Due to its nature as a sequel, spoilers for The Precursor Legacy are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
"Alright! Everything with more than two legs start trembling!"
Daxter
Daxter is an Interquel to both Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Jak II: Renegade. Released for the PlayStation Portable in 2006, this game puts players in the shoes of Jak's cowardly sidekick, Daxter. But who said Ottsels couldn't kick butt?
After traveling through an ancient Precursor doorway, Jak and his friends find themselves in a bleak, unfamiliar city. There, he is captured and held hostage by the Krimzon Guard, led by the atrocious Baron Praxis. It's too bad the dictator overlooked a small detail...
Two years after witnessing Jak's capture and narrowly escaping, the little orange ottsel takes a position at a local bug extermination firm in hopes of getting closer to reuniting with his pal. Of course, his fumigation tenure at Kridder Ridder comes with a few hurdles...
Tropes Used In Daxter:
- A Day in the Limelight: The game focuses on Daxter's attempts to rescue Jak in Haven City.
- Big Bad: Kaeden.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Toward the end of the game, Daxter and Tik run into an averted example involving Erol and Count Veger, who are in the middle of a discussion on why a team-up between them isn’t possible, citing Erol’s experiments with Dark Eco, something Veger cannot tolerate. Consequently, this leads to them working independently from each other during the events of Jak 3.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: While not all Metal Bugs are physically large, some (Particularly, the Altum sonatur and Stripe Mine hive queens, as well as Metal Kaeden) absolutely dwarf human beings, let alone Daxter.
- Big Red Button: Kaeden presses a switch with one of these to cause the Kridder Ridder building to explode after finding a bug in there (Daxter’s friend Tik, if you’re wondering) and killing him.
- Bugs Herald Evil: While the insect-like Metal Bugs do serve as a direct threat during the events of this game, their presence definitely serves as a harbinger to the other Metal Heads getting involved should Kaeden’s plan fail.
- Canis Latinicus: The first full-fledged boss, the Altum sonatur hive queen, derives her name from the phrase “Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur” (Basically meaning “Whatever anyone says in Latin sounds profound”).
- Dream Sequence: They are used as mini-games so Daxter can get upgrades.
- Family Business: Kridder Ridder, the last remaining bug-exterminating company in Haven City, is run by Osmo with help from his son Ximon, and founded by the former’s grandfather, the late Ozmar Itchy Drawers III.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Kor, who is Kaeden's leader.
- Interquel: The game takes place during the two year gap between The Precursor Legacy and Jak II.
- Pulls double duty by crossing with How We Got Here in the form of Daxter regaling his friends with the story of this game's events between Jak II and Jak 3.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The game already spoils the big reveal of Kor being a Metal Head from Jak II if you play this game after The Precursor Legacy but before Jak II.
- Lighter and Softer: Than Jak II and Jak 3. Haven City is brighter and a lot more colorful than in those games, the music is much more upbeat, the swearing is not-existent, there is more humor and quirky characters, and the game focuses more on platforming and melee combat than II and 3.
- Old Save Bonus: If the game was connected to a PlayStation 2 with Jak X on the system, you get to unlock bonuses for both games with additional if Daxter has 100% completion.
- One-Steve Limit: Osmo’s son (And later Daxter’s good friend) is named Ximon. Near the end of the plot, he and Daxter inadvertently learn from Erol that there is a Krimzon Guard captain, also named Ximon (Rupertikjakmos), who is off-duty during the game’s events, thereby averting this trope.
- Shout-Out: The dreams are homages to iconic films from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Braveheart, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Unpronounceable Alias: While it isn’t a character’s alter ego by any means, an attempt by Daxter and Ximon to gain entry into Haven Palace makes a brush with this trope. Specifically, Daxter informs Erol that someone named “Ximon Rupertikjakmos” made a call to clean out a Metal Bug infestation. Although Erol almost denies Daxter entry into the edifice, his reason for doing so is unexpected.Erol: Nice try, that call didn't happen. Captain Rupertikjakmos is on leave this month, he couldn't have been the one.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Said by Daxter after he woke up from his Indiana Jones-themed dream.
- Wicked Wasps: The Strip Mine Hive Queen, the second true boss, is a dreadfully giant Metal Bug resembling a hornet that terrorizes the Strip Mine until Daxter shows up to defeat her.
- Another example would be the rapidly-attacking Flanker mooks.
- Your Reward Is Clothes: Two of the gold-tier mini game rewards (The Indiana Jones and second Lord of the Rings themed dreams, specifically) equip Daxter with a hat and pants, respectively.
