The Doomed Dog Jak and Daxter The Precursor's Legacy review

The Doomed Dog
The Doomed Dog
  • 2 months ago
Hey everyone. I said this in the video, but I really feel like I do owe you all an apology for just how long it took me to make this video. I recorded the playthrough more than 3 months ago, and it is just now done. Between depression, anxiety and a bunch of crap IRL dragging me down, my will and my drive to make videos like this or do much of anything at all besides stream just has not been there. I am sorry about that. Here is my video on Jak and Daxter: The Presursor's Legacy for the Playstation 2. This game was fun to revisit, and I hope this video was worth the wait./ I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy.

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Transcript
00:00Hey everyone, it's the Doomdog. I suppose I should start off by apologizing for how long this video
00:06took to piece together. A lot of real life things kept getting in the way of me working on it.
00:11Between depression and anxiety and whatnot, my will and my drive to do this just disappeared.
00:18It resulted in me taking forever to do this video, and I'm sorry about that. Having said that,
00:25let's take a look at Jak and Daxter The Precursor's Legacy for the PlayStation 2.
00:30After seeing massive success on the PlayStation 1 with the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy and helping
00:35shape 3D platformers as we know it, Naughty Dog was looking to expand
00:40on what they built and create a new experience. They wanted to take what they learned about smooth
00:46and fun movement creating the Crash games and combine it with a more open nature of the
00:52collectathon games that the Nintendo 64 wasn't so known for. They sought to create a giant
00:58seamless world that never paused to take you out of the experience. The team's biggest goal
01:02when creating this game was to make a big world with zero loading screens. They achieved this,
01:09and it remains an impressive achievement to this day. There are areas of the game where it does
01:15load, but it is hidden in clever ways when they do appear. When you are traveling to Misty Island,
01:22there is a little cutscene of Jak and Daxter taking a boat out to it to disguise the game
01:30loading in the level. Even things like this never last too long. It feels cohesive, like you could
01:38run from one end of the world to another practically without a single loading screen.
01:44When Crash Bandicoot launched in the east, he was given a little bit of a redesign
01:49to appeal to the eastern audience, and Naughty Dog wanted to change that with Jak. They wanted
01:57to create a character that appealed to both western audiences and Japanese audiences,
02:02so they worked with Japanese and American teams at Sony to accomplish this.
02:07They did exactly what they set out to accomplish as Japanese players felt Jak had a western design,
02:13and western players saw anime influence with things like Jak's hair and ears.
02:19When creating Jak and Daxter, the precursor's legacy, Naughty Dog went above and beyond
02:24to play to the strengths of the PlayStation 2. They developed their own in-house programming language
02:30called G.O.A.L. that catered to the strengths of the PlayStation 2, and even drew extra power from
02:37the included PS1 hardware in every console. They were able to create something stunning and beautiful
02:44out of the gate that really showed off what the PS2 was capable of. But was it any good?
02:50Join me as we take a look at Jak and Daxter, the precursor's legacy for the PlayStation 2.
02:56The game opens with a monologue from Samos the Sage. The world was once inhabited by an ancient
03:01race of beings called the Precursors. They disappeared long ago and left behind nothing
03:06but artifacts, ruins, and mysteries. They were masters of an important resource called E.C.O.
03:13According to Samos, the answers to their mysteries rely on a young boy named Jak,
03:18who has the unique power to channel E.C.O. But Jak does seem uninterested in Samos and his studies
03:26of E.C.O. We find Jak and his friend Daxter on a boat headed for an island off in the distance
03:31called Misty Island. Samos has forbidden them to go there, but they are nothing if not defiant.
03:38On the island, they stumble upon the game's main antagonists,
03:43Gol and Maya, speaking to an army of enemies called Lurkers.
03:47They are discussing plans to seek out and find E.C.O. and artifacts,
03:52and they are planning on attacking the village. Obviously, these guys are up to no good.
03:58As they are sneaking away from this secret meeting, Daxter trips over a Precursor artifact.
