What do you think is the worst version of rayman 1?

[Greengoop]

Well since there is a R2 topic then why don’t I make one for R1?

Please tell me which one you voted and why. Also let me know if there’s any I missed on the poll

My vote is personally for GBA because there’s nothing interesting except a watered down grainy port

Please note I am not including emulation, and that includes the game on the PS3 and Vita stores

[The Jonster]

Uhhh Gweengewp I would like to point out that you have not included the Atari Jaguar in this poll.

[Greengoop]

Lol thanks. I’ll add it right away Joenstirr

[Mortamon Saturn]

Great idea! There's definitely a lot to discuss about the worst versions of Rayman 1!
Though a few versions are missing in the poll like the Atari Jaguar (EDIT: Jonster ninja'ed me, thanks for adding it Greengoop! ) and Pocket PC ("Rayman Ultimate") versions even if the latter is very obscure.
And I guess we could also add the distinct PDA versions of Rayman GBC (PPC/Symbian, Palm OS Color/Palm OS Greyscale) and add Rayman Redemption... but anyone who would pick that one as the worst must be declared a heretic and be sentenced to be publicly incinerated

Personally I'd pick the GBA and smartphone ones as they have many flaws (and most mobile controls test my patience as much as Rayman DS ), but it's not nearly as bad as some versions for Rayman 2.
Rayman Advance still plays well even if the smaller screens and the soundtrack can be painful at times IMO...
Rayman DSi could also have been great if it didn't mess up the knockback on Rayman and a few other things.

SNES can't really be judged when the prototype is not even close from a finished game and so isn't really a version (like the 32X port).
But if we're gonna extend the poll that far, then the legendarily bad web demo of Rayman 1 has to be objectively the worst version of Rayman ever released! It's so hilariously bad it would take great efforts to do something worse even on purpose.

[Greengoop]

I’ve added all’em. Good idea

Also while GBC isn’t the greatest game O.A.T. I’m not picking it for the exact reason of how interesting it is

[Mortamon Saturn]

The GBC one definitely has a lot of great qualities going for it, especially as a sort of Rayman 1/2 hybrid! I wish the same could have been said about its sequel which we already talked about!
It most notably gave us the first proper Mr Dark boss fight, which inspired many things in Rayman Redemption!

Though some of its releases aren't exactly good like the Palm OS ones having no sound and especially the Palm OS Greyscale variation which looks terrible and has messed up collisions in many levels! (As the person recreating Rayman GBC and all of those in Rayman ReDesigner, I know a lot about their level design specificities )
At least Palm OS Color has an improved look, even if the colors are pretty weird...

Its PPC version (not to be confused with the other Rayman Pocket PC ) is however very good and probably the best. It had enhanced graphics, remade music, a few improved collisions and minor fixes in the level design, and online challenges (with those last being featured in the POS ports... heh, "POS" ).
As for Symbian... we barely know anything about it aside from the fact it's nearly identical to PPC. Screenshots I've seen of it featured some changes in object/enemy placement, but it appears those were just mockups...

[Greengoop]

Very interesting verdict. Also does anyone mind if I reset the pollagain to remove the unreleased ones?

[The Jonster]

But if we're gonna extend the poll that far, then the legendarily bad web demo of Rayman 1 has to be objectively the worst version of Rayman ever released! It's so hilariously bad it would take great efforts to do something worse even on purpose.

What? Are you kidding me? That's like the best version ever of Rayman 1! I mean it's very clear that Rayman is OP in this mode. His crawling can make him reach normally unreachable place very easily. Let's not forget Betilla's amazing dialogue and how it gets cut off when Rayman is off to the side!

My vote is personally for GBA because there’s nothing interesting except a watered down grainy port

I would love to see you play this version and finish it.

[Greengoop]

I tried getting the game at CeX but they didn’t have the card. What bummer. At least I got the arguably funner rayman 3 GBA

[dr_st]

Anything that is played on a touch screen with lousy touch controls is the worst.

