Jak and Daxter was a franchise that I remember always hearing about back in the day, but never got to try out. Having played the first game in the series now, over 20 years later, my immediate thought is not that I missed out on an essential PS2 game, but rather that I missed out on a game that I surely would have loved as a child. It’s a 3D platformer that emphasizes collectables rather than difficult jumps or puzzles, and while that is not generally not the focus that I would want a game like this to take, it does do that aspect very well. Ultimately, it does a lot of great things and scratched most of the same itches that Ratchet & Clank did for me back in the day (and still does), but it feels more like the prototype for a bigger and better game, which I am hoping the sequels are when I get around to playing them.

Reviewed on May 09, 2023


Comments