04:04When Jak picks it up, it lights up and activates. The two get discovered by a Lurker, and Jak throws
04:10the artifact at him. Jak bumps Daxter and knocks him into a pool of dark ooze called Dark E.C.O.
04:17When Daxter emerges from it, he is changed into a small fuzzy creature that is a mix of an otter
04:25and a weasel called an Otsel. He handles this...well.
04:32The pair make their way back to the village and step into Samos' hut to find out if there's anything
04:59that he can do to help Daxter out. This is our narrator. He knows exactly where the two have
05:06been, and he is not happy with them at all. Samos cannot change him back. The only person that has
05:14studied Dark E.C.O. long enough to maybe do it is the Sage of Dark E.C.O. who lives far to the north.
05:22We need to pay him a visit. Getting there, however, is going to be something of a problem.
05:27The other E.C.O. Sages saw Fitz turn off their teleporters in their labs,
05:32and Samos has not heard from them in some time. Now I wonder why that might be. The end result
05:39is that you're gonna have to go there on foot. And there is a problem with this, too. In order
05:45to get to the next village, you must travel through a canyon between the two villages
05:49called Lava Canyon, and as the name implies, severe heat is a major hindrance.
05:55Samos's daughter Kira enters the room with a suggestion of her own. She has a vehicle called
06:00an Antigrav Zoomer that you can use to cross the canyon, but she will need to upgrade it before
06:06it will be able to do so. She says she will need 20 power cells to upgrade the heat shield on the
06:12Zoomer, which will allow you to safely cross the canyon. She says that the town folks should have
06:18some power cells that they will be willing to part with if you complete tasks for them, and
06:25they will probably trade them for this world's currency called Precursor Orbs. You should be able
06:32to find some out in the wild as well. Samos says that something is blocking his green E.C.O.
06:39collectors over on Sentinel Beach, and he wants you to head over there, figure out what is going
06:46on, and fix the problem. There are underground pipelines built by Precursors that carry E.C.O.
06:53from one location to another, and spouts for them have been capped off. Kira says you should
06:59investigate the temple in the jungle to see if you can get it flowing again. The mayor says power to
07:05the village has been cut off as the E.C.O. beam has been blocked. He also wants you to go to the
07:10jungle and investigate this. Jack has an uncle in the village that enjoys exploring. He is planning
07:15such a trip in the future, he says that if you help him find it, he will give you a power cell.
07:20There is an artist in the town who is missing his pet called Amuse, and he cannot sculpt without the
07:27creature. He tasks you with finding it and bringing it back to him. The local farmer wants you to
07:33round up his yak owls and bring him back to the pen, and the local bird watcher is worried about
07:39an egg for a bird called Flut Flut. The mother has not been back for some time,
07:45and she wants to retrieve the egg to ensure that it remains safe. When you reach the egg on the
07:52beach, Jack pushes it off the ledge down onto the bedding that the bird watcher set up below.
07:59The egg cracks anyway, but the bird hatches from it just fine. There is a fisherman in the jungle
08:05who wants you to catch fish for him. If you catch enough for him, he will allow you to use his
08:13motorboat to get back to Misty Island in the jungle. Jack finds a switch that turns back on
08:21the pump for the blue eco, causing it to flow again. Jack hops on the boat and takes it back
08:27to Misty Island. After you've gathered the required 20 power cells, meet Kira at the mountain pass
08:34where she is prepping the zoomer. She says she has it up and ready to go, and she reminds you to
08:43turn on the portal in the Blue Sage's lab when you reach the other side. When you do this, Samos
08:48and Kira come through. The Blue Sage is missing, and the village is under attack. Someone is tossing
08:56giant flaming boulders down into it. The way up to whoever is doing that is blocked by one such
09:04boulder. The Blue Sage built a levitation device to lift the rock, but you need more power cells
09:13in order to lift it. A local scientist has been studying wildlife called lightning moles. The
09:19lurkers have scared them to the surface, and they are hard of seeing. They are having difficulty
09:23getting back to their hole underground, and she will trade you a power cell if you guide them back
09:28to their hole. Samos mentions that there is a lot of lurker activity over on Misty Island.
