A great prequel to a great series, and a beautiful game to play, though the length is quite lacking.
Back in 2006, ReadyAtDawn studios released Daxter for the PSP, Daxter's first solo game. No Jak for you! Anyhow, to sum it up...
Graphics: Graphics were outstandingly, stupendously beautiful for a PSP game. The game could definitely be compared with all the Jak games, and come near the top. It's got vibrant colors, lots of polygons so things that are supposed to be circles actually DO come out in circles. In cutscenes, Daxter does look really fuzzy, especially in close-ups of Daxter like in the final cutscene, and the characters do look like typical Jak and Daxter characters on the PS2.
Story: The story I just have a few problems with. The story is really quite, well, generic. Help What's-His-Name rescue This-One-Guy. But the game really does incorporate this generic storyline with outstanding gameplay, though we'll get to that later. Also, the story gets to an AWFUL long start. It takes at least 4 or 5 decent missions to finally get Daxter the idea to go rescue Jak, and then another 4-6 missions and cutscenes to actually getting to the first few steps of trying to rescue Jak. Though it does accomplish on the objective of killing bugs. Lots of bugs die.
Gameplay: As I said above, the gameplay is nicely incorporated into the story, and it's also pretty unique. When I first read news on Daxter in development, I kinda pictured gameplay Daxter had by himself in Jak 2 and Jak 3, though this is not the case. Daxter is given an electric fly-swatter which serves as his primary melee weapon, and later, he is given a bug sprayer, which has four modules to it, like in Jak 2. The spray itself does not harm, but stuns, but you later upgrade to let you hover on it for a few seconds, then you get a flamethrower attachment, and then a plasma bomb
attachment. It's pretty cool, and timing is essential with the hovering mechanics in the game. Gameplay is good.
Bosses: Now, for bosses. There's not much to say about the bosses, seeing as how there's only 4, count 'em, 4 bosses in the entire game. The first boss is a giant bug (of course), and is, of course, insanely easy to defeat. The second boss is decent, the third boss is straight up annoying, and the final boss is pretty easy, as long as you know what exactly to do. Actually, all the bosses are easy if you know what to do and when to do it. They're all annoying because the game rarely tells you what you're supposed to do in order to blow the bug up (it tells you once at the first boss, and that's only if you die a lot). So, bosses are fun and enjoyable, but there are only 4 of them.
Length: Length is downright horrendous. At least a 6 hour game. If you bought the game at $30 when it came out, you might think that you were expecting more. 6 hours it took me to beat it on my first try. Also, there is little to none replayability value, because it lacks the fun and games that Jak 2 and Jak 3 provided, and it doesn't have a Hero Mode (to my knowledge, of course) to start over the game again with all your stuff.
Here's the basic things, broken down:
Pros:
Enjoyable gameplay
Very fun bosses
Can be challenging at parts
Story is decent
Graphics are beautiful
Cons:
Short
Story is a little generic
Only 4 bosses
Little to no replay value.
So, for my vote, I would give Daxter an 8.5 for the reasons above. Maybe my review will help you change your mind about something, or make you go get this game (if you don't have it already). It's worth it, as long as you're not worried about length like me. I'm just weird.