[Mortamon Saturn]

What? Are you kidding me? That's like the best version ever of Rayman 1! I mean it's very clear that Rayman is OP in this mode. His crawling can make him reach normally unreachable place very easily. Let's not forget Betilla's amazing dialogue and how it gets cut off when Rayman is off to the side!

You're right, Rayman is so powerful in this version he actually breaks the laws of time and space!
His fist becomes so OP it freezes the Hunters into a death animation by not even touching them!
...Heh, guess that's some potential ideas for the "You're too good at Rayman when" topic.

Anything that is played on a touch screen with lousy touch controls is the worst.

This.


Also, Rayman Advance suffers from about the same syndrome as Rayman DS. It was cool when it came out as an impressive handheld recreation of such a beautiful console game, but the novelty wears off quickly after years and when more ports came out.
Though to give it some credit, it actually stands out from the original (for better or worse ) and quite a lot of people have very fond memories of it and of its specifities, unlike Rayman DS.
It also had some unique tracks which even inspired a few we got in Rayman Redemption... And now I'm so used of working on the Rayfanpedia that I was going to type '''[[Rayman Redemption]]''' like this.

[Greengoop]

Anything that is played on a touch screen with lousy touch controls is the worst.

Yeah… but I consider the controls of rayman classic to be pretty efficient

[mikemoron]

dsi is easily the second worst port, especially the compressed music tracks

[Adsolution]

Personally my least favourite is the DSi version. It's so haphazard, lazy and just... gross. I vastly prefer Advance, because you can tell they tried there, and it's actually kind of impressive on some level what they accomplished. It's not as dumbed down easy as the DSi version, only giving you one extra health point, and a few optimised object locations, and the couple of original compositions are lovely.

The DSi version is like a buggy, weird take on the DOS version. The music is [an extremely compressed version of] the original CD audio, sure, and I like that they tried to make it loop, but even the loop points are strange as balls, cutting in the middle of the beat half the time, how do you screw that up

Then you have Band Land... which looks like this, like literally wtf?

Why is the background so dark, why are the sheet music lines black, why do the bongos look like that?? It almost looks bugged, yet all these changes are intentional

(for reference, here's the DOS version it was based on):

Then there's the fact the DSi version takes a picture of you every time you get a photographer checkpoint. It's the most invasive thing, you can't disable it, so never play the game naked


EDIT: Oh yeah, there are also 7 cages in Bongo Hills, because apparently it's also based on Rayman Advance, where the first area of that level was removed, so the cage there was moved to a later part, but when they put that first area back in the DSi version, they kept the cage there too.

It's so lazy... but also kind of cool at the same time. Once you get 6 cages, upon loading a new area, the 7th one disappears. Since there's only one cage in every area except the storm screen where there are two, if you get the other 5 on your first runthrough, then replay it and get the 6th and 7th in the storm screen, when you get the 7th, the medallion screen doesn't appear, it just breaks instantly. Weird buggy fun fact. I feel like almost no one knows this, because who tf played the DSi version

[Steo]

Then there's the fact the DSi version takes a picture of you every time you get a photographer checkpoint. It's the most invasive thing, you can't disable it, so never play the game naked

I have to admit, this was really stupid and at the very least should have been optional. The best part about it is, even when you lower the volume to zero, the shutter sound still plays at max volume!

[Mortamon Saturn]

I personally still prefer the DSi version over the Advance release (because at least I don't get a headache after playing it for 15 minutes ), but it's definitely far from being a great version of Rayman...
If you really want a handheld Rayman 1, just get the PSP or PS Vita rerelease, it's the closest you'll get to the actual thing. Well... "officially" speaking.

My biggest issue as already stated is the knockback problem coupled to the forced 6/10 HPs which makes the DSi game's difficulty absolutely unbalanced and stupid. It's either ridiculously easy or annoyingly frustrating...
If it would have been fixed, I'd easily overlook most of the other flaws and enjoy it as a nice little portable Rayman 1.
It's really a shame when it has some QoL additions, like better savefile name editing, lives made easier to earn, keeping the Grimace like on Jaguar, more continues, more checkpoints, Joe's dialogue and the Protoon mentionned in the ending, and most importantly skipping already completed sections...
If it weren't for all the issues and downgrades it added, it could have been the closest thing to a Rayman Redemption before it was made, even having extra features like achievements before it did.