09:36They are trying to open the precursor silos full of dark eco, and Samos asks you to head back over
09:44there and put a stop to it. There is a gambler who lost a big bet and wants you to help him get back
09:50on his feet. He wants to bet on you beating a time trial on a nearby racetrack. A local knight
09:58has been defending the village from the lurkers until he got his ass kicked by the giant one that
10:04is throwing rocks down into the village. He is distraught and asks you to defeat the monster
10:10for him. He will give you a power cell if you do. When you gather enough power cells to power the
10:17levitation rig, meet Kira at the thing, and she powers the machine and lifts the boulder up, which
10:23clears the path for you to get up there and take down the lurker that is attacking the village in
10:29a nearby boggy swamp. The lurkers are using a blimp to attempt to lift a precursor robot out of it,
10:37and Kira has fitted the Flut Flut with a saddle so that you can ride it around in the swamp.
10:43After you have beaten the lurker, you are free to cross the mountain pass to the next village.
10:49When you arrive at the mountain pass, however, you find out that the lurkers have rigged
10:53explosives at the other end to seal off the tunnel and prevent you from advancing.
10:59You need to race them to the explosives and take them out to put a stop to this before they get the
11:06chance to seal off the mountain pass. When you reach the other side, be sure to turn on the
11:13teleporter pad in the sage's hut, and Kira and Samos will join you. When you have reached the
11:21last of the four tethers attached to the blimp, cut it loose, and the blimp will go floating away.
11:28The precursor robot will sink back down into the swamp. When you reach the next village,
11:33you find it abandoned. Turn on the teleporter, and you find that the red sage is missing as well.
11:39Maya finally reappears here. Gull believes Dark Ego can be controlled,
11:46something even the precursors could not do. He wants to open the Dark Ego silos and use their
11:51power to reshape the world. It dawns on Daxter that the guy that can change him back to normal
11:58is also the guy they need to stop. In order to get through Gull and Maya's citadel,
12:04you will need to go through another long heated stretch called the lava tube,
12:09and you will need to upgrade the heat shield of the zoomer once more in order to cross that.
12:15You guessed it, this means that you need more power cells. You can find some in a nearby spider
12:23cave where the lurkers are trying to mine Dark Ego crystals. In the spider cave, you will find
12:29that the lurkers are trying to dig up another precursor robot. But to stop that, the only people
12:35left in this mining town are a couple of miners who have 4 power cells that they are willing to
12:39trade you for precursor orbs. Meet Kira at the entrance to the lava tube, and she is working
12:45on the zoomer again. She has upgraded the shield which will allow you to cross the lava tube to
12:52Gull and Maya's citadel. When you reach the other side, turn on the yellow sage's teleporter to
12:57allow Samos and Kira through. When you do reach the other side, only Kira comes through the
13:02teleporter. She says that her father has been kidnapped just like the rest of the sages.
13:08Gull works quick I guess. They have enough Dark Ego to accomplish their plans,
13:14and an army of lurkers to help them do it. When you get to the citadel, you find a giant
13:19precursor robot stands before you. They have been using precursor artifacts to build one in order to
13:26use it to open up the Dark Ego silos. Samos is here, and Gull and Maya are using the power of
13:33the sages to power their machinery. Rescue the sages, and they will use their combined power
13:41to bring down the shield, protecting the precursor robot, allowing you to get in there and stop it
13:48once and for all. As you travel through the citadel, you will come across and rescue the 4
13:53sages. The yellow sage, the blue sage, the red sage, and finally Samos, the green sage. They all
14:02combine their powers together to lower the shield surrounding the robot. They will keep the shield
14:08down while Jack and Daxter figure out how to stop the robot for good. Gull says that you are too late.
