The Precursor Legacy

''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' is a 2001 platform video game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It is the first game of the ''Jak and Daxter'' series. The game follows Jak, a young teenager, on his quest to help his friend Daxter after he is transformed into an "ottsel", a fictional hybrid of an otter and a weasel. With the help of Samos the Sage, a master of the mysterious energy known as ''eco'' (created by an ancient race known as the Precursors), the pair endeavors to save their world from the rogue sages Gol and Maia Acheron, who plan to flood the world with ''dark eco'', which corrupts all it touches.

Development began in January 1999 during the production of ''Crash Team Racing''. Naughty Dog sought to use the improved power of the PlayStation 2 to make an immersive, free-roaming 3D platformer inspired by ''Super Mario 64'' and ''Banjo-Kazooie'', with a seamless game world and increased emphasis on story. Sony bought Naughty Dog after being impressed by a demo, and thus it was Naughty Dog's first game to not be produced by Universal Interactive in 3 years.

''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' was critically acclaimed upon release. Reviewers lauded the game's visuals and technical achievements, particularly its open seamless world devoid of load times, which were said to set a new standard for platformers. Praise also went to its gameplay polish, controls, sound effects, and voice acting. Reactions to the music and difficulty were mixed, and criticisms were directed toward the gameplay's lack of innovation, lack of bosses, simplistic story, and short length. By 2002, the game had sold over one million copies worldwide, and by 2007, it had sold two million copies in the United States alone. A sequel, ''Jak II'', was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2003.

In 2012, a remastered port of the game was included in the ''Jak and Daxter Collection'' for the PlayStation 3, and for the PlayStation Vita in 2013. It was also released as a " PS2 Classic" port for the PlayStation 4 on 22 August 2017.

Gameplay

''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' is a free-roaming 3D platformer with elements of action-adventure. The player controls Jak, who must collect Power Cells to progress through the game's world and ultimately reach the sage Gol in the hope of reversing his friend Daxter's transformation into an ottsel (a fictitious crossbreed between an otter and a weasel). The game's world is cohesive and non-linear, allowing free exploration across interconnected areas.

Jak's basic actions include running, jumping double-jumping, crouching, and ledge-grabbing. Jak can also perform a rolling jump to reach distant platforms. Jak's combat moves include a spin attack, a dash-punch, a dive attack, and an uppercut. Jak has unlimited lives and three hit points, which are depleted by enemy attacks or contact with environmental hazards. Losing all three hit points triggers a death animation and a comment from Daxter before the player respawns in the beginning of the last section of the area they were located in. Scattered throughout each area is a magical and powerful substance known as "Eco", which comes in a variety of colors and affects Jak or the environment in special ways. Green Eco restores health; Blue Eco boosts speed, activates platforms, and attracts items; Red Eco increases attack power and range; and Yellow Eco enables fireball attacks to defeat enemies or break obstacles. In some sections, Jak pilots an A-GraV Zoomer (a hovercraft for races and traversal) and rides a Flut Flut bird to reach high or distant areas.

Power Cells, the game's primary collectible, are earned by completing tasks, defeating bosses, or finding them in the environment. Power Cells power the A-GraV Zoomer, which is used to traverse long passes that link certain areas together. Precursor Orbs are the setting's currency and can be traded for Power Cells with villagers or ancient statues. Each area includes seven Scout Flies, and a Power Cell is rewarded when all Scout Flies in an area are collected. Some of the various missions that reward Power Cells include platforming challenges (such as reaching a high structure), mini-games (such as fishing), races, and fetch quests. The player's actions in completing tasks have persistent effects, and do not reset upon departing mid-task.

Plot

Against the warnings of Samos the Green Sage, Jak and Daxter adventure to the forbidden Misty Island. There, they see two unknown figures ordering a cohort of creatures to gather Eco and Precursor artifacts. When Jak and Daxter are attacked by one of the creatures, Daxter is knocked into a pool of Dark Eco, and he emerges transformed into an ottsel. Returning to their home of Sandover Village, they seek help from Samos; he explains that only Gol Acheron, the Dark Sage, can reverse the transformation. Gol lives far to the north, and the teleportation gates to the other Sages' huts are not operational, leaving a trek through the deadly Fire Canyon as the remaining option. Samos's daughter Keira, a skilled engineer, offers to let them use her Zoomer in exchange for enough Power Cells to operate it.