Why is the background so dark, why are the sheet music lines black, why do the bongos look like that?? It almost looks bugged, yet all these changes are intentional

They most likely made the sheet music lines black as a reference to how they are usually depicted in real life and I'd say it's not that nonsensical in that sense (unlike everything else ), but it really is an unnecessary change that takes away some of the game's beauty and charm...
As they say: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I wouldn't have minded it it were mere bonus assets for Designer's mapper.

Then there's the fact the DSi version takes a picture of you every time you get a photographer checkpoint. It's the most invasive thing, you can't disable it, so never play the game naked

Imagine if the game's online features would have really been implemented... Something tells me Ubi would abuse this just like another "soft" game company did with a certain device.
I remember that I used to quickly move the camera at my teddy bear as a joke (a plushie that has followed me since my birth), so I could at least have more of my childhood injected into that (bad) replica of the game I grew up with!

EDIT: Oh yeah, there are also 7 cages in Bongo Hills, because apparently it's also based on Rayman Advance, where the first area of that level was removed, so the cage there was moved to a later part, but when they put that first area back in the DSi version, they kept the cage there too.

It's so lazy... but also kind of cool at the same time. Once you get 6 cages, upon loading a new area, the 7th one disappears. Since there's only one cage in every area except the storm screen where there are two, if you get the other 5 on your first runthrough, then replay it and get the 6th and 7th in the storm screen, when you get the 7th, the medallion screen doesn't appear, it just breaks instantly. Weird buggy fun fact. I feel like almost no one knows this, because who tf played the DSi version

I think I heard of that before, I'll have to try it out someday!

[PluMGMK]

EDIT: Oh yeah, there are also 7 cages in Bongo Hills, because apparently it's also based on Rayman Advance, where the first area of that level was removed, so the cage there was moved to a later part, but when they put that first area back in the DSi version, they kept the cage there too.

It's so lazy... but also kind of cool at the same time. Once you get 6 cages, upon loading a new area, the 7th one disappears. Since there's only one cage in every area except the storm screen where there are two, if you get the other 5 on your first runthrough, then replay it and get the 6th and 7th in the storm screen, when you get the 7th, the medallion screen doesn't appear, it just breaks instantly. Weird buggy fun fact. I feel like almost no one knows this, because who tf played the DSi version

I did know about this, although I never bother to memorize the details of how you can break all seven. But I definitely knew it was a thing, because of the wiki, and probably because you spoke about it before. So other non-DSi owners probably do too!

Then there's the fact the DSi version takes a picture of you every time you get a photographer checkpoint. It's the most invasive thing, you can't disable it, so never play the game naked

I have to admit, this was really stupid and at the very least should have been optional. The best part about it is, even when you lower the volume to zero, the shutter sound still plays at max volume!

Ah yes, that was one of the first cases of "they stole our idea!" that was not particularly encouraging! As I understand it, the shutter sound is a legal requirement in certain places, including Japan, which is where Nintendo are from, so that's probably why. (I do remember being in Japan and having someone point out to me that Japanese phones all have really loud shutter sounds!)

[RayCarrot]

I'm surprised to see the iOS/Android version being so unpopular. I assume because of the touch-screen controls? Personally I thought it was a pretty solid port all things considered.
It does seem a bit unfair though to include the web demo in this poll, because that was immediate pick now If it wasn't there I'd have to think a bit more, and probably pick the GBA version. There's so much I don't really like about that version, from the music, compressed colors, to the screen crunch and more. And one thing very few seem to talk about is the inconsistent collision where you sometimes fall through platforms. I later found out it's due to them only checking collision around every 10 frames, which causes a lot to be potentially missed.

EDIT: Oh yeah, there are also 7 cages in Bongo Hills, because apparently it's also based on Rayman Advance, where the first area of that level was removed, so the cage there was moved to a later part, but when they put that first area back in the DSi version, they kept the cage there too.