14:17He will use Dark Ego to reshape the world. Samos warns them once again that this will only doom
14:24the world, but Gull and Maya do not listen. They get in their giant robot, and the final battle
14:30begins. The sages combine their Ego beams to create Light Ego, which was only previously rumored to
14:37exist. Daxter says this could change him back to normal. How does he know this? He debates whether
14:48he should stay in Otzal and save the world or change back, but I have to question this. While
14:54I get that this is supposed to be a sacrifice, what is stopping the sages from creating more
14:58Light Ego after you finish off the robot? If you want him to stay in Otzal for the sequel,
15:05why couldn't you just have them try making more Light Ego, and Light Ego just doesn't work?
15:13I think that would have made more sense than what we are presented with here.
15:17Anyway, Jack picks up Light Ego, and he uses it to take out the robot. A part of it sinks down into
15:24the silo with Gull and Maya inside, and the silo is sealed, trapping them inside.
15:30There is a need for a new Dark Ego sage, and it's suggested that Kira become that sage.
15:37Samos wonders if Gull and Maya really are dead. If you got all the power cells, you get an extra scene
15:44where they use the power cells to open up a precursor door. Bright light shines through,
15:51and everyone looks at it in awe. What is through this door right? Well, that's what sequels are for.
15:58The story is not usually a focus of a 3D platformer, and that certainly is the case here.
16:02Jack and Daxter the Precursor's legacy is no different, but it does more to set up the story
16:08than many a 3D platformer that inspired it. The game does set up some memorable characters.
16:16Kira and Samos are likable and memorable enough, and Daxter is the real standout. He is easily the
16:22most entertaining character in the game. He is funny and memorable, and the way he is animated
16:28and acted goes a long way to selling his personality. Beyond that, this game does a good
16:34job with the world building that is here. It gives you just enough info about the world of the
16:40Precursors to make you want to know more. You will explore numerous wildly different locations over
16:46the course of the game, and you will find numerous Precursor ruins. What did the artifacts do? What
16:53were the temples used for? What were the Precursors like, and what happened to them?
17:00It does an excellent job of capturing your interest just by having you explore the open
17:05levels. Another thing I really like is the way the world is built to be cohesive and interconnected.
17:10The Flut Flut that you rescue from Sentinel Beach can be ridden in the Bonky Swamp and the Snowy
17:15Mountain. In order to get back to Misty Island, you need to catch fish for the fisherman, so he
17:22will let you use his speedboat. You need to speed across the water ahead of the lurker sharks,
17:29which Daxter even brings up when he mentions that a shark took a bite out of the fisherman's
17:33regular boat. You cannot finish Sentinel Beach and stop the lurkers from bombing it until you
17:41turn on the blue eco vent in the jungle. It all goes a long way to making the world feel
17:48more fleshed out and real. One thing that I really like about the storytelling is the way
17:54that the characters are designed and animated and acted. There is a lot of life to their brief
18:00scenes, and the game goes a long way to give them at least some personality. These are usually used
18:08for humor, such as the hillbilly in the swamp asking you what a bathtub is.
18:19But it does go a long way towards making the characters more memorable and the world feel
18:40more believable as a result. Having said that, it is not all perfect. Each individual character
18:46outside of Daxter, Samos, Kira, Gull, and Maya really only get brief scenes. None of them are
18:53fleshed out, and they are all shallow characters at best. You can only do so much to flesh out
18:59characters when they were only given brief scenes to flesh them out. The characters feel largely
19:04forgettable as an end result of this. Furthermore, Gull and Maya are largely absent
19:16from much of the story. After the intro cutscene where you first see them on Misty Island,
19:22you will not see them again for hours of the game until you are more than halfway done.
19:29Only when you reach the third and final village, the Mining Town, do they show up again. They are
19:35interesting villains for what little of them we actually do see, but I would have loved to have
19:42seen more of them over the course of the game. All in all, I do like this game's story overall.
19:48It is not perfect, but it sets up an interesting premise with a beautiful world. It leaves you
19:54wanting to explore it. It is not perfect, as most of the characters do leave something to be desired,
20:02but it does not have to be. It has to be a vehicle to drive the collectathon 3D platformer gameplay,
20:09and it does a more than admirable job doing that while leaving room for sequels in the future.
