Rayman Origins

[spiraldoor]

You want plot holes just so you can speculate? I don't think it's worth it. I do agree with you, though, leaving a few things untidy is fine.

As I have said several times now, I do not want ‘plot holes’. I do not want Globox to die in Rayman Origins so I can get off on theorising about how he came back to life. I want ambiguity in the games. Bad, foolish explanations which remove ambiguity do not make the story better.

Yes, it's an unexplained aspect of the story. Which is a plot hole, in this case. It does create a logical flaw, he just suddenly disappeared. I don't see how him being absent in R3 makes it easier to write him into an R4. Yes, my enjoyment of the game has been damaged by lack of mention of Polokus, not severely, but still. If I did what you suggest, I'd basically be lying to myself. I have no idea what happened to Polokus. The game doesn't say. There was a need for the developers to spell it out for us, Polokus was a major character. R2 was all about Polokus. You spend the entire game trying to awaken Polokus. Than, he's gone. I would very much like an explanation for this, but you don't want one because you want to speculate, you think Ubisoft is incapable of explaining (but contradict yourself by saying that it would only take a minute of thought).

Polokus’s disappearance is not a plot hole and it does not create any logical flaw. He did not ‘suddenly disappear’ – if he vanished in a puff of smoke halfway through the game you might have a point. He simply does not turn up. This is not a fatal, story-destroying flaw; there are endless potential reasons for his absence. Rayman 2 was not ‘all about Polokus’ and Polokus was never a ‘major character’ – in reality he was no more than a plot McGuffin, a reason for Rayman to travel about fighting cool monsters and picking up shiny things. Yes, the truth hurts! You do not ‘spend the entire game trying to awaken Polokus’ – you spend it blowing things up and finding collectibles. Polokus does nothing that wasn’t accomplished spontaneously at the end of Rayman 1. I don’t not want an explanation ‘because I want to speculate’; I don’t want one because Polokus is irrelevant to the story of Rayman and the Hoodlums. It’s obvious that he’s unable to combat the Hoodlums, most likely because he’s asleep. I did not need this spelt out for me and neither should you.

I can find solid explanations for any ambiguous element of the story after a couple of minutes’ worth of thought. Ubisoft cannot. Any explanation they attempted to give us regarding Polokus’s absence from Rayman 3 would in all likelihood contradict itself, the games, or both, thus creating plenty of plot holes – actual plot holes this time. I can handle the story better without their attempted assistance.

I never thought of the Force as mysterious, and how it works is something I didn't even think of until the explanation came. But the explanation seemed fine to me. Yes, I think it is better that they explained the Force than not.

Are those seriously your views or are you just saying that they are to diminish my point? Either way, you are in a tiny minority. Almost everyone agrees that the attribution of the Force to bacteria was an appalling miss-step which undermines everything to do with the Star Wars series. Have you heard the fans’ reaction to this very bad explanation? It was overwhelmingly negative. The Force was clearly meant to be spiritual and divine in nature – the ‘lol it was bacteria all along’ revelation is so stupid I don’t even know how to put it into words. The midi-chlorians are an infamously bad idea. You may think it was a stroke of genius for Lucas to pseudo-scientifically explain the Force, but bear in mind that practically everyone disagrees with you, and for good reason. Your ‘All explanations are good no matter how bad they are’ position is not a very defensible one.

Shadow of the Colossus was intentionally vague, you can just tell. The Rayman games have no amazing vagueness, with a story that can be interpreted in multiple ways. It's a story with plot holes, can't you see, there is no way you can compare Rayman to Shadow of the Colossus. You're average Mario game has practically no plot. A lot of things have been left unexplained over the series, but I don't buy the next Mario excited to hear if Peach will get captured this time.

In what way exactly does Shadow of the Colossus benefit from its vagueness that Rayman does not? You have not answered by question. ‘You can just tell’ is not a good answer; I can’t tell. The Rayman games are amazingly vague; take Rayman 1, which is a surreal and abstract LSD trip from start to finish, excepting the intro. The game has practically no story or dialogue between the first level and the last. Shadow of the Colossus has a longer and more dialogue-heavy intro sequence! Why do you tell me I can’t compare the two games? Of course I can. Both are extremely mysterious. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say about the Mario series; does the story not matter because it’s repetitive? Does that compensate for ‘plot holes’ in some way?

