Jak and Daxter is a series I’ve always had mixed feelings about.
The gameplay is certainly good, especially for its time, and it brought a kind of scope
to the platform genre you didn’t really see before.
But at the same time, I mean...
What the **** is this thing?
So it was with...cautious optimism that I hyped myself up for this Jak and Daxter collection,
the PS2 classics remastered in HD and released on a single disc for the PlayStation 3.
Fortunately, I was almost immediately reminded why the Jak games received such adoration
last generation, and they still play very well.
But as for its protagonist and titular character?
He looks like something you’d find in the trash can at a furry convention.
Anyway, we’ve decided to take a look at these HD remakes one by one, and we’re starting
with this...the first Jak and Daxter, The Precursor Legacy.
It’s strange to think this game is already a decade old, but especially in HD, it certainly
doesn’t show it.
It’s like the Jennifer Aniston of platformers.
You play as...ugh, some pointy eared anime reject with an annoying meerkat for a partner.
There’s nothing Jennifer Aniston about that.
Fortunately, what Jak and Daxter lack in charm, they more than make up for with their gameplay.
The Precursor Legacy holds up as a great action platformer, and the fresh coat of paint has
revitalized it.
If you’ve never played the original, Jak and Daxter is a platformer in the vein of
the classics that emerged in the late nineties.
Think Banjo-Kazooie meets Mario 64 with added action elements, and you basically have Jak
and Daxter.
But that’s not to say the game didn’t make some contributions of its own.
One of the things you notice when you come back to the game is how seamless its world
is.
Jak and Daxter takes Mario’s idea of collecting an amount of stars per level, but the catch
is that those levels aren’t self-contained.
It’s one complete game world with individual areas, all of which tie together in both theme
and practice.
Of course, things are a bit less ambitious in terms of its gameplay.
You’re going to collect lots of different amounts of lots of different thing, you’re
going to do some minor platforming and you’re going to run around a 3D world.
As is common with many of the platformers of the era, it does feel just a little dated.
But to be frank, the appeal of Jak and Daxter isn’t necessarily the originality of what
you’re doing but how smooth and polished it is.
And polished certainly applies to its HD remake.
The game looks gorgeous.
So much so, in fact, that you wonder how it ever ran on a PlayStation 2 in the first place.
These games really pushed Sony’s hardware last generation, and the fruits of that labor
are more evident than ever in this upscaled form.
I’ve never been much for its character design, but the environments are more stunning than
ever on the PS3.
If you were a fan of the Jak games last generation, you’ll be pleased to know they’re a lot
of fun to revisit in HD.
And in fact, I think The Precursor Legacy is especially good, but stay tuned for our
take on the other two games in the remastered Jak and Daxter Collection.