Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS!

It’s me MH again setting fire to Zombie Elves since 2014. I’m here today with my review on the PS2 game, Jak and Daxter: The precursor legacy. 

Created by Naughty Dog, it was their big series for the PS2 as they change what series they work on every console, don’t believe me, PS1 they worked on Crash Bandicoot and then they dropped it which is why there hasn’t been a good Crash game since, look at the games afterward and tell me I’m wrong. For the PS3 they worked on Uncharted 1, 2 and 3.  Jak and Daxter spawned several games afterwards including Jak 2, Jak 3, Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier, Daxter and the racing game Jak X: Combat Racing, what is it with Naughty Dog making racing games of their series, Crash Tag Team Racing anyone, I know they didn’t actually make it, but just wait for Uncharted: Drake’s big race.

Anyway, on to the game at hand. Jak and Daxter is a pretty good platforming game with a variety of attacks such as punching, spinning, a downwards slam attack and an uppercut. The spinning works well as it can be used to extend your jumping which can be doubled or crouch down for a super jump. The level designs are pretty good as many of which revolve around the powers of eco which comes in four colours.

Green is basic health recovery, getting 50 bits of green restores a portion of your health or if you have full health a full 50 will take a hit for you. Red increases your attack strength, yellow allows you to hurl fireballs and blue makes you faster and allows you to activate ancient machines which come quite in handy. Blue eco awakens such things as moving platforms and pads that allow you to jump high into the sky. Throughout the game you’ll find items known as power cells to allow you into certain levels to unlock more areas after the level is beat, sounds like Mario 64 where you collect stars to fight bowser to unlock new levels, well that’s cause this game has a similar engine to Mario 64.  A game using Mario 64’s engine on a PS2, sounds bad right. The weird thing is, it isn’t. The game is well rounded and has a well rounded pair of main characters and has a great sense of humour. 

Jak may be the playable character but his little Ottsel sidekick Daxter is the true star whose jibes are always good for a laugh, including his little dances when you find a power cell and even when you die, he takes the piss, but it’s pretty darn funny. 

The game’s instruction booklet isn’t a booklet, it’s a map of the world and has the instruction booklet pages on the back, now that’s pretty different. 

The plot involves Daxter who once human being turned into his fuzzy self and Jak and Daxter travel to find a sage named Gol in the hopes of changing Daxter back but that plan doesn’t last too long when it turns out Gol is the game’s villain whose capturing the other sages.

The only other bad things I’d have to say is the game’s obsession with fire levels when it comes to the stars… I mean ‘power cells needed’ level, all 3 are fire levels, two on a hoverbike like machine called a zoomer and the other against a giant monster that hurls giant rock balls at you, that and there are 100 power cells on the game and you only need 77 to beat the game’s story which can be beaten in just a couple of days. However getting all 100 gets you the true ending which leads onto the sequel Jak 2: Renegade.

But the game isn’t really bad at all, in fact it’s pretty awesome and a recommended retro game to buy if you don’t already have it.