What you're saying is that not only does Rayman have a vague plot which leaves itself open for all kinds of juicy interpretation just like Shadow of the Colossus, but that Ubisoft did the whole thing by accident! Hogwash, I say!

Again, could you explain exactly why Shadow of the Colossus has a ‘vague plot’ but Rayman has only ‘plot holes’? And I don’t recall saying that ‘Ubisoft did the whole thing by accident’; I believe I said something along the lines of not giving a damn whether they were doing it deliberately or not, as long as they continue to do it as well as they have thus far.

Intentionally vague=/=plot hole.

So stories that are ‘intentionally vague’ can avoid explaining anything and that’s fine by you, but stories that are not ‘intentionally vague’ must explain every aspect of ambiguity away or it will become a ‘plot hole’? What a silly argument. The writers’ intention is wholly irrelevant; if they attempt to fill every plot hole but somehow fail completely and create an extremely vague and ambiguous story, then that story is worth no less than one planned as such from the outset. Likewise if the writers seek to create a story filled with vagueness and mystery, but they somehow fail spectacularly and end up completely explaining everything, the resulting story needs not be inferior to one which was never intended to be ambiguous.

He desires to purge the hoodlums, surely.

At the end of R2, Polokus is there with everyone else, awake, cheering. Why would he go back to sleep?

This is why he went to sleep in the first place. But time has clearly already been created, so he has no reason to continue his slumber.

It’s obvious from Rayman 2 that Polokus’s desires only come true when he’s awake. Otherwise he would have destroyed the Robo-Pirates in his sleep. Therefore he cannot destroy the Hoodlums without first being awakened. Considering these facts, the implication that he went back to sleep after destroying the Robo-Pirates is clear. We are never told the real reason for his continuing slumber from the beginning of time to the events of Rayman 2; if, as you say, the creation of time is something he had to perform once and was not required to participate in further, then why did he continue to sleep for many years after it had been created? There must be some reason, and we can assume that this is the reason he returned to sleep and the meeting-place of all the gods following the ending of Rayman 2. I have no problem accepting this; if you take issue with any of my logical conclusions, feel free to ask me about them so I can give you a more detailed explanation as to how I arrived at them. PS: What makes you so sure Polokus isn’t already back to sleep during the Rayman 2 ending sequence? If his dreams become reality, there’s no reason why real things can’t interact with his dreams. In this case, Globox, Clark, Ly, Murfy and so on all appear to be inside the dreamworld Polokus inhabited before Rayman woke him up.

The absence of Polokus during R3 is a plot hole. It isn't a stroke of genius element that makes you second guess everything, as in Shadow of the Colossus. It's a plot hole. I would much rather have Ubisoft say something like "He didn't create time, remember? He dreamed up the future. He has to go back to sleep, otherwise future events won't happen." This isn't a very good explanation, but it's an explanation, something I'd much prefer to this plot hole.

It’s not a plot hole. There’s nothing about his absence which contradicts any aspect of any Rayman game. Globox is not dying in Rayman Origins here. There are plausible logical reasons why Polokus would not appear in Rayman 3; therefore there is no problem. Stupid contradictions are plot holes; ambiguity is not a plot hole. Not every ambiguity needs to be ‘a stroke of genius element that makes you second-guess everything’; this one is simply an example of everything not being handed to us on a silver platter. I’d prefer the explanation implied by the Knowledge of the World rather than the one you’ve just proposed (which does not make sense to begin with). Perhaps the developers considered inserting an explanation for Polokus’s absence into Rayman 3, but decided against it for some reason, thus leaving the reasons for his absence intentionally vague. Then I suppose you’d be fine with it, since you seem to have no problem with ‘intentional vagueness’. You place far too much focus on the intentions of the writers rather than on the quality of the resulting games themselves.

[ParadoxJuice]

You want plot holes just so you can speculate? I don't think it's worth it. I do agree with you, though, leaving a few things untidy is fine.

As I have said several times now, I do not want ‘plot holes’. I do not want Globox to die in Rayman Origins so I can get off on theorising about how he came back to life. I want ambiguity in the games. Bad, foolish explanations which remove ambiguity do not make the story better.

