PixlBit

Not Nintendo Related

Hey Pixlbit, how's it been? Today I'm going to step away from Nintendo and talk about a heavily requested blog I've been asked to do for more than a year (2 years on June/July): A blog on the Jak and Daxter Trilogy. I know someone will be happy. I initially didn't know how to write this one because I'll be honest, I'm not an expert when it comes to Playstation or it's games. The only one I'm fairly familiar with is Uncharted, but I'll try my best to give you a post about these games.

                     

Anyway, I got the Jak and Daxter Trilogy almost 2 years ago on PS3 via a birthday coupon I got from Best Buy. It was worth 20 bucks and was looking at their site to see what they had for that price. They had alot of games I still haven't tried at that point, I think they had El Shaddai, Crysis 2, The Saboteur, Mafia ll and some bad licensed games. I was close on choosing The Saboteur but I saw that they had the Jak and Daxter Trilogy, I said why not? Plus I know it'll be a better value since I was getting 3 games and they were platformers so I knew I had made a good choice. I really didn't play the games once they arrived since I had some other games I was focusing on.

I was quite impressed with the games when I got to the games. I wanted to try them in order so naturally I went for Jak and Daxter first and it's the the one I'll be focusing for this blog. The game looks really good for a PS2 era game. One of the things that actually impressed me was the lack of a loading screen during gameplay. That's quite a feat in an era where everything had to load. Even more impressive that the whole world is interconnected, as in you have the main hub world and from there you could go to any level, but the game doesn't load at all when you go from the hub to a level. That's quite impressive. I think the game even moves at 60 frames per second, I think it does, all I know is when a games movement speed looks faster than normal, the frames are faster than normal. Again, impressive for a game released in 2001, not sure if this was in the original but I guess it was since it's an HD port of the original game.

That's enough of the technicalities of it, now for the game itself. It's great. The game heavily reminded me of Rare's platformers, namely Banjo-Kazooie. In fact there's alot of similarities to Banjo-Kazooie, you have the main hub world which connects to the levels of the game, like in BK, the collectibles like in BK, and more. Heck, the collectibles themselves are like the ones in Banjo-Kazooie. Take for instance, Power Cells are Jak and Daxter's form of a main collectible, like Jiggies and they are used to progress through the whole game. The game even has it's own  equivalent of Music Notes in form of Precursor Orbs which is sort of like a currency in the game. Then there's Scout Flies, they are like these mechanical flies of some sort that you collect in levels as something optional.

One of the things I liked the most about it were the levels. They are really great. I was surprised at how big they were for this kind of game, I mean the game already doesn't need to load and yet they are pretty big. They aren't really big but they are a good enough size to explore. And that's what I like about the levels, the exploration. Each level has the collectibles you need to get like the Power Cells, Precursor Orbs, and Scout Flies. The Precursor Stones are all around the levels to collect like Music Notes and the Power Cells all have a specific requirement to meet to get them, like helping out an npc, doing a task, defeating enemies, or they are simply out in the open but you have to find a way to reach them. The scout flies aren't really required but they earn you an extra Power Cell if you collect them all from a level. Also another thing I like to point out about the levels is that sometimes you might see a Power Cell and you're wondering how in the world am I going to get that? I love that feeling because it makes it all worthwhile seeing how or what you did to get it. One thing I found funny is that in order to get some Precursor Orbs, you have to sort of teabag a defeated boss. It's a nice touch but those are highly missable if you don't look around well.

The game also offer Jak power-ups to enhance his abilities called Eco and it comes in different colors and each one has a different effect. Green Eco heals any damage you've taken, Blue Eco makes you faster, Red Eco makes you stronger, Yellow Eco makes you shoot projectiles, Dark Eco is something you should avoid, and Light Eco, well I'd spoil the game in case some of you haven't played it. They offer alot of variety to the levels themselves and you have to get used to them because some of the requirements for Power Cells is to use a specific Eco power to either defeat enemies or reach a Power Cell.

The story, I can't say for the reason that I may spoil the game if I do. All I'd say on it that it's great, it definitely feels like something Rare might craft during their N64 days. 

And that's it for now. I think this game is great, I'm surprised that they put out a game like this in 2001. It's a great game with a great story, it's really colorful, with great level design, in an interesting world. I wish I could of played it when it came out then, I couldn't since I was only allowed to own one console then and naturally I went for a Gamecube. If I had the chance to own a second console, I would consider a PS2. This is definitely one if not, the best what the PS2 had to offer. I was originally going to talk about the whole Trilogy here but just the part on the first game became too long,so I'll have to split it in 3 parts. Next time I'll talk about Jak 2,  so hopefully you'll look forward to that, so thanks for reading and later.