20:16It does everything required of it, and it goes the extra mile beyond that with
20:20its world building and creation of a cohesive world. It is a fun, charming story, and it is
20:26exactly what this game needs. The story is pretty entertaining for what it is, but how does it hold
20:34up visually? When this game was released, it was something of a technical marvel. On top of making
20:40a disc-based game with no loading screens, it created a big open world with an amazing draw
20:47distance. You can climb up to high points, and you can see parts of the world far off in the distance.
20:54It is impressive just how much Naughty Dog had mastered the PlayStation 2 hardware so early on.
21:01This game was gorgeous when it was new, and it is not hard to see why. It has been more than two
21:09decades since the game was released, but it still holds up remarkably well. The world is still full
21:14of detail, the draw distance is still impressive, the lack of load screens is still considered an
21:19impressive feature to this day when you can pull it off. The game still looks very good to this day,
21:26to the point where the remaster of it still looks very sharp, even the PlayStation 2 original
21:33looks pretty good for its age. Another thing I love about this game is the color palette.
21:38This game is bright, it is vibrant, and it is beautiful. Sentinel Beach is bathed in warm
21:45hues that give off a homely vacation spot feeling that you would want from a beach.
21:50Snowy Mountain is based in cool colors that sell as a very cold and frozen winterland.
22:00And places like the Spider Cave and the Boggy Swamp are much darker color palettes that give
22:06off a more murky vibe. The color schemes are excellent, as is the variety in the landscapes.
22:15What holds up this game's graphics more than anything else is the art design.
22:19As you would expect from Naughty Dog, the art design is inspired and gorgeous. Everything from
22:27the characters to the world has been exaggerated and designed in a way that really stands out,
22:34gives the game a good Saturday morning cartoon vibe. This fits in perfectly with the characters
22:40and story that is being told here. It goes a long way to making each individual level
22:46distinct and memorable. Arguably the most standout feature of this game's
22:50graphics and presentation is its animation. Look at how Daxter animates when he hangs
22:55onto Jack's shoulder for dear life. Notice how Jack's fist gets larger when he throws a punch
23:03to exaggerate the movement and bring more life to it in a cartoony way. Check out how well
23:10animated the dances are when you acquire a new power cell in the game. Naughty Dog put a big
23:16emphasis on making sure the animation was top tier and it shows it is excellent. I cannot say
23:23the game is without fault graphically, however. You can see where the game has aged. The jagged
23:29edges and uneven rounding off geometry does show through more now than it would have back when this
23:38game was new. That is not the game's fault, it is just much older and on a much lower resolution
23:44console. It is going to age and no amount of excellent art design is going to stop that. It's
23:51easy to forgive when the overall package still looks this good. There is one aspect of this
23:55game's graphics that is a little harder to forgive as there is one area where I do think Naughty Dog
24:01dropped the ball a bit. It is fairly commonplace to use higher polygon models for in-game cutscenes
24:10than you do during gameplay. This allows for things like better facial expressions that sell
24:17the cutscenes. Jak and Daxter does not do this. It uses gameplay models for the cutscenes and it
24:25shows. When you get close up of the characters faces, it does stand out like a sore thumb,
24:31and I wish they would have used higher polygon models like they did in the second and third game.
24:37Having said that though, that really is my only major gripe with this game's graphics. Overall,
24:40this game holds up very well graphically. The art design is inspired and gorgeous,
24:45it uses color to great effect, the draw distance is awesome, the lack of load screens is still
24:50impressive, and the world is well constructed in general. It is a gorgeous game regardless of its
24:56age. Whether you are playing the original, the remaster, or the port to the Playstation 4,
25:04you are in for a treat visually. This game is beautiful.
