Pandora's Box: The Ultimate GameCube Tier List

#34: Tak: The Great Juju Challenge

Rating: E

Players: 1-2

Price Range: ~$15 USD

The last game in the Tak Trilogy.

Easily the best game in the Tak Trilogy by far.

While the previous games were familiar and were filled with experiments that didn't always pan out, if there was one description that I would give this game, it would be concise.

It knows exactly what you want, and it will do nothing but give you what you crave.

A multiplayer adventure with another person makes this a truly memorable and exhilarating experience.

One player plays as the title character, Tak, and the other, this buff character who's also synonymous with the series, Lok, who's played by Parick Warburton and steals the show in his unusually deep and deadpan voice.

You see, this game is separated by linear stages, where Tak and Lok have to use their special abilities to progress.

Tak can throw projectiles and can swim in water (since the fish hate and try to drown Lok, which is quite funny), while Lok can climb vines and can pick up and throw objects like explosives or even Tak himself to boost him up to a higher platform. Both have mana that recharges and is used for only one thing: to increase your speed and jump distance as you hold down the trigger.

Filled with puzzles, enemy gauntlets, and even side routes for optional recipes returning from the last game that can be used to craft gemstones to upgrade each character's health, mana, and damage. Truly great.

However, you have to always be on your toes since past the first tutorial level, you are in the aforementioned Great Juju Challenge where you compete in the game's levels with other tribes to gain the favor of the Great Moon Juju.

How?

Time.

You are timed in each of the game's levels where in addition to score, you need to finish as fast as possible, speedrunner style. This creates the challenge of the game, and is ingenious considering you need to coordinate with your partner whilst also considering the optional routes to get recipes.

That, and the soundtrack is a really great, as is signature of the Tak Trilogy.

Even the animal puzzles return. I've already mentioned how the fish...hate Lok to the point of instantly drowning him if he touches water, but there are others, like how sometimes you need to use a rhino to ram into barriers and such, but they are sleeping, so you need to find and return its baby to wake it up so you can break down some barricades.

DragonsDwelling's going to get a kick out of this...

In some of the later levels, there is female white-furred gorilla that...

...for some reason or another, has an...infatuation for Lok, to the point that if she so much as see him, she'll drag him to her nest before leaving to do something else...

This is even made into a puzzle in which you have to either distract her some way with Tak, or find another path or just barely slip past her to use Lok for the rest of the challenge. Bizarre, but...interesting...

Funny...

Its ending is also bonkers. Without going into spoilers, let's just say that they break the fourth wall in a rather ingenious way to create a very different and bizarre ending then you might expect. Still, it's a fascinating conclusion.

Chaotic yet straightforward, it is a childhood favorite of mine, and for it's rather low price, it is a really great time.

However, all these years after, I can certainly see some...problems.

For one, as a co-op adventure, it is obviously not going to be as fun just switching to one character at a time by yourself instead of playing with another person.

Sometimes the game drops frames when it is very chaotic, although I didn't find it too distracting...

The demolition derbies are also...not very good.

You are competing with other tribes for the best score base don your performance and times in the levels, and after each "world" of a few levels, you then compete in a demolition derby to eliminate one of the tribes that do the worst. You see, depending on your placement, you choose one of four vehicles for your team. For example, if you are first in the placements, you choose your machine first, and so on.

The problem is that the controls are not very great, and some vehicles are much better than others.

It could also get seriously hard and even frustrating even with another person to coordinate with.

It's fine, but nothing too amazing.

The game starts off with a very obtrusive tutorial level, which is quite annoying.

And...as customary as it is in the Tak games, the humor is very hit or miss. Sometimes the jokes are quite hilarious with some actually being kind of adult. The cutscene right before the tutorial level literally has a suicide joke in which Lok says, "Goodbye cruel world.", before jumping off of a cliff, only to rematerialize back on safe round thanks to his Juju powers. There's this other in which one of the tribes you compete against are this very attractive and beautiful white-haired middle-aged women, to the point that Lok even has an interest in them, only for him to realize that they are actually elderly is quite funny too. But then you also have those jokes, the ones that are the lowest common denominator in terms of childish humor. You'll know what I'm talking about when you see and hear it.

But still, it is a great game, especially when played with another. For being cheap and easily a high B-Tier co-op adventure, it is a really fun game in my book.