So you want things to not be explained for no particular reason? I still stand by what I say when I say that bad explanations are better than none. Good explanation>Bad explanation>No explanation. Bad, foolish explanations which remove ambiguity do make the story better, or at least better than it would've been if there were major plot holes, like the absence of Polokus.

Yes, it's an unexplained aspect of the story. Which is a plot hole, in this case. It does create a logical flaw, he just suddenly disappeared. I don't see how him being absent in R3 makes it easier to write him into an R4. Yes, my enjoyment of the game has been damaged by lack of mention of Polokus, not severely, but still. If I did what you suggest, I'd basically be lying to myself. I have no idea what happened to Polokus. The game doesn't say. There was a need for the developers to spell it out for us, Polokus was a major character. R2 was all about Polokus. You spend the entire game trying to awaken Polokus. Than, he's gone. I would very much like an explanation for this, but you don't want one because you want to speculate, you think Ubisoft is incapable of explaining (but contradict yourself by saying that it would only take a minute of thought).

Polokus’s disappearance is not a plot hole and it does not create any logical flaw. He did not ‘suddenly disappear’ – if he vanished in a puff of smoke halfway through the game you might have a point. He simply does not turn up. This is not a fatal, story-destroying flaw; there are endless potential reasons for his absence. Rayman 2 was not ‘all about Polokus’ and Polokus was never a ‘major character’ – in reality he was no more than a plot McGuffin, a reason for Rayman to travel about fighting cool monsters and picking up shiny things. Yes, the truth hurts! You do not ‘spend the entire game trying to awaken Polokus’ – you spend it blowing things up and finding collectibles. Polokus does nothing that wasn’t accomplished spontaneously at the end of Rayman 1. I don’t not want an explanation ‘because I want to speculate’; I don’t want one because Polokus is irrelevant to the story of Rayman and the Hoodlums. It’s obvious that he’s unable to combat the Hoodlums, most likely because he’s asleep. I did not need this spelt out for me and neither should you.

YES IT DOES. He did suddenly disappear. He was there at the very end of Rayman 2. He was absent during Rayman 3. Therefore, he suddenly disappeared. It is a pretty bad flaw. Rayman 2 WAS all about Polokus, he WAS a major character. The entire plot is based off of him, you talk to him on a fairly regular basis, all the fighting you do, all the collecting you do, all the travel, every last Teensie you free is to awaken Polokus. The only levels you spend not awakening Polokus are the final two. Polokus is relevant to Rayman and the Hoodlums because he's a major character in Raymans past who is just...gone. Sure, he may be a plot McGuffin, but he still needs a sentence or two explaining his absence. Having him suddenly disappear is like having The One Ring just disappear.

He made those masks specifically so that he could be awakened if the world came under trouble, and I believe that close call with the Heart of the World is trouble. What in the world makes you think he's asleep? Do the games ever say that? Is he right there at the end of R2 with everyone else? Yes, I would very much like this 'spelt out'. This is a pretty major flaw.

I can find solid explanations for any ambiguous element of the story after a couple of minutes’ worth of thought. Ubisoft cannot.

I don't even know what to say about this. Why don't you trust Ubisoft?

Any explanation they attempted to give us regarding Polokus’s absence from Rayman 3 would in all likelihood contradict itself, the games, or both, thus creating plenty of plot holes – actual plot holes this time.

You can think of an explanation so easily, but Ubisoft is just incapable of this?

I never thought of the Force as mysterious, and how it works is something I didn't even think of until the explanation came. But the explanation seemed fine to me. Yes, I think it is better that they explained the Force than not.

Are those seriously your views or are you just saying that they are to diminish my point? Either way, you are in a tiny minority. Almost everyone agrees that the attribution of the Force to bacteria was an appalling miss-step which undermines everything to do with the Star Wars series. Have you heard the fans’ reaction to this very bad explanation? It was overwhelmingly negative. The Force was clearly meant to be spiritual and divine in nature – the ‘lol it was bacteria all along’ revelation is so stupid I don’t even know how to put it into words. The midi-chlorians are an infamously bad idea. You may think it was a stroke of genius for Lucas to pseudo-scientifically explain the Force, but bear in mind that practically everyone disagrees with you, and for good reason. Your ‘All explanations are good no matter how bad they are’ position is not a very defensible one.

I should take this time to mention that my memory of Star Wars, 2001, and Shadow of the Colossus is hazy at best.