It's so lazy... but also kind of cool at the same time. Once you get 6 cages, upon loading a new area, the 7th one disappears. Since there's only one cage in every area except the storm screen where there are two, if you get the other 5 on your first runthrough, then replay it and get the 6th and 7th in the storm screen, when you get the 7th, the medallion screen doesn't appear, it just breaks instantly. Weird buggy fun fact. I feel like almost no one knows this, because who tf played the DSi version

I did know about this, although I never bother to memorize the details of how you can break all seven. But I definitely knew it was a thing, because of the wiki, and probably because you spoke about it before. So other non-DSi owners probably do too!

Ah, I still remember when I found this back in 2016. I wonder if anyone had found it before then? It was by pure accident that I even noticed it since normally the seventh one despawns when you break the prior ones.

Nowadays this isn't so unknown though and is actually used in any% speedruns to save some time! No one had really ran the DSi version before, but Thextera has been doing it a lot lately and what we discovered on his streams was that you can skip one other cage in the game and have the seventh cage in Bongo Hills count as the 102nd one needed to unlock Mr Dark's Dare. This allows you to skip the slowest cage (in Mr Sax's Hullaballoo) and get this instead, which saves time. You can see it in his world record run here.

There is a catch though - the seventh cage has to be the last one you get! See, the game actually re-calculates the cages whenever you enter the worldmap, and this re-calculation does not include the seventh cage. However, the reason this is possible at all is because the game actually checks if Mr Dark's Dare should be unlocked before re-calculating. So if the seventh cage is the last one you get, and you have gotten every other cage besides one, then the total is currently 102. The game then treats that as you passing the check, and unlocks Mr Dark's Dare, and then after that re-calculates the cage count back down to 101 (but with Mr Dark's Dare already unlocked, so it doesn't matter). Thextera explains it in this short.

[Adsolution]

I'm surprised to see the iOS/Android version being so unpopular. I assume because of the touch-screen controls? Personally I thought it was a pretty solid port all things considered.

Yeah, it seemed to be a 1:1 port of the DOS version, which I appreciated. The only issue was that the tileset rendering cut off a block early at the bottom of the screen, I don't know how they let that slide. That and a very bad issue with the inputs where you had to let go and press the directional movement again after tapping the right side of the screen to jump. Also not sure how that one got through

Ah, I still remember when I found this back in 2016. I wonder if anyone had found it before then? It was by pure accident that I even noticed it since normally the seventh one despawns when you break the prior ones.

I actually found it myself in 2011 when I got my 3DS, and Rayman DSi was one of the first things I got, because I loved trying out every version of it I could. I'd grown up with both the DOS and GBA versions back in ~2000, so I was very familiar with them, so on my very first playthrough I realised it had cages from both and started experimenting. I never checked to see if anyone else had discovered it, hence why I wasn't sure if anyone else knew. I think I might've mentioned it on RPC sometime back then, I can't remember... it felt cool to find something no one else had yet, but I never documented things very well.

Interesting that it came to be used in speedruns... of course it did, just of course

[RayCarrot]

I'm surprised to see the iOS/Android version being so unpopular. I assume because of the touch-screen controls? Personally I thought it was a pretty solid port all things considered.

Yeah, it seemed to be a 1:1 port of the DOS version, which I appreciated. The only issue was that the tileset rendering cut off a block early at the bottom of the screen, I don't know how they let that slide. That and a very bad issue with the inputs where you had to let go and press the directional movement again after tapping the right side of the screen to jump. Also not sure how that one got through

Huh, I've never seen any issues with the tile rendering and I've played it on multiple devices. I just booted it up now to double check and looks fine. The only bugs I remember are sounds not looping correctly and you unable to move before starting in the breakout minigame. Otherwise like you said it's a 1:1 port of the DOS version. There's also the fact of controller support not working which is odd. It's controlled through LUA scripts and they for some reason commented out the line which enabled controller support yet it's marketed as having it.