25:07What about the audio then? How does that hold up over time? In a word,
25:12well. Very well in fact. The audio in this game is excellent, as you would expect from a company
25:18that brought you Crash Bandicoot before this. While the sound design is not quite as pivotal
25:23to a game like this as it is to something like horror or first person shooter, Naughty Dog
25:29always goes above and beyond with audio and this game is no different. All of Jack's moves have
25:36satisfying noises associated with them. When he throws a punch or breaks a box, when he jumps and
25:41double jumps, when he smacks his head down hard into the ground, the audio is always satisfying.
25:48Breaking things leaves you with a desire to break more. This is important to nail for a platformer's
25:55audio. It helps that your moveset is fun to pull off. It's great work and I absolutely love it.
26:03Beyond that, the environmental sound effects are all quite good as well. The audio changes
26:08depending upon what kind of surface you are walking on. Dirt sounds different from grass
26:13and snow has an appropriate crunch to it. Rock sounds different from all three. The flow of
26:20water and streams or lapping up on the shoreline sounds good. Firing Yellow Eco has a satisfying
26:28puff sound effect associated with it. Different enemies have their own noises that they make.
26:34Armored enemies will clank as they walk for example. It's all great work. The music is not
26:41as memorable as it was in Crash Bandicoot, but it is not designed to be. This is much more subtle
26:49than it was in that game and it is primarily used to set mood and tone for the different levels. In
26:56this sense, it does its job well. Sentinel Beach has warmer vibes giving a relaxing summertime feel
27:04while the music in the Snowy Mountain is appropriately colder with its atmosphere.
27:08While I cannot call it memorable, I cannot say it fails when what it set out to do either.
27:14It works well for this game. What more could you ask for? The voice acting might be the single
27:19biggest highlight. Max Casella is the standout voice in this. He voices Daxter and he brings
27:26tons of personality and humor to the role. Daxter is my favorite character in this game
27:31and this performance has a lot to do with that. Beyond that, Dee Snider, yes that Dee Snider,
27:38turns in a good performance as the over-the-top villain Gull. The Fisherman is played by Kevin
27:46Conroy as well. He plays a small role in this game, but he knocks it out of the park as he
27:59always does. Another standout performance is Warren Burton as Samos the Sage. May he rest
28:04in peace. He brings so much energy and passion to this role and his interactions with Daxter
28:11are the most entertaining part of this game. He is the only character in the game that has
28:16exactly zero time for Daxter's shit. Anna Garduno is also excellent as Kira. All in all, this is a
28:25good voice cast. Even the minor characters that you do quests for for Power Cells are well played
28:30in this game. The voice acting is quality across the board and you would expect nothing less from
28:36Naughty Dog after how good it was in the Crash games. This game is the complete package from an
28:42audio perspective. The audio design is excellent with satisfying notices for all of Jack's moves
28:47as well as breaking boxes and attacking enemies. The voice acting ranges from good to great without
28:54a single bad performance to be found in this game. The only weak spot, if you can call it that,
29:00is the music is not all that memorable. Even then, it is more background and mood setting music
29:05than anything else and it works fine for what it is. Overall, the audio of this game is top tier,
29:11especially for the era. The most important thing of any game is, of course, how it plays.
29:17This is especially true of a good 3D platformer. This begs the question, how does Jack and Daxter
29:23play? Well, this game is collect-a-thon. You will spend your time completing various
29:30platforming challenges in order to acquire Precursor Orbs and Power Cells. On top of
29:37these in each area, there are seven Scout Flies, which are little drones that Kira sent out to each
29:42area of the game in search of Power Cells. They were captured by Lurkers and imprisoned in boxes.
29:48The game offers plenty of variety throughout its runtime as well. On top of your typical
29:55run and platform challenges, you get two types of vehicle sections. The first of these two is
30:01the Anti-Grab Zoomer. The Zoomer sacrifices absolute precision for speed and you will need
30:08that speed when you are doing things like a race time trial or trying to get through a superheated
30:14area before the Zoomer overheats and explodes. The other vehicle type is not so much of a
30:20vehicle as it is Jack riding on the back of a large bird called a Flut Flut. The Flut Flut
30:26allows you to leap greater distances and flutter back down to the ground slowly.