Yes, those are seriously my views. I've never heard of anyone disliking the midi-chlorians, but I looked it up, and all I could find was message board threads which basically equated to "Why does everyone hate the midi-chlorians?" "I don't know." Though, I'll take your word for it that I'm part of a minority. I never got the impression that the Force was meant to be spiritual, I got the impression that it was a crazy superpower. I expected an explanation as much as I expected an explanation for why the sun gives Superman superpowers, which is to say the thought didn't even occur to me. Also, you're mistaken about my position. I just want explanations over no explanations. No explanations make the story confusing, and make one feel as if there isn't a story. When a major character like Polokus just vanishes into thin air, I'm annoyed. When there's a bad explanation for this, I say 'okay' and generally forget about it. When there's a really good explanation, I say 'awesome!' and my enjoyment of the plot overall is greater.

Shadow of the Colossus was intentionally vague, you can just tell. The Rayman games have no amazing vagueness, with a story that can be interpreted in multiple ways. It's a story with plot holes, can't you see, there is no way you can compare Rayman to Shadow of the Colossus. You're average Mario game has practically no plot. A lot of things have been left unexplained over the series, but I don't buy the next Mario excited to hear if Peach will get captured this time.

In what way exactly does Shadow of the Colossus benefit from its vagueness that Rayman does not? You have not answered by question. ‘You can just tell’ is not a good answer; I can’t tell. The Rayman games are amazingly vague; take Rayman 1, which is a surreal and abstract LSD trip from start to finish, excepting the intro. The game has practically no story or dialogue between the first level and the last. Shadow of the Colossus has a longer and more dialogue-heavy intro sequence! Why do you tell me I can’t compare the two games? Of course I can. Both are extremely mysterious. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say about the Mario series; does the story not matter because it’s repetitive? Does that compensate for ‘plot holes’ in some way?

You're relation of Rayman and Shadow of the Colossus makes no sense. Literally, I don't get it. Those two underlined sentences seem different as night and day to me, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Rayman 1 lacked a plot almost entirely, it just had an excuse plot before we go off on the adventure. Shadow of the Colossus...I'll explain in a moment, but there's no comparison between Rayman and Shadow of the Colossus, plot wise, and the fact you even suggest it is ridiculous. When you play Rayman 1, plot wise you think "What a silly cartoony plot." When you play Shadow of the Colossus, you think "Was Wander doing the right thing?", among other things.

Nintendo doesn't care about the plot of Mario AT ALL. The only reason they even put cutscenes showing Peach being captured/rescued is homage to the original Super Mario Bros. of legend. Nobody who plays this game cares about plot, nobody who develops this game cares about plot (this is all about the main games, by the way, the RPGs are an entirely different case), is that true about Rayman? No.

What you're saying is that not only does Rayman have a vague plot which leaves itself open for all kinds of juicy interpretation just like Shadow of the Colossus, but that Ubisoft did the whole thing by accident! Hogwash, I say!

Again, could you explain exactly why Shadow of the Colossus has a ‘vague plot’ but Rayman has only ‘plot holes’? And I don’t recall saying that ‘Ubisoft did the whole thing by accident’; I believe I said something along the lines of not giving a damn whether they were doing it deliberately or not, as long as they continue to do it as well as they have thus far.

If Ubisoft created an amazing plot, but not deliberately, they did it by accident, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Intentionally vague=/=plot hole.

So stories that are ‘intentionally vague’ can avoid explaining anything and that’s fine by you, but stories that are not ‘intentionally vague’ must explain every aspect of ambiguity away or it will become a ‘plot hole’? What a silly argument. The writers’ intention is wholly irrelevant; if they attempt to fill every plot hole but somehow fail completely and create an extremely vague and ambiguous story, then that story is worth no less than one planned as such from the outset. Likewise if the writers seek to create a story filled with vagueness and mystery, but they somehow fail spectacularly and end up completely explaining everything, the resulting story needs not be inferior to one which was never intended to be ambiguous.

I get it, I finally get what you're getting at with the Shadow of the Colossus. So, let's pretend for a moment that I'm a writer at Ubisoft. Okay, let's give elements of ambiguity to Rayman Origins.

