4/5 ★ – Zimtiki's review of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is the second attempt at a franchise by the beloved team, Naughty Dog, who created Crash Bandicoot and would LATER go on to create Uncharted and The Last of Us. This game feels best described as a “early 2000’s collectathon,” meaning there’s lots of platforming, lots of items to collect, and LOTS of DOUBLE JUMPIN. This game, unlike most of the era however, is polished to a T. The game has you collecting power cells left over by an ancient race known as the “Precursors” to stop the rogue sages Gol and Maia, who have been corrupted by Dark Eco (eco bring a magic source of energy that this society uses) and plan on using their new power to take over the world. Their dark eco transforms a clumsy guy named Daxter into a tiny fuzzy creature called an “Ottsel.” With his friend Jak’s help, you must confront the corrupted sorcerers and make them change Daxter back into a human. It’s a cute, simple story, and it works really well for this game. The game also has beautiful animations, the facial animation here is more expressive than a lot of games today even, and the environment reacts to everything you do, it just flows really nicely. What I didn’t expect was that this game is very similarly structured as Mario 64, that being each area has 7 power cells that you must collect in any order you please. The main difference is that the areas can all be accessed on foot rather than by warping, it makes the game feel super seamless, and there are NO load times. Insane technology for the time, way to go, Naughty Dog. Overall, while this game might feel SLIGHTLY dated, it still feels refined and like a lot of love was put into it. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s cozy. I’m glad I finally got around to this one! P.S. Keira has me feeling some type of way man 😰