them are guarded by turbo cannons.

The locations of the switches are marked as green circles on your map, and you can get to them all following a linear route starting with the one furthest to the south. The route takes you through the industrial area up into the slums.

For each switch you must first destroy the gun on top, then press the big red button underneath. You can Dive attack the button if you want to, but just stepping on it works just as well. The guns shoot in regular bursts like the turret guns in the Sewer. Plus they do a terrible job of leading their target so if you zigzag you should be able to get close enough to get them with your scatter gun.

The KG will be alerted after you step on the first button, and remain on alert at least until after you step on the last one. So if you want to avoid having to deal with the KG and the turbo guns at the same time just destroy all the guns without pressing the buttons, then reverse course and press the buttons while dodging the KG. There is no time limit so you should be able to do the entire mission on foot, in fact if may be easier that way.

After pressing the last button you hear Vin's voice tell you that the elevator is back on line. You can now wait for the KG to return to patrol status if you can find a safe place to hide.

Mission: Ride Elevator up to Palace

 * Location: Haven City (support tower)

Follow the tower icon downtown (north of the palace) and enter the gate. A very fast elevator takes you to the top of one of the six towers that support the palace via cables. Now you have to walk along the cable to the roof of the palace.

As you might imagine, the route is about as linear as you can get, though there are a couple of places where you have to use ledges to one side since there are heated panels on top of the cable. There are also places where you have to dodge turret guns or other hazards, but they are similar to what you seen before by now. Watch out for ledges that are a different color from the ones nearby since they will almost certainly collapse as second after you touch them.

After getting past a revolving machine gun at the end, scale the ledges to the right.
 * Cutscene: "The Secret Meeting"
 * You're on the palace roof and can eavesdrop on the baron speaking to a hologram of the Metal Head leader. The baron promises the Metal Heads more eco but it seems he's having problems keeping up with his deliveries. When the Metal Head leader signs off, Erol says the baron should attack the Metal Head nest. Erol was mentioned earlier as the city's champion racer, but he's also the baron's second in command in the Krimzon Guard. The baron says he's already tried a direct attack on the nest, but it's too well fortified and he barely escaped. The baron's plan is to mollify the Metal Heads for now while they search for Mar's tomb; something in the tomb will be able to defeat the Metal Heads. Then the baron mentions Ashelin and it's revealed that she is the baron's daughter. Just then Daxter sneezes and though you aren't seen, the baron and Erol end their meeting.

Mission: Defeat Baron at Palace

 * Location: Palace Roof

Somehow the ledges that allowed you to get to the roof from the support cable have disappeared, so there's no choice but to follow the passage down to a different part of the roof.


 * Cutscene: "The Baron Confronts Jak"
 * Apparently the baron suspected intruders after all because he appears in his flying armored gunship. He stops just long enough to gloat a bit before trying to kill you.

This is the first real boss of the game. You can see two health bars for the baron on the screen, a thin one on top and a thick one on the bottom. The one on the bottom is the boss's actual health and is divided in the three sections, one for each stage of the battle. The top bar represents the baron's energy supply, something he can recharge in the electric gates here. His weapons use up energy when they fire so if the upper bar runs out you're safe until the baron recharges.

The tricky thing here is that the baron's flying machine is invulnerable most of the time, something he's glad to tell you about if you shoot at him at the wrong time. Apparently the machine is only vulnerable when it's not glowing. It is glowing whenever the baron is shooting at you, so concentrate on staying out of danger when he does. Do shoot back when the baron finishes a burst of fire, especially when flashes red when it's out of energy. Daxter will give you some encouragement if you do some damage.

In the first stage, the baron uses a twin barreled machine gun. Apparently he can't adjust the aim well while he's firing so you should be able to avoid it by running at right angles. Try to stay close enough to him so you can get a good shot or two in after each burst. When the baron loses his first section of health he crashes through the gate to the next section of the roof; follow him.

In the second stage the baron fires volleys of missiles. You can see where these are going to land because small targets appear on the ground. So keep moving in a wide circle to stay away from the target and end up close to the baron to get in a couple shots of your own when he stops shooting. As before, the baron crashes through the gate when he's down another section, so follow him again.

In the third stage the baron has lost his invulnerability shield so shoot at him whenever you're able. He has two attacks this time, swarms of fiery twisters and mowing you down with his machine. The twisters are unpredictable, so just stay away from them and snipe the baron from a distance if you can. When the baron charges he does it in a straight line, so dodge to one side and fire as he passes.

There are infinite supplies of ammo in all three sections of the roof, though you may have to wait for them to regenerate.

When the battle is over, there is a short cutscene ("I Will Destroy You!") where the armor on the baron's flying machine drops away and he's still safe in it's cabin which is still able to fly. So he escapes and you're left with nothing to do but take the elevator back to the city. You come out on the south side of the palace.