30:32You can also walk across surfaces that Jack would usually sink into, such as the swamp. The Flut
30:39Flut offers a lot more precision than the Zoomer and much larger leaps. It is slower however.
30:47The end result is that each one of these offers unique challenges that you do not get on foot.
30:52You will however spend most of your time on foot, jumping and exploring across various levels in
30:58this game. Jack's moveset includes a jump and a double jump. He can spin kick as well as he can
31:06throw punches and he can duck. If he is running when he ducks he will execute a roll. If he is
31:14crouching when he throws a punch he will perform an uppercut. This is the move that I use the
31:19absolute least while playing this game. His moveset is not incredibly expansive but there's more than
31:26enough to get you through anything the game will throw at you. You can of course combine your moves.
31:32If you jump while rolling you will do a long jump. If you spin kick while jumping or double jumping
31:39you will be able to stay in the air for just a bit longer giving you a little more control and time
31:45to land your jump. As you play it you will learn to combine and master the different moves to find
31:52ways of solving the problems that the game throws at you. The moveset is plenty versatile and it is
31:59easy to get the hang of but can be difficult to master. The game also has a few different
32:04minigames spread throughout its runtime that add to the game's variety as well. The most infamous of
32:11these is the fishing minigame. I have seen so many people say that this minigame is hard and unfair
32:18and I'm not going to say that you're wrong but I did not struggle with this minigame for too long
32:25to be honest. I was not stuck on it for hours or anything like that. As previously mentioned Jack
32:32can channel Eco. Yellow Eco allows him to fire a projectile at enemies. Blue Eco allows him to move
32:42faster and Red Eco increases his attack power when he's throwing punches and kicks. Green Eco is your
32:51health. You collect 50 small ones or one large one to refill one single section of Jack's heart.
32:59Having said that the boss fight against the big lurker throwing boulders did kick my ass for an
33:06extended period of time. It's not the boss itself. His attacks are not that hard to dodge. He is not
33:13that hard to defeat at least in theory but I kept missing my jumps when leaping from platform to
33:18platform. I kept falling into the lava over and over and over again while attempting to fight
33:24this guy. Maybe that is just me. I don't know. Maybe I just sucked but I struggled with this
33:30boss fight. Having a good moveset that can transition from one move to another is all fine
33:36and dandy but it will do you no good if your controls are not precise. While you might be able
33:43to deal with slippery controls that are not always responsive in other genres of game it is an
33:51absolute death blow to a platformer. Luckily enough Jack controls like butter. It is smooth as silk
33:58and very precise. For the most part your death will be on you and no one else.
34:07This game gives you the tools to overcome any challenge it throws at you and instances of it
34:14feeling like bullshit or like it's not your fault for a death are rare. They are few and far between
34:23as they should be for a good platformer. It is worth noting that you do not need to get every
34:29single power cell or precursor orb to beat the game. You only need to collect 72 power cells of
34:35the 101 in order to beat. If one is giving you particular trouble you can head somewhere else
34:43to try out another challenge somewhere else to pick up some other power cell. In this regard it
34:50does give the player a fair amount of choice in what power cells they do and do not want to chase
34:57if they just want to beat the game. The game also has 2000 precursor orbs in it
35:03just like with the power cells you do not need to collect all of them in order to beat the game.
35:10If you miss a few or do not know how to reach a few do not worry too much about it. As long as
35:19you collect enough to reach the 72 power cells to get you through the lava tube you will be golden.
