I covered my feelings towards the various sections of the Front in my above post, but I will go through your examples here, one by one, for my own enjoyment.Xenon wrote:Spiraldoor, there's more to the Front than vast green spaces. Globox's house, the magic well, the pier, the beach, the caves and the pirate factory are all examples of areas that provide excellent viewing pleasure, and in my opinion are more 'inspired' than the Hall of Doors (which is essentially a level selection screen). The only uninspired areas I can think of are the Minisaurus Plain (the actual plain) and the East Plain, which do, granted, lack imagination from Ubisoft's part. But I consider those to be blips because the good aspects seriously outweigh the negative ones.
I don’t know what you see in Globox’s House – at least, assuming that you’re takling about the upper level (the actual house part) of it. The cliffs offer a nice view of the fifteen-second Iron Mountains background, but this doesn’t really fire my imagination. There’s a wooden bridge over an enormous drop, which is nothing I haven’t seen in the Precipice. There’s a nice little green tunnel, which is fine, and there’s the house itself, which is nothing special. Every time I look at the house with Uglette standing nearby and the baby Globoxes playing football, I can’t help but wish I was in the Globox Village instead. Now THAT was a beauteous location. The little pool where you could swim around, the self-sustaining raincloud nearby, those nice little thatched huts, the unique baby Globoxes who gave genuinely amusing one-liners, the quest Uglette gave Rayman to find the Glob Crystals and open those magical-looking portals to those minigames, one of which was wonderful... Globox Village puts Globox’s House to shame.
I don’t understand how you can say that the Magic Wells are more ‘inspired’ than the Hall of Doors, since the Magic Wells completely copy its aesthetic. If the Magic Wells had allowed Rayman to move around a bit and been a little more detailed, they could have been something quite special. As they are in the game, they don’t impress me, and neither does their purpose (as I’ve discussed in my above post). Unless of course you’re getting the Magic Wells mixed-up with the well in the garden behind Globox’s House, in which case I don’t share (or even understand) your appreciation of it.
I don’t see what’s good about the Pier at all. I like the fact that Bzzit is there, and I like the way you can helicopter down to it from the Minisaurus Plain (the actual plain) above, but the Pier itself is essentially a carbon copy of the very beginning of the Sanctuary of Water and Ice, an area which lacks any kind of beauty. It’s just a little beach and a wooden walkway leading out into the water.
The beach (assuming you’re talking about the beach beneath Globox’s House) is quite good, yes. I discussed this in my above post. I like the dark and cloudy sky and sea, and the Skull Cave is very nice.
I’m not a big fan of the caves (assuming you’re talking about the ones in Rainbow Creek). To me, they’re just some dull caves. Not particularly good or bad, but they have none of the artistic attractiveness of the Caves of Skops or enjoyable gameplay of the Echoing Caves. ‘Inspired’ is not the first word that comes to my mind when I attempt to describe them.
The Pirate Factory starts well – I like the exterior very much, and I really appreciate the addition of the Zombie Robo-Pirates. But once we get inside, the whoe levle kind of falls apart. First of all, why don’t we get to see Robo-Pirates being produced on an assembly line? Electric Final was literally more of a pirate-factory than the Pirate Factory itself. A minor quibble: there’s a diagram of the Grolgoth on a desk just inside the main door, causing a fairly substantial continuity error. But never mind. The area itself is straightforward and not particularly good; I don’t like having to fight multiple Robo-Pirates while I’m making my way through those narrow little corridors cluttered with those metal walkways. I don’t see why the level has to be broken up with an elevator. And the Boss Biditank has to be the clunkiest and most unenjoyable boss battle in the entire game. I hate having to repeatedly run all the way around that massive room to activate the gun. I hate the whole ‘If you’re not standing directly behind one of these four pillars, his attack definitely will hit you; if you’re standing directly behind one of these four pillars, his attack definitely won’t hit you’ style of battling. I think forcing the player to use a first-person electro-gun (which is a hell of a lot less cool than it sounds) is a pretty poor way of fighting the Biditank, anyway – I expect more from a Rayman game. It’s not all bad – I like how it gives Rayman an additional encounter with Razorbeard’s lackey, but really, I don’t think I miss that area in the slightest when I’m playing the original Rayman 2.
As you can undoubtedly glean from the general trajectory of my posts thus far, I don’t agree with your assertion that ‘the [Front’s] good aspects seriously outweigh the negative ones’. For me the reverse is true.
Regarding the ‘interconnectedness’ of the levels: You seem to have gotten it backwards. The Rayman 2 levels are much more interconnected than the Revolution levels. In Rayman 2, the Cave of Bad Dreams can be accessed directly from the Marshes of Awakening, the Walk of Life can be accessed directly from the Bayou, the Fairy Glade can be accessed directly from the Echoing Caves, the Walk of Power can be accessed directly from the Sanctuary of Rock and Lava, the Crow’s Nest can be accessed directly from the Prison Ship, and, in the Dreamcast version, the Globox Village and its three associated minigames can be accessed directly (and exclusively) from the Woods of Light. Every single one of these connections was severed in Revolution.Xenon wrote:I don't really understand your point about playability. The general layout of levels isn't as well constructed as yours but what's better from a gamer's point of view: levels which are interconnected that can be accessed by foot or teleportation, or levels that are isolated from each other which can only be accessed by teleportation from outer space?
The Hall of Doors is surrounded by stars, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s in ‘outer space’. Remember, it’s also in some kind of forest, and it has a shoreline. I like to think of it as its own self-contained environment, like a miniature universe all unto itself. I like to think that it can only be accessed through a Spiral Door, and that you could scour every inch of Rayman’s universe and still not find it in any ‘place’. I like its otherworldliness. The fact that I can’t pigeonhole it in with any other environment, that it is not like any other place, is the thing I like most about it. The Front lacks this uniqueness entirely.
I stand by my point about playability. I actually like how the Hall of Doors gives me a respite from the actual gameplay. It allows the player a break; a brief ‘escape’ from all the platforming and the fighting. It is relaxing and tranquil and peaceful and safe in a way that the Front, with its enemies and environmental hazards and requirement that the player focus on where they are going and what they are doing, can never be.
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but have you ever actually played the original version of Rayman 2?
I’m not sure if I’ll make an entire post in response to Jewish Candy’s latest, since I don’t find it particularly disagreeable or have any strong feelings towards it, but I’ll see what I can do.
Also, I sort of wish this colossal conversation was in a thread of its own, as it will probably fade into obscurity within a few weeks, which is a shame. Not many people check random pages in threads which are 150+ pages long.
It was a long, drawn-out declaration to you and the world that needn't be revisted if the spirit doesn't speak. There are more important things 
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They are still discussing R2, but in a rather... forward way.
This discussion kicks ass in quite a few ways.
Also, the fact that R2 didn't have to rely on interesting, different environments is testament to its greatness, don'cha thaaaank? 
Everyone is different though. I think the Main Theme is a masterpiece of gaming music, whereas a great many people would disagree with me. 
