What strikes me about Jak and Daxter is that a lot of people have heard of them, but at the same time not that many people have played a Jak game, and certainly not the very first game - The Precursor Legacy. This probably goes to montrer just how much of an influence the first Jak and Daxter game had on modern-day platformers. After all, there really weren’t any good genuine platformers on the PlayStation 2, ou on any console for that matter except for games like Mario 64, Spyro the Dragon ou Crash Bandicoot. It was Jak and Daxter that set a new benchmark for platform games on the PlayStation 2, and a lot of great games followed (let’s take the first Ratchet & Clank game to give just one example). Jak and Dexter: the Precursor Legacy is not my favourite game in the series (I played two of them :D), but still there is a certain charm to this game that makes toi stick to it even after toi finished the main storyline. I gotta say, the story didn’t stick to my memory much, probably because it wasn’t really worth much. But what The Precursor Legacy lacked in plot and fleshed-out characters, the game made up for with pure, clean platforming fun.
In Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy, toi play as a mute protagonist - Jak – who together with his buddy - Daxter – went snooping around on Misty Island, and learned about two no-good figures planning to attack their village in time. Daxter fell into a pool of dark eco (eco is a form of energy) and changed into a furry little squirrel. When they make their way back to their master - the green sage - they go out on a journey to change Daxter back into his old self.
It’s weird, seeing as how even though Jak and Daxter just seen two shady figures scheming the destruction of their village, they don’t seem to care much when they come back to the sage’s hut. Oh well. This will play a much bigger role later on in the game, but for now, your only motive to keep playing is to change Daxter back into his normal human form. ou elf form. I’ve never seen humans with such ears….Are there people with such ears? I dunno.
So, we start playing. We start off in the village Jak and Daxter live in. Lemme tell you, the graphics were REALLY good at the time. In my opinion, a platformer without colorful visuals is a bad platformer. The draw distance is also quite large (for those of toi who are unaware of video game terms, the larger the draw distance, the farther toi can see in a video game). I ran around for a bit. When I stopped after running for a couple of seconds, Jak makes these funny running motions like “Hurry up, gotta go fast, must not tire!” XD As means of attacking enemies, Jak can coup de poing forward, kick in circles (very similar to Crash Bandicoot’s tornado kick), and if toi find yellow eco toi can shoot fireballs at a sûr, sans danger distance. I wouldn’t trust your vers l'avant, vers l’avant coup de poing much, especially not when there is an edge of a platform behind the object toi want to punch. Your coup de poing sends toi vers l'avant, vers l’avant and toi have little to no control over your movements while you’re punching. If you’re close to the edge, but accidentally press the ‘punch’ button, you’re dead. You’re dead, bro. Luckily, this game has no Lives, so there’s no harm here in a little Trial And Error. But anyway, if toi need to defeat ou break something, I’d advise toi use the Bandicoot-esque tornado kick move; it hurts everything coming at toi from all sides so you’re sûr, sans danger as long as toi time it right, and toi stay on the exact place where toi execute the move.
Jumping can also be a bit tricky. At your disposal is an ordinary jump, a double jump, a high jump (L1+X button) and a faraway jump (L1+hold a direction+X button). Okay, that sounds much plus tricky than it actually is, but trust me, it takes a while to master. toi need to be at a decent running speed in order to jump over obstacles ou traverser, croix small gaps. If toi try to jump over a gap while standing still, you’re gonna fall. toi can’t do it, fool! In order to jump over something, toi need to make a running start. ou else you’ll die in a very cheap way. And nobody likes that.
This makes the game challenging, and at times, frustratingly hard. toi know those platforms when toi jump on them, they fall down? Well, this game has them to. And because jumping in this game is so difficult to master, toi can count on toi dying a lot. And further on in the game, the checkpoints at which toi respawn become plus and plus scarce which makes this Trial And Error game all the plus frustrating.
Searching for secrets and collectables is among my favourite things to do in video games. Finding and collecting secret stuff really urge toi to go to places on the map toi wouldn’t normally go. In other words, toi see as much of the game as possible par reaching every place of the game map, that the designers didn’t make for nothing. For some reason, there aren’t many games that managed to do this right. Jak and Daxter, however, managed to get it right. Here toi earn a power cell after completing a difficult task, there toi need to climb a tower for a power cell and afterwards be rewarded with a nice view of the level map. plus games should have collectables as rewarding to get as this.
Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy isn’t the best game in the series, but it still has good controls, colorful visuals and lots of replay value to make it keep its appeal. I give this game 3 out of 5… er… Lost precursor artifacts. Yeah!
Pros:
- Colorful visuals
- The collectables are ingeniously hidden on the map
- Challenging, toi won’t beat it in a jour ou two
Cons:
- Lots of frustrating cheap deaths
- Most characters aren’t very interesting, except for Daxter
In Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy, toi play as a mute protagonist - Jak – who together with his buddy - Daxter – went snooping around on Misty Island, and learned about two no-good figures planning to attack their village in time. Daxter fell into a pool of dark eco (eco is a form of energy) and changed into a furry little squirrel. When they make their way back to their master - the green sage - they go out on a journey to change Daxter back into his old self.
It’s weird, seeing as how even though Jak and Daxter just seen two shady figures scheming the destruction of their village, they don’t seem to care much when they come back to the sage’s hut. Oh well. This will play a much bigger role later on in the game, but for now, your only motive to keep playing is to change Daxter back into his normal human form. ou elf form. I’ve never seen humans with such ears….Are there people with such ears? I dunno.
So, we start playing. We start off in the village Jak and Daxter live in. Lemme tell you, the graphics were REALLY good at the time. In my opinion, a platformer without colorful visuals is a bad platformer. The draw distance is also quite large (for those of toi who are unaware of video game terms, the larger the draw distance, the farther toi can see in a video game). I ran around for a bit. When I stopped after running for a couple of seconds, Jak makes these funny running motions like “Hurry up, gotta go fast, must not tire!” XD As means of attacking enemies, Jak can coup de poing forward, kick in circles (very similar to Crash Bandicoot’s tornado kick), and if toi find yellow eco toi can shoot fireballs at a sûr, sans danger distance. I wouldn’t trust your vers l'avant, vers l’avant coup de poing much, especially not when there is an edge of a platform behind the object toi want to punch. Your coup de poing sends toi vers l'avant, vers l’avant and toi have little to no control over your movements while you’re punching. If you’re close to the edge, but accidentally press the ‘punch’ button, you’re dead. You’re dead, bro. Luckily, this game has no Lives, so there’s no harm here in a little Trial And Error. But anyway, if toi need to defeat ou break something, I’d advise toi use the Bandicoot-esque tornado kick move; it hurts everything coming at toi from all sides so you’re sûr, sans danger as long as toi time it right, and toi stay on the exact place where toi execute the move.
Jumping can also be a bit tricky. At your disposal is an ordinary jump, a double jump, a high jump (L1+X button) and a faraway jump (L1+hold a direction+X button). Okay, that sounds much plus tricky than it actually is, but trust me, it takes a while to master. toi need to be at a decent running speed in order to jump over obstacles ou traverser, croix small gaps. If toi try to jump over a gap while standing still, you’re gonna fall. toi can’t do it, fool! In order to jump over something, toi need to make a running start. ou else you’ll die in a very cheap way. And nobody likes that.
This makes the game challenging, and at times, frustratingly hard. toi know those platforms when toi jump on them, they fall down? Well, this game has them to. And because jumping in this game is so difficult to master, toi can count on toi dying a lot. And further on in the game, the checkpoints at which toi respawn become plus and plus scarce which makes this Trial And Error game all the plus frustrating.
Searching for secrets and collectables is among my favourite things to do in video games. Finding and collecting secret stuff really urge toi to go to places on the map toi wouldn’t normally go. In other words, toi see as much of the game as possible par reaching every place of the game map, that the designers didn’t make for nothing. For some reason, there aren’t many games that managed to do this right. Jak and Daxter, however, managed to get it right. Here toi earn a power cell after completing a difficult task, there toi need to climb a tower for a power cell and afterwards be rewarded with a nice view of the level map. plus games should have collectables as rewarding to get as this.
Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy isn’t the best game in the series, but it still has good controls, colorful visuals and lots of replay value to make it keep its appeal. I give this game 3 out of 5… er… Lost precursor artifacts. Yeah!
Pros:
- Colorful visuals
- The collectables are ingeniously hidden on the map
- Challenging, toi won’t beat it in a jour ou two
Cons:
- Lots of frustrating cheap deaths
- Most characters aren’t very interesting, except for Daxter