Collecting Power Cells allows Jak and Daxter to travel to the Blue and Red Sages' huts, but they find both of them deserted. In the Red Sage's hut, the two figures - Gol and his sister Maia - reveal themselves, having been corrupted by Dark Eco. Having abducted the other Sages, Gol and Maia plot to open silos containing the vast stores of Dark Eco deep underground, twisting and corrupting the world to their will. As Jak and Daxter take the Zoomer to Gol and Maia's citadel, Samos is also captured. With the four Sages now under their control, Gol and Maia begin restoring their excavated automaton so that they can release the Dark Eco from its silo.

After rescuing the Sages from captivity, Jak and Daxter intercept the machine and engage it in battle. However, they only manage to destroy its weapons. Realizing that a greater power is needed to defeat Gol and Maia, the Sages combine the four different types of Eco into one, creating Light Eco. The power granted by Light Eco allows Jak to destroy the machine and send its cockpit plunging into the Dark Eco. With the world saved, the group focuses its attention on unlocking the fabled Precursor Door, which can only open with the energy of 100 power cells. Once the door is opened, it reveals a large, mysterious object enveloped in a blinding light.

Development and release

Development on ''Jak and Daxter'' began in January 1999 as "Project Y"; the title was a progression from ''Crash Team Racing''s early working title "Project X". As the rest of the Naughty Dog team were working on ''Crash Team Racing'', only three programmers--Andy Gavin, Stephen White, and Mark Cerny--were allocated to the project. The rest of the team began work on ''Jak'' as well in January 2000; eventually 35 developers worked on the game, with a budget of $14-15 million. Their goal was to use the improved power of the PlayStation 2 to make a free-roaming 3D platformer inspired by ''Super Mario 64'' and ''Banjo-Kazooie'', with an immersive, seamless world free of loading screens, along with a deeper story. Naughty Dog presented their demo to Shuhei Yoshida, who approved the project. With this and Naughty Dog's reputation for shipping successful products on time, Sony purchased the company in 2001 to ensure the intellectual property would stay PlayStation-exclusive unlike ''Crash Bandicoot'', which was owned by Universal Interactive.

Due to the worldwide success of ''Crash Bandicoot'', Naughty Dog set out to make the characters and environments of ''Jak and Daxter'' merge elements from worldwide cultures. Art director Bob Rafei pointed to ''Star Wars'', Disney, and Studio Ghibli as key touchstones during the game's concepting phase. As director Jason Rubin worried that having Jak talk would distance the player from him, Jak was made mute and Daxter was added as an "annoying" sidekick, inspired by Mushu from Disney's ''Mulan''. The main characters also went through changes. Originally, there was going to be a third main character that would develop as the game was played in a ''Tamagotchi style''. Instead, Naughty Dog concentrated their efforts on two main characters in order to create the exact characters they wanted. The characters were inspired by Joe Madureira's ''Battle Chasers'' and Hayao Miyazaki's ''Princess Mononoke'', while the village setting and character interactions were influenced by ''Asterix''. Rubin stated in an interview with US magazine ''Play'' that the 40 minutes of animation in the game required 6 full-time animators and 4 support animators. In some cases the animators came from outside of the video game industry from companies such as Disney and Nickelodeon. Animator John Kim based Jak and Daxter's movements on Aladdin and Abu from Disney's ''Aladdin''.

The game was in development for almost three years, and throughout this time, numerous changes were made to almost every aspect of the game, while the various engines used in the game were all tweaked to optimize their performance. The engine tweaks allowed ''Jak and Daxter'' to have no loading times or fogging and be able to display high-quality textures in a seamless, multi-level world. Lead programmer Andy Gavin wrote the game in his own custom programming language, Game Oriented Assembly Lisp (GOAL).

Due to each area of the game being 3–6 million polygons, the 3D computer graphics application Maya would stop working even on cutting-edge PCs. To combat this issue, the team had to use references and proxies as Maya and other current tools available were not capable of handling the entire area all at once.

