Hello fellow gamers from around the globe. Today’s “Gamer’s Review” is a throwback to one of Naughty Dog’s beloved video game franchises known as “Jak & Daxter.”
Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was released in 2001. (same year Grand Theft Auto III came out) It received critical acclaim from critics and gamers alike. The game sold a lot of copies. Jak & Daxter spawned sequels including “Jak II,” a darker cyberpunk follow up , “Jak 3,” a “Mad Max” type retaining the second game’s darker route, “Jak X: Combat Racing” taking the series into a racing themed entry, “Daxter” a prequel set before Jak II & the most recent installment “Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier.”
Naughty Dog’s upcoming “Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time” is slated to come out on October 2. To prepare for Naughty Dog’s next game, I’m looking back at the first installment of Jak & Daxter to see if it still holds up. I used to play Jak & Daxter games all the time with a PlayStation 2.
This game doesn’t contain no SPOILERS. I’ll give some gamers a chance to play the franchise. I refuse to give away crucial plot points from all games related to Jak & Daxter.
Believable & Unbelievable Qualities
Believable: Max Casella did a fantastic job for his voiceover performance as Daxter. Like Clank, Daxter is a great source of comic relief except the latter character is talkative, less calm and lacks an indoor voice. Thank goodness he ain’t incredibly annoying.
Dee Snyder lead singer of Twisted Sister, voices Gol, half of the main antagonists of the first game.
You’ll be surprised, Kevin Conroy (the voice of Batman) voices a fisherman. Don’t believe me? Look it up.
Graphics at the time felt decent for a PlayStation 2 game back in 2001. I had no problems with the game presented in its cartoon-esque format.
Soundtrack is memorable to listen while playing.
Gameplay consists with the player in an open world, navigating their way through areas encountering enemies, doing favors for non-playable characters, (NPC for short) puzzles, using a variety of glowing color coded power sources to help you in your journey, last but not least collecting power cells, scout flies & precursor orbs resembling eggs. It’s basically Naughty Dog’s equivalent to “Super Mario 64.” The more you play, the more harder you’ll have to endure a few obstacles.
Many locations are distinctive to reflect a specific area. None of them felt boring at all.
Samos & his daughter Keira factor in to guide the duo’s journey to help Daxter’s predicament after the opening scene turns him into a furry animal.
If you die, Daxter will often say something funny.
The game has a good amount of humor. Especially coming from Daxter’s big motor mouth worth plenty of chuckles.
If you have an eagle eye, it’s gonna be tough to find all collectibles to beat the entire game. If you’ve played Jak II, it really sets up how everything changed from a comedy to a gritty dystopian sci-fi.
Unbelievable: Upon finishing the game, its duration felt short after beating missions, puzzles, boss fights, exploring as well as collecting all power cells, scout flies & precursor orbs. Could’ve been longer to stretch out Gol & Maia’s backstories before they became influenced by dark echo.
The Final Verdict: A-
Despite one flaw, Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is one of Naughty Dog’s best games and also one of their best franchises besides Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet & Clank. It still holds up and I had fond memories playing the games. If you want to relieve your childhood memories as did when I used to play it on the PS2, go ahead and download it on the PlayStation Store with three additional games including the first two sequels and “Jak X: Combat Racing.”
Nickthemoviecritic.com 