Episode 1: Rayman is born, and events follow the trailer with him quickly meeting Globox. At this point, a character named Wurv will be introduced. Wurv is in charge of protecting the Heart of the World, and he did an amazing job of it until the Battalion arrived. The Battalion are those gigantic red ants we see in the trailer. Their spears are tipped with the blood of tings, giving the spears the power to pull the red lums right out of someone, literally draining life and healing the attacker. The Batallion defeat Wurv and capture him, then grab the Heart of the World. Rayman and Globox set out on an adventure to rescue Wurv and reclaim the Heart.
Episode 2: Arriving at the Battalion fortress, but complications arrive once Globox goes insane, hallucinating about a being called 'King of Dreams', who convinces Globox to attempt stealing Raymans powers. However, the King of Dreams is more than just a hallucination, for he gives Globox knowledge of black magic to do just that. This episode ends with Rayman captured by the Battalion, powerless.
Episode 3: Rayman meets a bunch of other captives who help him escape. He meets up with Globox, who fights Rayman a bit before being captured by the Battalion. Rayman saves Globox, who no longer has those hallucinations. Rayman starts finding silver lums around this time which slowly return his powers. This episode ends with Globox and Rayman back on the offensive.
Episode 4: Fighting through the Battalion, Rayman and Globox find a large war machine powered by the Heart and defeat it. The explosion breaks the Heart into yellow lums, the episode ending with Rayman and Globox going out to find them.
Episode 5: Rayman meets Murphy, but for some reason doesn't know what the Heart is anymore, requiring an explanation and a lot of mistakes as Rayman rebuilds it. THE END

Lots to speculate about here, just like Shadow of the Colossus! Wonderful!

No. It isn't wonderful, and if you can't see that, I don't even know what to say. A major character disappears into thin air, silver lums for no reason, Rayman just forgets the Heart entirely at one part, etcetra. These are plot holes. These are fun to speculate about, yes. But these are different from Shadow of the Colossus. Entirely, there's no comparison. That's what I mean.

He desires to purge the hoodlums, surely.

At the end of R2, Polokus is there with everyone else, awake, cheering. Why would he go back to sleep?

This is why he went to sleep in the first place. But time has clearly already been created, so he has no reason to continue his slumber.

It’s obvious from Rayman 2 that Polokus’s desires only come true when he’s awake. Otherwise he would have destroyed the Robo-Pirates in his sleep.
Therefore he cannot destroy the Hoodlums without first being awakened. Considering these facts, the implication that he went back to sleep after destroying the Robo-Pirates is clear. We are never told the real reason for his continuing slumber from the beginning of time to the events of Rayman 2; if, as you say, the creation of time is something he had to perform once and was not required to participate in further, then why did he continue to sleep for many years after it had been created? There must be some reason, and we can assume that this is the reason he returned to sleep and the meeting-place of all the gods following the ending of Rayman 2. I have no problem accepting this; if you take issue with any of my logical conclusions, feel free to ask me about them so I can give you a more detailed explanation as to how I arrived at them. PS: What makes you so sure Polokus isn’t already back to sleep during the Rayman 2 ending sequence? If his dreams become reality, there’s no reason why real things can’t interact with his dreams. In this case, Globox, Clark, Ly, Murfy and so on all appear to be inside the dreamworld Polokus inhabited before Rayman woke him up.

This is my theory on the subject, apparently yours too. I think it's a perfectly plausible theory, one which I accept as the reason. But it doesn't matter, because it's all just speculation, never said in the game itself and you need too much of a jump to get there. Despite the fact that I have my own little explanation, I'm still bothered by the lack of an official one, and even if that official one is worse than these theories, I'm still happy because I don't factor in random theories to the story, those theories are an entirely seperate entity.

The absence of Polokus during R3 is a plot hole. It isn't a stroke of genius element that makes you second guess everything, as in Shadow of the Colossus. It's a plot hole. I would much rather have Ubisoft say something like "He didn't create time, remember? He dreamed up the future. He has to go back to sleep, otherwise future events won't happen." This isn't a very good explanation, but it's an explanation, something I'd much prefer to this plot hole.

