Jak and Daxter The Precursor Legacy Review (PS2) By McTricky

8 / 10
11 Aug 2006 at 12:56

Review by: McTricky

It’s no secret that the company responsible for the popular Crash Bandicoot series has sold the license to create a completely new game. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is an enjoyable game, espicially fo those who like the Spyro series.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy features a basic gameplay.

The plot of the game is a pretty obvious. Most people would think that Daxter is Jak's pet. But no. Daxter was a human once, and then fell in a pool of Dark Eco (thanks to Jak) and turned him into an Ottsel (half-otter half-weasel). The two, along with Samos the green sage, master of Green Eco and his daughter, must travel up north of the region to see Go, the master of Dark Eco, but it appears Gol has other plans...

One of the things that makes the game challenging is the health. You only get 3 lives before it’s game over. People who are used to games like Mario and Klonoa will find this a bit frustrating, while fans of Crash will feel right at home. Your health meter is a heart that consists of 3 parts. One part for each hit. You can revive a part with 1 big green eco orb that is found very rarely, or the more common small green eco. It takes a whole 80 small green ecos. Even though they are found in treasure chests and enemies here and there, it is still very hard to stay alive. Since you will die a lot (and I mean a lot) of times, you have unlimited lives, luckily.

Another flaw with the gameplay of Jak and Daxter is the small amount of bosses. There are only 3 or so of them in the game. And all of them are pretty easy, at least for my skills. I’m not exactly sure why Naughty Dog did this since all the Crash games had a healthy amount of Boss battles especially since platformers depend on bosses. Hopefully they will fix this and other flaws with the sequal.
Perhaps the best part of Jak and Daxter is the visuals. The game is so detailed and so beautiful that it almost brings tears to your eyes. The sight distance is simply amazing. Since the game is set in one huge world with all of the levels connected (and no loading times!) anything and everything you see you can go to. The first time you get up on a high structure and look down below on the world of Jak and Daxter you will just scream, WOW!!! You have to experience it yourself before you can truly judge the game. For the graphics I saw absolutely no flaws, just an amazing world. And they definitely deserve a perfect 10.
The sound is awesome. From the perfect lip singing of characters to the nice balanced music scores. No flaws here either. And combined with the visuals Jak and Daxter is just a beautiful game that you can proudly show off to your friends.

It is pretty lengthy for a platformer, takes anywhere from 15 to 20 hours. Just don’t expect much after the game is over. As I’m closing this review I just want to say that even with all of it’s flaws Jak and Daxter is still a very good game that belongs in every PS2 gamer’s collection.

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