The voice-acting was recorded in the New York City-based Howard Schwartz Recording facility. The game's soundtrack was composed entirely by multi-instrumentalist Josh Mancell. The album was produced by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Even before the game's announcement at E3 2001, "Project Y" was highly anticipated. The game's title was revealed on May 14, and the game was revealed at E3 2001 two days later, with a scheduled winter 2001 release. In November, a game demo and coupon for the game's retail copy was distributed to Cingular Wireless customers who activated service with an Ericsson phone or purchased an Ericsson accessory. The game was originally slated for a North American ship date of December 11, but was moved up to December 4.

Reception

''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game met and exceeded the expectations of ''IGN''s David Dzyrko, which had been built by the media and audience's anticipation of the title. He proclaimed it to be one of the greatest platformers released, standing alongside the best titles by Nintendo and Rare. Brian Gee of ''GameRevolution'' deemed the game a benchmark for its genre, claiming that it "will change the way you look at platformers". Mugwum of ''Eurogamer'' declared the game to have surpassed ''Super Mario 64'' and ''Banjo-Kazooie'', citing its strong combination of elements despite having no great innovations.

Critics hailed the game as a visual and technical masterpiece for its vibrant, detailed environments, seamless rendering, and absence of load times, setting a benchmark for platformers on the PlayStation 2. Dzyrko described the worlds as "breathtaking", citing the environmental details and realistic day-night lighting shifts. Andrew Reiner of ''Game Informer'' praised the meticulous environmental details, saying that he often "found imelf staring in awe" at them. Shane Satterfield of ''GameSpot'' called it one of the PlayStation 2's most visually impressive titles, emphasizing its vast polygon counts, vivid high-resolution textures with no pixelation, and real-time lighting. Scott Alan Marriott of ''AllGame'' lauded the visuals as "near perfect", citing vibrant colors, fluid animation, dramatic lighting, and weather effects. Joe Rybicki of ''Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine'' compared the visual style to a "really high-quality hand-drawn cartoon" and admired the subtle environmental details such as the coppery, metallic sheen of the Precursor ruins and the slight heat haze in the volcanic area.

The massive draw distance was highlighted, with Rybicki marveling at seeing every area from a high place, and Louis Bedigian of ''GameZone'' hailing the game as "the first 3D platformer to fully render every background as far out as the eye can see". The special effects and character animation were also commended. Marriott detailed the lighting effects and comical animations for the enemies, who react upon spotting Jak or registering a hit against him. Mugwum noted the heat haze effects, real-time lighting and weather cycles. Barak Tutterrow of ''GameSpy'' singled out the volcanic area as a personal favorite for its amount of effects without slowdown. Dzyrko praised the character animation and body language as rivaling that of high-budget animated films. Satterfield compared the fluid animation to Disney productions and noted that the facial animations were perfectly synched with the dialogue.

The seamless, interconnected world was regarded as groundbreaking in its presentation as a living, immersive environment. Critics emphasized that the absence of load times contributed to the impression of a cohesive and fully realized world. Dzyrko, Mugwum and Tutterrow highlighted the persistent progression system in which completed tasks and actions remain in effect, contrasting the resetting levels of ''Super Mario 64''. Gee praised the freedom of exploring such a large environment as a platformer benchmark, estimating that it would take an hour to traverse one end of the game's world to the other. Bedigian described the world as bigger than any other platformer before it, claiming the game would not have been possible on any other console. Satterfield noted that the game's areas were massive, but lacked warp points within them, which sometimes made navigation tedious. He also faulted the use of invisible barriers, which limited exploration.

Although the gameplay was considered polished and enjoyable with tight and intuitive controls, critics deemed it lacking in innovation, relying on familiar platforming tropes like collecting items and performing fetch quests. Satterfield noted that the game's objectives "maintain the status quo" for platformers, but he appreciated the puzzles that exploited timed Eco effects, which brought excitement to those particular objectives. Chris Johnston of ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') said that the game's polish and craft made the genre's "old stand-bys" (such as riding vehicles or hitting timed switches) fun, though James "Milkman" Mielke of the same publication criticized the repetitive fetch quests, suggesting that the game's structure would appeal more to younger players. Marriott described the game as a straightforward platformer with familiar objectives (collecting Precursor Orbs and Power Cells), but said that the diversity of the tasks kept the game engaging despite the sense of déjà vu from ''Super Mario 64'', '' Gex'' or ''Spyro''. Mugwum praised the game's design of unlimited lives and persistent progress as "a reward structure that deserves mimicry", and Jason D'Aprile of ''Extended Play'' credited the frequent save spots for reducing frustration, though Satterfield warned that the three-hit health system may quickly wear patience thin. The lack of bosses, totaling three, was considered a drawback, with Shane Bettenhausen of ''EGM'' identifying the flaw as a holdover from ''Super Mario 64''.