It’s not a plot hole. There’s nothing about his absence which contradicts any aspect of any Rayman game. Globox is not dying in Rayman Origins here. There are plausible logical reasons why Polokus would not appear in Rayman 3; therefore there is no problem. Stupid contradictions are plot holes; ambiguity is not a plot hole. Not every ambiguity needs to be ‘a stroke of genius element that makes you second-guess everything’; this one is simply an example of everything not being handed to us on a silver platter. I’d prefer the explanation implied by the Knowledge of the World rather than the one you’ve just proposed (which does not make sense to begin with). Perhaps the developers considered inserting an explanation for Polokus’s absence into Rayman 3, but decided against it for some reason, thus leaving the reasons for his absence intentionally vague. Then I suppose you’d be fine with it, since you seem to have no problem with ‘intentional vagueness’. You place far too much focus on the intentions of the writers rather than on the quality of the resulting games themselves.

[/quote]

Yes there is. There are logical reasons, but reasons not touched upon by the game! You have to speculate to make sense of this story! That's horrible! Stupid contradictions are indeed plot holes, ambiguity is indeed not a plot hole, but it's still better than just not explaining things.

By the way, bad explanations are better than none, you're not going to be changing my opinion on this any time soon, now I'm just responding to you.

[iHeckler9]

My god this thread I'm dying

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/ ... 9901004998

Oh god not him again

[Hedgehog673]

What a nagger. Complaining about how bad Ubisoft treat their fans >_>

[spiraldoor]

So you want things to not be explained for no particular reason? I still stand by what I say when I say that bad explanations are better than none. Good explanation>Bad explanation>No explanation. Bad, foolish explanations which remove ambiguity do make the story better, or at least better than it would've been if there were major plot holes, like the absence of Polokus.

Bad explanations are terrible for stories. Lack of explanations can be overlooked or even benefited from. Ambiguity is a positive trait. Globox dying in Rayman Origins would be a plot hole. Polokus not showing up in Rayman 3 is not a plot hole because it would be very easy to substitute some explanation if for some reason you needed one; it can be resolved almost instantly within the mind of the player. Polokus is not present in Rayman 3 because he has gone back to sleep; everyone who cares enough about the story of the series to actually wonder about these things will surely arrive at that conclusion, and everyone else will not give a damn. Everyone should be satisfied by this solution. Something which can be resolved quickly and easily is not a ‘major plot hole’; if a situation was present within the games which could not be logically explained, then it would be a real plot hole in need of some official word.

YES IT DOES. He did suddenly disappear. He was there at the very end of Rayman 2. He was absent during Rayman 3. Therefore, he suddenly disappeared. It is a pretty bad flaw. Rayman 2 WAS all about Polokus, he WAS a major character. The entire plot is based off of him, you talk to him on a fairly regular basis, all the fighting you do, all the collecting you do, all the travel, every last Teensie you free is to awaken Polokus. The only levels you spend not awakening Polokus are the final two. Polokus is relevant to Rayman and the Hoodlums because he's a major character in Raymans past who is just...gone. Sure, he may be a plot McGuffin, but he still needs a sentence or two explaining his absence. Having him suddenly disappear is like having The One Ring just disappear.

I would like to remind you that an indefinite amount of time passes between the events of Rayman 2 and Rayman 3. Polokus does not ‘suddenly disappear’. If Rayman 3 opened immediately after Rayman 2’s ending and was connected more substantially to its plot, you would have a good point. As Rayman 3 has little to do with its predecessor, not all story elements from its predecessor need to be directly resolved. Ly is also absent from Rayman 3, and there are endless possible reasons for this; there is no need for the developers to hand us one strict interpretation of where Ly is and what she’s doing. It’s not a plot hole. You’re overstating Polokus’s significance to Rayman 2; he is every bit as much of an ‘excuse plot’ as the theft of the Great Protoon was. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by the ‘One Ring’ comparison; are you saying Polokus’s absence was like the ring disappearing between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring? Between The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers? The meaning of your comparison varies greatly on the exact moment when the ring hypothetically disappeared. Since both Rayman 2 and The Hobbit are both set a considerable amount of time before their sequels, the former comparison seems more apt. It should also be noted that the ring is a physical object carried constantly by the hero throughout his quest, whereas Polokus as a McGuffin only shows up at the end to save the day before departing from the story.

He made those masks specifically so that he could be awakened if the world came under trouble, and I believe that close call with the Heart of the World is trouble. What in the world makes you think he's asleep? Do the games ever say that? Is he right there at the end of R2 with everyone else? Yes, I would very much like this 'spelt out'. This is a pretty major flaw.

