Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (2001, PS2)

[RatsTheDonkey]

After replaying Jak II and 3, it wasn't a matter of if but when I would revisit the original game as a formality. I knew that the first game was more lighthearted than the sequels, but I was not prepared for the sheer tonal whiplash I was in for. The game is so thinly plotted, juvenile and almost corny that I felt like I was playing a Nintendo game ala Banjo-Kazooie. For lack of a better analogy, It's kind of like if you started with something like Pooh: Blood & Honey as your first Winnie the Pooh experience, and then go back to the lighthearted stuff (key difference being that the Jak sequels are actually, y'know, good). That said, some of the cutscenes are still very entertaining to watch, mainly due to the great voice acting and some funny zingers courtesy of Daxter (memorably voiced by Max Casella) and Samos the Sage.

The gameplay is an admittedly standard collect a thon/fetch quest platformer on paper, but it still works because the gameplay flow is so well constructed. Jak is a breeze to control and his moves are just plain fun to use, especially when combined with the eco power-ups. I love how open ended yet compact the level design is. You're free to explore and tinker around, but it's unlikely that you'll get lost in them, and traversing the worlds never gets tedious because of how thoughtfully constructed and distinctive the levels are. The difficulty balance is just right, it's generally easy but the game will punish you if you get careless. (As an aside, I love how Daxter makes fun of Jak to his face when he bites the dust!) The game design is airtight, though you also get some fun diversions like a fishing minigame, the Zoomer (Hoverbike) missions and the odd boss fight here and there.

I also have to say, the presentation of this game has aged astonishingly well. While the character models aren't as polished as they are in the sequels, the character designs and the games whole art style is extremely appealing, the character animation is astonishingly fluid and cartoonishly expressive, and the massive and colorful environments are almost breathtaking to look at, especially when you get to look at them from a high vantage point. It's easy to take it for granted now, but this game was one of the first "Open World" games where every part of the world seamlessly segues into the other with NO loading times. For an early PS2 game, that is an amazing technical accomplishment, and it truly immersive you into the games world and reinforces the games sublime pacing! The music score by Josh Mancell (of Crash Bandicoot fame) is extremely relaxing and atmospheric, with tracks like Sentinel Beach and the Lost Precursor City being standout examples.

I wish we had more cozy cartoony platformer games like this nowadays. I'd also say this is a perfect game to play to unwind during the summertime.

[Retro STrife]

I was hoping to see your take on this one, after reading your write-ups on Jak 2 & 3. How would you rank the games in the trilogy?

This is the only Jak game I've played. I played the downloadable version on PS4 in 2021. I'm not a big fan of 3D platformers - it takes a lot for them to win me over. And Jak won me over big time. One of the best 3D platformers I've ever played.

[Retro STrife]

I looked back to my 2021 post about this game, when I played it for the first time and beat it within a few weeks (very quick by my standards). Here's that thread: https://videogamecritic.com/forums/view ... 12&t=19325 . Here's a summarized version of what I said about this game when it was fresher in my mind:

FEBRUARY 1, 2021
I've been hard on 3D Mario games for two decades and always assumed the problem was just me.. that I can't appreciate 3D platformers. Then a game like Jak and Daxter comes along and has me completely and utterly addicted. Now this is a quality 3D platformer in my book. On it's face it doesn't look all that special, and the camera and controls are vintage 2001, but something makes me want to keep playing. And I really appreciate that it doesn't have "levels" in the traditional sense, but instead it feels like one big interconnected world. I played like 5 hours straight today and that's basically unheard of for me with a 3D platformer.

The PS2 is known for some great platformers and, for awhile now, I've wanted to try out one game each from the series Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter. I picked Jak 1 for the latter and think it was the right choice. I haven't played the other two series yet. I feel like Ratchet & Clank became the frontrunner for Sony, but I don't know, Jak is going to be tough to beat. (BTW, I also played Psychonauts in 2020, and would definitely rank Jak over that.) I just read the VGC review too, and agree with the A score and thoughts.

FEBRUARY 15, 2021
Beat Jak and Daxter this past weekend, and got 100% completion of all collectibles. For me to beat a 3D platformer that fast says a lot about the game. I was ready to be finished by the end, but it was a good time up until then. The free-form mission structure really kept me plugging along. Since I'll only play one game from the Jak trilogy, I think Jak 1 was the right call.

