Rayman 2

Which version is your favourite?

  • PC

    Votes: 117 37.4%
  • Nintendo 64

    Votes: 20 6.4%
  • Dreamcast

    Votes: 51 16.3%
  • PlayStation 1

    Votes: 22 7.0%
  • Revolution (PlayStation 2)

    Votes: 94 30.0%
  • Forever (GBC)

    Votes: 2 0.6%
  • DS

    Votes: 2 0.6%
  • iOS

    Votes: 1 0.3%
  • 3DS

    Votes: 4 1.3%

  • Total voters
    313

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The 'Scarface' of the Galactic Circus (only four feet tall) captured Rayman and his friends.
Rayman needs to collect resources to defeat pirates and seek the key to the "Gate of Divine Power" with the help of friends. Finally, Rayman needs to rely on the power of the great 'magician' to restore and save the world.
Magician will be Rayman's first friend saved, appearing on the map to enhance Rayman's' Invincible Flying Fist 'power.
The game has ten major maps, including three different worlds, namely the Four Great Temples (Temple of the Ancient, Temple of the Sea, Temple of the Wind, and Temple of Fire), Rayman Planet, and Pirate World (Prison, Fortress Machine, and Pirate Ship).
Nice, that seems to be a pretty early version of the game they're talking about here. The pirates were still from a "galactic circus" and Polokus was still "the Magician", as seen in early artwork. Not sure about the "Gate of Divine Power" though.

It's also interesting how the sanctuaries were meant to be different back then: I imagine that the "Temple of Fire" gave birth to the Sanctuaries of Stone and Fire and Rock and Lava, "Sea" is obviously Water and Ice, maybe "Wind" became the Iron Mountains, and "Ancients", well, Tomb of the Ancients? Maybe they decided it was not a fit location for one of the four masks in the end. As for the machine, it could be the one from the Fairy Glade, but I'm not sure about the prison. Maybe one of those mid-game levels with pirate stuff all around?

Since I believe R2 is set on a separate island, it’s safe to say their lives went back to normal
That's not what the map of Rayman 2 suggests though, now is it? It calls the whole island the Glade of Dreams and the Glade is also where Rayman 3 takes place. Of course I imagine that one is free to disregard side material as less canonical than the contents of the games!
 
Nice, that seems to be a pretty early version of the game they're talking about here. The pirates were still from a "galactic circus" and Polokus was still "the Magician", as seen in early artwork. Not sure about the "Gate of Divine Power" though.

It's also interesting how the sanctuaries were meant to be different back then: I imagine that the "Temple of Fire" gave birth to the Sanctuaries of Stone and Fire and Rock and Lava, "Sea" is obviously Water and Ice, maybe "Wind" became the Iron Mountains, and "Ancients", well, Tomb of the Ancients? Maybe they decided it was not a fit location for one of the four masks in the end. As for the machine, it could be the one from the Fairy Glade, but I'm not sure about the prison. Maybe one of those mid-game levels with pirate stuff all around?
I forgot to mention, the magazine also mentioned that "五毒蛇" would be a type of enemy in the game.
 
That's not what the map of Rayman 2 suggests though, now is it? It calls the whole island the Glade of Dreams and the Glade is also where Rayman 3 takes place. Of course I imagine that one is free to disregard side material as less canonical than the contents of the games!

That’s why it’s a theory! Anyway, it never said anything about it being the whole glade of dreams, and the map is almost entirely different between worlds, with Rayman 1/3/O/L having a lot more vibrant and colourful map, whilst R2 is mostly marshland, so they definitely aren’t the same place in my eyes
 
I can't imagine that much thought was put into the making of the Rayman 2 map anyway, it's nice additional material but probably not something designed with much of the game's lore in mind.
 
Did the US and Japanese versions of Rayman Revolution also suffer from massive FPS drops in the hub worlds and have missing music when revisiting levels and have that bug where Rayman's model turns black or was this exclusive to the PAL version?
 
I think the Sanctuary of Stone and Fire is Temple of Ancient, because the guardian deity of this level looks older than others.
 
The temples in Rayman 2 are a bit weird. They're clearly inspired by the 4 elements, yet don't clearly conform to that in the final game.

The first temple, Water and Ice, is clear enough. It's the water temple. You fight Axel here, a guardian who throws ice at you. But then things get inconsistent. Stone and Fire seems to have been meant to be the fire temple, with you using plums to cross large streams of lava, and Rock and Lava is meant to be the earth one, with the temple being this ruined place with lots of rocks and thorns. But the names are all mixed together and then the guardians appear swapped. Umber, who is made out of rock, is in the fire temple and Foutch, who is made out of fire, is in the earth temple!

However if you look at the early game text as found in one of the PC demos you can see that this wasn't always the case. The Sanctuary of Stone and Fire is called named The Sanctuary of Lava and Fire, and The Sanctuary of Rock and Lava is named The Sanctuary of Rock and Stone. The bosses also appear to be in the correct levels here, with it saying "FOUTCH: Guardian of the sanctuary of lava and fire" and "UMBER: Guardian of the sanctuary of rock and stone".

Then there's of course the curiously absent wind temple. In a way Beneath the Sanctuary of Rock and Lava fits this perfectly. It's a temple level all about flying. Yet it's clumped together with The Sanctuary of Rock and Lava for some reason? The fourth mask then also appears in a mine in The Iron Mountains, making it seem as if there was a fourth temple there which perhaps collapsed over time.

Revolution makes this even weirder by renaming The Sanctuary of Rock and Lava to The Lava Sanctuary. Now even the "rock" part of the name is gone, making it even less obvious it's the earth temple. They also added a fourth guardian here for the final mask, which seems to be themed around wind. Yet there's no actual temple leading up to it which makes it feel rather out of place.
 
However if you look at the early game text as found in one of the PC demos you can see that this wasn't always the case. The Sanctuary of Stone and Fire is called named The Sanctuary of Lava and Fire, and The Sanctuary of Rock and Lava is named The Sanctuary of Rock and Stone. The bosses also appear to be in the correct levels here, with it saying "FOUTCH: Guardian of the sanctuary of lava and fire" and "UMBER: Guardian of the sanctuary of rock and stone".
The map in the original N64 retained the first difference (Sanctuary names) but not the second (Umber is clearly pictured near the Lava & Fire and Foutch, or at least the mask, near the Rock & Stone).
 
Do you mean an early version of this map with the original position of those two masks?

Anyway, it's interesting how the sanctuaries evolved from their early iterations. Another thing I wonder is whether they originally planned for all sanctuaries to end in an ethereal section like the Sanctuary of Water and Ice does. 🤔
 
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