The games imply that the Masks are a one-use-only deal; once they are attached to his pillar, Polokus makes it spin until they vanish. It’s not clear whether he absorbed them or destroyed them or gave them to the baby Globoxes or imbued Rayman with their energy; however, he most definitely did not return the Masks to their Sanctuaries. This can be seen simply by replaying those levels; the Mask pillars are all replaced with Spiral Doors. If the need arose to awaken Polokus once more, where would Rayman find the Masks? Apparently nowhere. The mysterious fate of these mystical Masks is most definitely an appealing element of the story for me. I don’t need a character in Rayman 3 saying ‘You can’t awaken Polokus again to defeat the Hoodlums because the Masks aren’t in the Sanctuaries any more’ or anything similar; that would raise more questions than it answered and draw direct attention to an ambiguous and esoteric aspect of the story in a rather crude way. I think I’ve already clearly explained why I am sure Polokus must be asleep during Rayman 3 already, and why I suspect he was already asleep by the ending sequence of Rayman 2; further explanation would be repetitive. If you think you detect any flaws in my reasoning, I will be happy to clarify for you.

I don't even know what to say about this. Why don't you trust Ubisoft?

You can think of an explanation so easily, but Ubisoft is just incapable of this?

I spend more time thinking about Rayman’s universe than anyone at Ubisoft does. I am a fan. I probably have the most Rayman knowledge of any individual. Most notably, any explanations Ubisoft attempts to come up with for ambiguous aspects of the series would most likely ignore the older Rayman games, whereas explanations of mine would take them into account very strongly. One example is my hypothesis that the Great Protoon is the Heart of the World; this is a very good explanation which makes sense of many of the incongruous and disjointed aspects of the series which were created during the shift to 3D. If Ubisoft attempted to explain the Great Protoon, they would probably not use this idea, but instead retcon the Protoon into being a weaker cosmic keystone subservient to the Heart. It’s better if they don’t even try – that way I can continue to employ my most excellent mythology-improving interpretation.

I should take this time to mention that my memory of Star Wars, 2001, and Shadow of the Colossus is hazy at best.

Yes, those are seriously my views. I've never heard of anyone disliking the midi-chlorians, but I looked it up, and all I could find was message board threads which basically equated to "Why does everyone hate the midi-chlorians?" "I don't know." Though, I'll take your word for it that I'm part of a minority. I never got the impression that the Force was meant to be spiritual, I got the impression that it was a crazy superpower. I expected an explanation as much as I expected an explanation for why the sun gives Superman superpowers, which is to say the thought didn't even occur to me. Also, you're mistaken about my position. I just want explanations over no explanations. No explanations make the story confusing, and make one feel as if there isn't a story. When a major character like Polokus just vanishes into thin air, I'm annoyed. When there's a bad explanation for this, I say 'okay' and generally forget about it. When there's a really good explanation, I say 'awesome!' and my enjoyment of the plot overall is greater.

I watched the original Star Wars trilogy for the first time in several years recently. The way the Force is described essentially makes it sound like the Star Wars universe’s equivalent of God, not a ‘crazy superpower’; turning God into some sort of fungus was an inexplicable move for Lucas to make, and it’s clear from the original films that this is something he made up as he was going along. I don’t see why Superman’s powers were rationalised as ‘coming from the sun’ – does he fly with the power of photosynthesis or something? A rather silly explanation, but at least they didn’t try to explain exactly how he converts sunlight into FTL travel and physical invincibility. Eugh. They should have just said ‘He’s a superhuman alien’ and left it at that. Polokus didn’t just spontaneously disappear for no reason; time passed between Rayman 2 and Rayman 3 and there are plausible reasons as to why he might not be there. My attitude to explanations is inverse to yours: when writers decline to provide explanations, I do not get pissed off at them; I wonder why things happened. If the gaps are interesting then I fill them in for myself. If they aren’t, I forget about them. When writers give bad explanations, I don’t ignore them. I say ‘Why did they tell us that stupid crap? Why didn’t they just leave it up to our imaginations so we could come up with something less dumb?’

Here is an interview with the writer and the producer of Lost. They touch on many of the issues we’ve discussed. You may find what they have to say enlightening, even if you do not watch the programme.