The controls were regarded as tight and responsive; Dzyrko praised them as having the "Mario feel" of inherently fun movement, and Bedigian derived particular enjoyment from using Jak's rolling jump for navigation. Matt Keller of ''PALGN'' additionally called the camera "one of the best ever", highlighting its quick adjustment, though Rybicki and D'Aprile found it somewhat unwieldy. Satterfield criticized Jak's small moveset, which limited gameplay depth, suggesting that making Daxter playable at some point could have mitigated the issue. Rybicki noted that Jak's lunging punch attack was occasionally problematic to use near cliffs, and that double-jumping could be hit-or-miss with the analog buttons.

The story was deemed simple and unremarkable, serving as a basic framework for the gameplay. Satterfield called the story a shallow affair with few twists, as was the stereotype of platformers, and said that the dialogue was rarely interesting. Rybicki wished for a deeper story, given the potential of the Precursor mythology, but found the characters entertaining, and he and Dzyrko appreciated the story establishing reasons for collecting the game's items, lessening the usual arbitrariness. Reactions to Daxter's humor were unfavorable. Reiner found his quips somewhat annoying but occasionally funny. Satterfield noted that his jokes tended to fall flat, and Keller said that he had a habit of whining and causing trouble by saying too much. Mielke dismissed his " Jar Jar-esque zaniness" as juvenile.

Reactions to the audio were generally positive. Critics praised the voice-acting, with Gee pointing out Dee Snider and Max Casella's involvement and Tutterrow specifying Keira, the Geologist and Boggy Billy as stand-out voices. The sound effects were regarded as immersive; Dzyrko and Marriott emphasized the environmental ambience, and they and Tutterrow highlighted the various footstep sounds, with Tutterrow favoring the walks through metal buildings. The music had a more mixed reception. Some deemed the soundtrack sparse and unmemorable, though Dzyrko, D'Aprile and Reiner were more positive. Mugwum said that the soundtrack's modesty complemented the pleasureful experience, and Keller highlighted its dynamic changes.

The game's brevity was noted, with estimates generally falling between 10-15 hours. Tutterow attributed the game's length to a balanced difficulty, while Keller considered the difficulty too low. Rybicki acknowledged the game's short length, but said that the game never felt too easy despite the unlimited lives. D'Aprile regarded the game as a "long and challenging endeavor", assessing the difficulty as middling, and Bettenhausen described it as a "colossal adventure" that cannot be completed within a weekend.

Sales and awards

After its release in late 2001, the game went on to sell over 1 million copies, promoting it to "Greatest Hits" and reducing the price. By July 2006, it had sold 1.7 million copies and earned $49 million in the United States, and had become the best-selling ''Jak and Daxter'' game in that country. ''Next Generation'' ranked it as the 19th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in the United States. Combined sales of ''Jak and Daxter'' games reached 4 million units in the United States by July 2006. As of 2007, ''Jak and Daxter'' has sold almost 2 million copies (1.97 million) in the United States alone. ''Jak and Daxter'' received a "Gold Prize" at Sony's PlayStation Awards in Japan for sales of over 500,000 units.

At the 2002 Game Developers Choice Awards, Daxter from ''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' won the Original Game Character of the Year award. It was a runner-up for ''GameSpot'' annual "Best Platform Game" award among console games, which went to ''Conker's Bad Fur Day''. During the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated ''Jak and Daxter'' for the " Console Action/Adventure" and "Game Design" awards.

Legacy

In 2022, a group of fans reverse-engineered the game and unofficially ported it to modern PC platforms; titled OpenGOAL.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jak And Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
2001 video games
Jak and Daxter
Naughty Dog games
Open-world video games
Platformers
PlayStation 2 games
PlayStation 2-only games
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Video games developed in the United States
Video games scored by Josh Mancell
Video games set on fictional planets
3D platformers