I have vivid childhood memories of Jak and Daxter: A bizarre arsenal of futuristic guns, a dark and desert-y open-world, a sci-fi looking car you’d race with, and combat challenges I’d always have trouble completing. I was more into Ratchet & Clank back then, but I was looking forward to my first step in revisiting this franchise nonetheless.
Imagine my surprise when that’s not what Jak and Daxter’s first outing ever looked like. Instead of an edgy third-person shooter, The Precursor Legacy is a lighthearted platformer collectathon. No crazy guns, no super-speedy car, and no dark narrative. It’s not like I never played The Precursor Legacy, but it’s clear now that most of my memories stem from Jak II and III, as I don’t remember anything from this game outside of the opening cutscene.
I think my betrayed expectations ruined this game’s opening for me, as I played for about twenty minutes on my first day before calling it quits. But if you're somehow in the same boat as me, please give this game another chance: It is absolutely lovely.
The Precursor Legacy understands its goals and accomplishes what it sets out to do excellently. The platforming mechanics are surprisingly tight, and although you can’t pull off particularly crazy stunts, it feels wonderful to control. The game’s environments are striking and utilize widely varied color palettes, architectural inspirations and different aspects of nature to channel drastically different tones one after another.
Whether it be a snowy mountain, a spider-infested cave deep underground, an unbearable bog swamp, or a submerged facility deep within the ocean, I was engrossed area after area. But these zones aren’t just wonderful aesthetic shifts. They introduce new mechanics and methods of progressing that constantly kept the flow of gameplay engaging, and I loved how some areas were entirely non-linear.
The Precursor Legacy might be the first time I fully understand why finding collectibles in these games is so fun. There’s a great balance here between the stuff you can find easily and the things you need to do some extra digging for, and Naughty Dog managed to make every single one accomplishable without requiring in-depth game knowledge. I collected all 101 Power Cells without ever resorting to Google’s help, which is rare for me because I'm a dummy.
The Precursor Legacy feels like a natural evolution of Naughty Dog’s brand at the time. The goofball nature of Crash Bandicoot is maintained quite well here, and even gameplay wise, it’s pretty much just taking what that series did and evolving it into full 3D environments.
While I did find the mini-games to be largely unfun, my biggest issue with The Precursor Legacy is that at no point did I particularly care for this “world." The characters aren’t charming, Daxter is a creepy little perv, the environments feel like disconnected (but good) levels within a video game, and the idea of Jak & Daxter has little meaning to me right now. I was thoroughly disengaged during every cutscene here and none of the comedic dialogue hit.
I care more about The Precursor Legacy as an experience itself than I care about Jak & Daxter as a brand, franchise, or iconic duo. It is well-made, tons of fun and ended up being one of the better collectathons I’ve played. Seriously recommend this :)
Imagine my surprise when that’s not what Jak and Daxter’s first outing ever looked like. Instead of an edgy third-person shooter, The Precursor Legacy is a lighthearted platformer collectathon. No crazy guns, no super-speedy car, and no dark narrative. It’s not like I never played The Precursor Legacy, but it’s clear now that most of my memories stem from Jak II and III, as I don’t remember anything from this game outside of the opening cutscene.
I think my betrayed expectations ruined this game’s opening for me, as I played for about twenty minutes on my first day before calling it quits. But if you're somehow in the same boat as me, please give this game another chance: It is absolutely lovely.
The Precursor Legacy understands its goals and accomplishes what it sets out to do excellently. The platforming mechanics are surprisingly tight, and although you can’t pull off particularly crazy stunts, it feels wonderful to control. The game’s environments are striking and utilize widely varied color palettes, architectural inspirations and different aspects of nature to channel drastically different tones one after another.
Whether it be a snowy mountain, a spider-infested cave deep underground, an unbearable bog swamp, or a submerged facility deep within the ocean, I was engrossed area after area. But these zones aren’t just wonderful aesthetic shifts. They introduce new mechanics and methods of progressing that constantly kept the flow of gameplay engaging, and I loved how some areas were entirely non-linear.
The Precursor Legacy might be the first time I fully understand why finding collectibles in these games is so fun. There’s a great balance here between the stuff you can find easily and the things you need to do some extra digging for, and Naughty Dog managed to make every single one accomplishable without requiring in-depth game knowledge. I collected all 101 Power Cells without ever resorting to Google’s help, which is rare for me because I'm a dummy.
The Precursor Legacy feels like a natural evolution of Naughty Dog’s brand at the time. The goofball nature of Crash Bandicoot is maintained quite well here, and even gameplay wise, it’s pretty much just taking what that series did and evolving it into full 3D environments.
While I did find the mini-games to be largely unfun, my biggest issue with The Precursor Legacy is that at no point did I particularly care for this “world." The characters aren’t charming, Daxter is a creepy little perv, the environments feel like disconnected (but good) levels within a video game, and the idea of Jak & Daxter has little meaning to me right now. I was thoroughly disengaged during every cutscene here and none of the comedic dialogue hit.
I care more about The Precursor Legacy as an experience itself than I care about Jak & Daxter as a brand, franchise, or iconic duo. It is well-made, tons of fun and ended up being one of the better collectathons I’ve played. Seriously recommend this :)