Forgotten Gaming Mascots #24: Tak

On 02/27/2021 at 10:12 AM by The Last Ninja

Games: Tak and the Power of Juju (GCN, PS2, GBA/2003), Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (GCN, PS2, Xbox, GBA/2004), Tak: The Great Juju Challenge (GCN, PS2, Xbox, GBA, DS/2005), Tak and the Guardians of Gross (Wii, PS2/2008)

Mascot for: THQ

The Tak series was quite successful during the first decade of the 2000's. Nickelodeon even made a CGI Tak cartoon in 2007. The games follow young Tak, who is a shaman's apprentice. Tak is helped by animal friends as well as his "juju powers." There are also plenty of things to collect and find. The game seems to be taking inspiration from the Banjo-Kazooie games (and if you recall, Mumbo Jumbo is a shaman in those games). Tak 2 was very similar to the first game, but then the series went in a different direction with The Great Juju Challenge (an obstacle course speedrun platformer) and Tak and the Guardians of Gross (which had a strong focus on parkour moves, possibly inspired by Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time). It's not a bad series at all, receiving mostly positive reviews and praise from critics and gamers alike.

What happened: I think what happened here was series fatigue. These games came out one right after another, and while they tried to be distinct, it just wasn't enough. I don't know if the cartoon was any good, but it's possible that kids got tired of Tak. Honestly, I had no idea there was a Tak game on the Wii, which indicates that the game flew under the radar when it was released. It could be that the game sold poorly, and that was the end of Tak. But maybe we'll see him make a comeback, you never know.

That's it for this year's BaD. Thank you so much to everyone who read and commented! Stay tuned for more stuff later this year.

KnightDriver

02/27/2021 at 09:33 PM

I definitely remember seeing Tak games but never tried one.

The Last Ninja

02/28/2021 at 02:04 AM

Same

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/28/2021 at 01:07 AM

Huh ... It's like I should remember it given the time frame and it is evoking a very vague sense of deja vu, but ... nah, I don't really remember this show or game.

02/28/2021 at 02:05 AM

You're a horrible person......jk lol

Casey Curran Staff Writer

02/28/2021 at 10:30 AM

The first two Tak games are actually really good. Not on the same level as Jak or Banjo but you can do a lot worse for 3D platformers. Think the series could have lived if they stuck to that formula every two years instead of shaking things up every year. And the cartoon was abysmal. One of Nick's worst which is really saying something

03/01/2021 at 01:04 AM

Yeah, having a game every year was a bad move (that would hurt just about any franchise). I was curious about the cartoon, it's a shame it's awful.

Cary Woodham

02/28/2021 at 08:40 PM

It's hard to think of Tak as a video game mascot because he was so closely tied with Nickelodeon. The characters were designed by Nick execs as cross media characters, it just so happened they had games first and then a show later. It's kind of like how Jimmy Neutron was a movie and then a show. Tak probably failed because it wasn't making enough money for Nickelodeon. But it must've been tough to compete with SpongeBob. I reviewed one of the Tak games once, but I don't remember which one it was. You climbed on giant living stone structures in it, so it kind of had a Shadow of the Colossus vibe.

03/01/2021 at 01:07 AM

I think you're referring to Tak and the Guardians of Gross for Wii/PS2. Sounds like a bit of a rip-off to me. You're right that he was closely tied to Nickelodeon, but the game WAS first, so technically he's a VG mascot.

PixlBit