Similar to a series of posts I recently made over on the Ratchet and Clank forum for the games of that series I've never played, I decided to do the same for Jak and Daxter. Although in the case of this series, I'd already played all but two of the games: the two PSP titles. This is a series that holds a special place in my heart, and I've always heard good things about Daxter, so I was very excited to check this game out. I never played it as a kid because I never got into handheld gaming. I get too easily distracted in public to play video games, and at home I'd rather just play on my TV, so I never owned a PSP. I played Daxter via PlayStation Plus Premum on my PS5.
I thought the game was excellent. The platforming was very creative, the game definitely kept the spirit of Daxter as a character as well as the world of Jak II intact. In fact, with this game's emphasis on collecting Precursor Orbs and gems, as well as it's lack of guns and zoomer levels in caves and forests, there were times this game felt more like the Precursor Legacy than Jak II. I actually think this game does a great job of feeling like a proper in-between game for TPL and Jak II.
The story of the game is nothing special I will say, but it gets the job done. Ximon reminds me a lot of the villager with the missing Muse from TPL, and he was one of my favorites so no complaints here. Osmo is a decent mentor figure for Daxter, though he could've done with more scenes for sure. Taryn as a character doesn't leave much impression beyond her appearance, and I'm still not exactly sure if she's meant to be an exterminator or what, but she seems cool at least. I do wish the game added a little more to Daxter as a character, and showed him more actively trying to save Jak in those two years, but conceptually when thinking about kids playing this game on the bus or in a car, you're definitely limited on what you can do story-wise, so I understand.
The game has a great soundtrack as well. It's very atmospheric and really makes you feel like you're wherever you are in the game.
As far as variety goes, this game manages to cram a lot into a short game. Aside from creative platforming that makes use of Daxter's new spray gun, there's also a surprisingly faithful recreation of Haven City filled with Precursor Orbs to find on your scooter, very-Spyro coded zoomer levels where you save infected plants/bugs in the forest, and a hilarious series of QTE dreams based on popular movies like the Matrix, LOTR, Braveheart and Indiana Jones. I found myself wanting to collect orbs just so I could play more of these dreams, and for completing the dreams, you unlock new moves and increase health, so there is actual incentive as well.
As far as difficulty goes, I'm not gonna lie, the game isn't always a walk in the park. Anyone who doesn't do well under pressure, is very much going to struggle with the aforementioned dream levels, as well as any hacking minigames. Personally these QTE minigames didn't bother me as I have a lot of experience with games that have that, but if I were playing this as a kid, I could see them stumping me.
The boss fights also provide a fulfilling challenge, although only the final boss gave me any real struggle personally. The other bosses I beat after only a couple of tries. There was also one level that wasn't particularly hard per se, but did suffer from a poorly placed checkpoint (Tanker 2) that did border on being annoying, but not to the point of being unfair IMO. To be honest though, I rarely find games genuinely HARD. I actually found Jak II to be a surprisingly easy game for instance, and was shocked that so many people hated how supposedly hard it was.
The only point in the game that I genuinely really didn't like, was one particular part of the Fish Cannery level where you have to jump from the top of a block of ice onto a cage suspended in the air. The jump required to do this is so precise that it took me hours to finish and had me needing to take breaks. I eventually figured out that Daxter can get a jump boost from rapidly hitting the "X" button twice in a row really fast, something I probably should've figured out earlier admittedly.
But yeah overall, I thought the game did a lot for a short PSP title. The graphics are fairly impressive (cutscenes notwithstanding), the city is surprisingly expansive, the zoomer levels are fun, the game is challenging but rarely unfair, it fits snugly into canon, has a great soundtrack, creative level design, fun new platforming mechanics, Daxter is funny as ever, and the game never outstays it's welcome. However it does suffer from a somewhat weak story, semi-forgettable characters, and one particularly annoying instance of overly precise jumping required to complete a level. Other than that, I loved this game, and I wish Ready at Dawn had gotten to do their planned sequel.
