Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

The line between collectathon and adventure is pretty thin, but what differentiates the two for me is how hard the game leans into its collecting. Games like Banjo & Kazooie or Spyro the Dragon make it pretty clear that what you’ll be doing constantly is collect stuff, and it can easily feel like busywork as you run through the checklist of MacGuffins you need to proceed through the game.

Jak & Daxter makes an effort to pull the player into its world and narrative first and foremost, only sometimes progression-gating with its collectibles to encourage exploration– and it’s honestly pretty gracious about it. Power Cells push the story forward, earned through exploration, mission completion, and trading in Precursor Orbs and Scout Flies. There are 101 Power Cells in total, but only 72 are needed to beat the game which is a pretty wide margin.

Aiding Jak on his quest is Eco, a sort of power source and life force that can be found in a variety of flavors: Green Eco gives Jak health; Red Eco enhances Jak’s physical attacks and Yellow Eco allows him to shoot projectiles; Blue Eco is the most versatile of the bunch, boosting Jak’s movement speed, pulling items toward him like a magnet, causing containers to burst open when in close enough proximity, and even activating Precursor devices.

Seeing future locations of the playable world from certain high viewpoints, running between them without loading screens, and even affecting greater parts of the world by accomplishing a few tasks can all feel pretty novel.

With the exception of loading your save file or from a Game Over, Jak & Daxter is a seamless experience. This was a gigantic technical achievement at the time and still impresses today as the game’s strongest technical flex.

At an individual level, locations boast solid design both mechanically and artistically. Each area is a joy to explore with a variety of mini-puzzles and platforming challenges to keep the player engaged.

Probably the only level I don’t care for is the Spider Cave because of how unforgivingly lethal it is. From spiders, chasms, centipedes, and pools of Dark Eco, expect to die a lot here.

Breaking rocks, coaxing critters into their hidey holes, chasing a flock of seagulls across a beach, herding cows– you know, hero things! The mundanity of your objectives and activities is an issue you likely won’t find yourself dwelling on too much in the moment, but it’s difficult to overlook in hindsight. Standout moments exist, for sure, but it’s a pretty boring sequence of tasks overall.

Right from the opening cinematic, it sets up concepts like the Precursors, Eco, Sages, etc., strongly demonstrating that this game actually cares about the story it wants to tell.

It’s a world brimming with potential and mystery, but it also knows how to hold back so your mind can fill in some of the gaps.

My favorite has to be Keira; her no-nonsense attitude is fun, and I seriously appreciate that she’s always the smartest person in the room.

Samos is pretty great too, even if only as a counter to Daxter.

Jak is mute, leaving Daxter as the primary mouthpiece of the duo. His jokes can spark the occasional giggle, but I think his execution is a bit hit or miss. He’s overwhelmingly obnoxious, rude, and a bit of a creep. I wouldn’t go so far as to consider Daxter a glaring issue that ruins the experience, but he’s certainly difficult to root for as one of our primary protagonists.

Buttery-smooth controls make it easy and fun to do anything and everything, and the fluid transitions between actions exude a punchy and elastic energy in Jak’s movement and attacks.

More importantly, the player feels constantly empowered to reach any destination with a rather expansive moveset. You’ve got your basic jump, double jump, the ability to roll as well as a forward punch and spinning kick, but what takes the gameplay to another level is the way these actions can be combined and strung together. Crouching before you jump allows you to jump very high, and rolling before you jump lets you jump super far. Jumping immediately after a punch rockets Jak upward, and performing a spinning kick midair gains a little bit of airtime to help with precision and distance. It all feels rewarding, intuitive, and perhaps best of all: optional– only raising the skill ceiling and never the skill floor.

Perhaps the only perceivable blunder in this department is the camera, which is inverted by default. One could easily overlook this, though, because this was pretty standard at the time. It’s frustrating that the ability to invert camera controls is hidden, but at least it is possible at all.