This game is made by Naughty Dog, which speaks to the quality of it. It feels like they took what they learned from Crash Bandicoot on PS1, took it off the rails, and expanded it into a fully 3D world. There's obvious similarities between Crash and Jak in so many aspects of the characters, worlds, vehicles, and moves. The Jak characters are mostly crap (except Daxter, who is ok) and the villains are virtually non-existent, and the story is pointless.. but all of that can't bring this solid platformer down.

[RatsTheDonkey]

I was hoping to see your take on this one, after reading your write-ups on Jak 2 & 3. How would you rank the games in the trilogy?

This is the only Jak game I've played. I played the downloadable version on PS4 in 2021. I'm not a big fan of 3D platformers - it takes a lot for them to win me over. And Jak won me over big time. One of the best 3D platformers I've ever played.

I'm glad you like the first one that much! I'm a huge 3D platformer fan, so I'm a sucker for games like these!

Jak II is easily my favorite in the series, though ill admit that it's not for everyone. Jak & Daxter 1 is a very close second, I just love the vibe of this game THAT much despite the near complete lack of tonal consistency between the two games. Jak II has a very tightly written script (in terms of character interactions, the story is basically a big jigsaw puzzle that only starts to make sense after you've finished the game, and even then it doesn't explain everything) and I absolutely love the games fantastic pacing, gameplay flow and amazing presentation, which took what worked about Jak 1 and fine-tuned it to near perfection. I think the only big problems are that the difficulty is very unbalanced (most of the game is moderately challenging but there are HUGE difficulty spikes that can be major pacebreakers) and that traversing Haven City, while great for worldbuilding and reinforcing the games gritty tone, can just get tedious after a while.

Jak 3, while by NO stretch a bad game, is probably my least favorite of the trilogy. The actual gameplay is fun and the presentation is, again, absolutely fantastic. And I do appreciate that the backtracking is toned down from Jak II and that the game tries to be more tonally consistent with the first game as a way of providing closure to the series (which still building on the expanded scope and darker tone of Jak II). But they took the criticism of Jak II being way too hard to heart and overcompensated by making the game WAY too easy, to where id honestly say it's almost EASIER than Jak 1 because they throw soooooo many different weapons and abilities (plus unlockable cheats) that allow you to completely cheese your way thru the majority of the game, plus more health packs and Light/Dark Eco than you'll even know what to do with unless you go out of your way to deliberately ignore using them, even though the game was clearly designed around the idea of you using said weapons/abilities with carte blanche. When played as intended, the game is surprisingly devoid of tension, but when played with limits it's just not that exciting because the level design is very basic and the enemy placement basically amounts to ''Heres a bunch of enemies to serve as shooting gallery practice". Jak II's enemy placement was carefully designed to teach the players to use their weapons strategically in combination with Jak's latent abilities. While there are still difficulty spikes (a late game part where you have to learn how to use Light Jak's flight comes to mind) they're far less noticable than in Jak II.

Also, Jak 3 suffers badly from overambitious "Kitchen Sink Design" where they tried to cram way too much variety for the sake of variety into the game. There's no bad gameplay segments in Jak 3 mind you, the problem is that compared to the first two games, Jak 3 barely even feels like a platformer because there's so much focus on the driving and various minigames, and some of the new moves feel really tacked on and underutilized. It simply lacks the laser focused, airtight design of its predecessors. While they did have diversions like the Zoomer Bike, Hoverboarding and Stadium Races, they were side excursions that complimented the main gameplay instead of overpowering it. And the story of Jak 3 had the potential to be great, but in execution it's just a mess. It's just as unfocused and disjointed as the gameplay (probably a victim of the games tight 13 month deadline, whereas Jak II had an entire two years to get made), despite still having plenty of entertaining moments. It tries to end the series on a high note, but it just didn't build up and end in a truly satisfactory way for me.

[Gentlegamer]

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy >>> Super Mario Sunshine

[RatsTheDonkey]

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy >>> Super Mario Sunshine

I actually agree with that take! Mario Sunshine was such an underwhelming follow up to SM64.