3.5/5 ★ – bokonon764's review of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.

This is what Naughty Dog was doing after the cartoon marsupial and before they had you wantonly murdering droves of people for treasure, survival, or revenge. Jak and Daxter is an interesting franchise, it started as a classic 3d platformer and then pivoted pretty hard. I’ve always held this up as a childhood classic, so it hurts to say this: it doesn’t hold up very well. Aesthetically it does, but the way the game plays, not so much. You play as Jak, a silent protagonist with super saiyan hair, and Daxter, a shit-talking ottsel(orange, weasel thing) who’s always creepin on the hot mechanic. Daxter was human, but he fell in a vat of some stuff and was transformed. The game takes place in a kind of archaic, steampunk world. It’s unique blend of Eastern and Western fantasy design style really pops, and feels wholly unique amongst as a fantasy world amongst its contemporaries. Unlike most platformers of its type, you move through the world seamlessly instead of entering levels individually through portals. It really did feel like a marvel when it came out. Sure, there is some occasional glitching and long loading times, but it was great for 2001. Anyways, there’s magic stuff called eco that that gives you abilities and serves as the stories catalyst. So these two siblings, Gol and Maia, fucked around with the bad eco too much, which of course is dark eco. They wanna flood the world with dark eco for reasons, and Jak has to stop them. The story is whatever, but it’s setting is everything. On top of that, the character models look great, and the characters are designed and portrayed perfectly. Max Casella as Daxter, Warren Burton as Samos, Anna Garduno as Keira; fuckin Dee Snider and Kevin fucking Conroy are in this game. Great voice cast. The camera sucks in this game. Half the time, you can’t control, because of where you are in relation to walls or some shit. It’s a pain in the ass. The double jump doesn’t work sometimes, or has to be so exact it just doesn’t activate. This inhibits the variety of platforming and just the straight up fun you can have. Performing normal jumps I normally wouldn’t have to think about go wrong, and I end up back at a checkpoint. So the checkpoint system: there’s no visual aid as to where the checkpoints are, and some of the levels look so monotonous that that it’s a problem respawning. Going from Spyro to this game makes the level design feel like there’s much to be desired. The levels are full, and there’s a lot to do, but they’re kind of boring, one note, and designed poorly. But this game does take place in what is supposed to be a more grounded fantasy world, and they do nail that darker atmosphere. All the little side quest mini games are solid. They play well and some can be pretty challenging. You’re rewarded power cells, which is the premium collected item. Help some guy fish, shoot swamp rats, all that good shit. I mentioned eco, there are four types of eco that all do different things: heal, ranged attacks, double attack strength, and one more that does quite a bit. Blue eco grants you extra speed, draws items in, opens certain doors, and activated machinery/platforms. When you have blue eco, it feels so great. I wish blue eco was real. Josh Mancell, the guy who did the Crash music, composes for Jak and Daxter, and you can certainly hear some Crash Bandicoot shit in there. It’s percussion heavy and primal. There aren’t a lot of strong themes, as it’s more atmospheric, but every time I think about this series, I hear those opening drums so clear. Burned through this quick playthrough a little more than frustrated at points, but I can’t deny the brilliance of what this game was in its time. That being said, I’m curious to see how it’s sequel feels. If you like 3d platformers and you’ve never tried this one out, please do.