35:28If you do not want to worry about getting everything in the game you absolutely do
35:32not have to. Trying to collect everything is a lot of fun though. This game does have a lot of
35:37standard fare for levels in this genre. There is plenty of variety within the game and its areas
35:45but you will fight on a beach area, you will platform through a jungle area,
35:49there is a swamp area and there is a snowy icy area. All of these are pretty standard for this
35:56genre. In this way the game can be called a little derivative for a genre but none of this
36:02should matter if the level design is good and this is Naughty Dog in top form. The level design is
36:08excellent. All in all this is an extremely well constructed platformer of the caliber that can
36:14only be crafted by a company at the top of their game. Jak and Daxter does pretty much everything
36:20right in terms of gameplay and the end result is a tightly crafted, expertly constructed game that
36:25rises above the sum of its parts to be an absolute classic of the genre. If you love games like Super
36:32Mario 64, Ratchet and Clank or Banjo Kazooie you owe it to yourself to play Jak and Daxter. It is
36:39an excellent platformer. What about the replay value then? Well like I said Jak and Daxter has
36:44quite a few purely optional power cells and you get to pick and choose what of the 72 power cells
36:52you do and do not pick up. That alone gives it some replay value. If you manage to get all 101
36:59power cells you do unlock a secret ending that will set up for a sequel that would come years
37:06later. On top of that the game is just an absolute blast to play through. What I'm saying is yes Jak
37:13and Daxter does have plenty of replay value even if you have already 100% in it. Jak and Daxter
37:19The Precursor's Legacy is the complete package. It has everything you'd ask for from a collect-a-thon
37:24platformer. It has some interesting and likable characters with a Saturday morning cartoon
37:29charm to them. It has wonderful animations, great sound design, the music sets the move perfectly
37:37for the game and the game is gorgeous. The levels are clever and well designed and the control is
37:43precise and smooth. The act of controlling Jak is so much fun. I cannot recommend this game
37:49highly enough for anyone that loves a good 3D platformer. It holds up extremely well all these
37:55years later as one of the pillars of its genre. This is where I would usually talk about the
38:01different ports of the game and I'm going to talk about some of them but I do not have the
38:06PlayStation 4 emulated version of this game and I do not have the cash to get it either. It will
38:12be left out of this section and I am sorry about that. I do not know how good or bad that version
38:18is but it does exist. You can get it on the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5. It is the easiest
38:25and most readily available way to access the game today. Having said that, it did receive a remaster
38:30on the PlayStation 3 along with Jak 2 and 3 as a collection. This version of the game plays at
38:36higher resolution than the original game did, of course, and it plays in the widescreen mode.
38:44This might be a deal breaker for some as it is the kind of widescreen that crops off the top
38:50and bottom of the image as opposed to proper widescreen format. You get less of the picture
38:56than you do with the full screen version of the game. Still, it is a great collection and an
39:03excellent way to revisit the game if you can. Having said that, there is one specific project
39:10that I want to highlight called Open Goal. This is a fan project that has reverse engineered
39:16Jak and Daxter to make a native PC port. This version of the game supports much higher resolution
39:23all the way up to 4k and it is edited to run in proper widescreen instead of the cropped version
39:30of the original game. This game has never looked better than it does. Even the remaster doesn't
39:35look as good as this, so thank you to the geniuses that made the native PC port of this game.
39:41The game has never looked so gorgeous before. It is unofficial though, so keep that in mind.
39:47But I want you to stop and think about just how impressive this is. Naughty Dog developed their
39:55own unique programming language for Jak and Daxter that catered to the strengths of the
39:59PlayStation 2 hardware. No one outside of Naughty Dog at the time has any experience with the
40:06programming language, so no one knows how it works. They had to dig into the code and figure out how
40:12everything works in order to get this game to run natively on PC. That is amazing. Thank you
40:20to the team at Open Goal for your hard work. If you have a copy of the game, I cannot recommend
40:26the PC port enough. It is top tier. Thank you everyone for watching and thanks once again
40:33for your patience in waiting for this. I spent entirely too much time putting this video off
40:40and not getting any work done on it. It took far too long to come out. I am not happy about that.
40:48I hope to not repeat this in the future. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed. This was
40:53a blast to revisit. Please like, comment, and subscribe. Ring the bell to make sure you get
40:58notifications and if you could share this video, that would help out a lot. Talk to you later
41:02everyone. DoomDog out.
41:17you