You're relation of Rayman and Shadow of the Colossus makes no sense. Literally, I don't get it. Those two underlined sentences seem different as night and day to me, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Rayman 1 lacked a plot almost entirely, it just had an excuse plot before we go off on the adventure. Shadow of the Colossus...I'll explain in a moment, but there's no comparison between Rayman and Shadow of the Colossus, plot wise, and the fact you even suggest it is ridiculous. When you play Rayman 1, plot wise you think "What a silly cartoony plot." When you play Shadow of the Colossus, you think "Was Wander doing the right thing?", among other things.

I’m not sure why you didn’t understand me; I thought I was being quite clear. My first sentence points out the fact that Rayman 1 has a minimalist story, that there is hardly any dialogue throughout the game, and that most of the plot developments are left open to interpretation, as was the case with Shadow of the Colossus. My second sentence points out the fact that Shadow of the Colossus has a longer intro sequence than Rayman 1; this is significant because almost all of the latter game’s story plays out in the intro. Shadow of the Colossus’s intro sequence also contains more dialogue than Rayman’s; even if we ignore the words of Emon, Wander and Dormin’s conversation alone contains more information than the Magician’s monologue. The comparison between Rayman 1 and Shadow of the Colossus is far from ‘ridiculous’; I will go into more detail if you still do not understand.

Nintendo doesn't care about the plot of Mario AT ALL. The only reason they even put cutscenes showing Peach being captured/rescued is homage to the original Super Mario Bros. of legend. Nobody who plays this game cares about plot, nobody who develops this game cares about plot (this is all about the main games, by the way, the RPGs are an entirely different case), is that true about Rayman? No.

This entire paragraph is composed entirely of generalisations and unwarranted assumptions. You make sweeping statements about the desires and interests of Nintendo and Ubisoft and, more importantly, both the Mario and Rayman fanbases. There are plenty of Mario fans who would like to see an improved story in their games, et cetera.

If Ubisoft created an amazing plot, but not deliberately, they did it by accident, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Again to appear to miss my point. I do not care whether Ubisoft intended for the Rayman games to be ambiguous or not; the only thing which matters is that the games are ambiguous. Never did I say that Ubisoft ‘accidentally’ created an ‘amazing plot’. Regardless of this, such an occurrence would not necessarily be ‘absolutely ridiculous’; I see no reason why an ambiguous and vague story needs to be planned out in detail in order for it to be good. In a manner, that is the point and main appeal of mysterious stories; no one (including the writers) knows the facts, and there may be no official or ‘correct’ interpretation.

I get it, I finally get what you're getting at with the Shadow of the Colossus. So, let's pretend for a moment that I'm a writer at Ubisoft. Okay, let's give elements of ambiguity to Rayman Origins.

Lots to speculate about here, just like Shadow of the Colossus! Wonderful!

No. It isn't wonderful, and if you can't see that, I don't even know what to say. A major character disappears into thin air, silver lums for no reason, Rayman just forgets the Heart entirely at one part, etcetra. These are plot holes. These are fun to speculate about, yes. But these are different from Shadow of the Colossus. Entirely, there's no comparison. That's what I mean.

The problem here is that you’ve fabricated a videogame story synopsis to prove your point, while what you’ve described is nothing like what happens in the actual Rayman games. The absence of a ‘major character’ from a sequel set several years later than the game where said character’s purpose was fulfilled (and which contains substantial evidence indicating what most likely happened to him) is not the same as an important character literally disappearing halfway through a game for no reason at all while his purpose is still unfulfilled. Your ‘Wurv’ example is far, far more egregious than the absence of Polokus from Rayman 3. It is an actual plot hole. The Silver Lums randomly appearing doesn’t strike me as particularly bad; collectibles and power-ups randomly appear all the time throughout the series, and Silver Lums, while rare, would not particularly bother me if they were found in this way; though it would be better to continue the Rayman tradition of receiving powers from fairies. Rayman’s failure to remember the Heart is quite stupid; nothing remotely like this happens in the games as far as I can recall. It would be very easy to give the player this information in some other way. Shadow of the Colossus has no moments comparable to any of your three examples of plot holes.

This is my theory on the subject, apparently yours too. I think it's a perfectly plausible theory, one which I accept as the reason. But it doesn't matter, because it's all just speculation, never said in the game itself and you need too much of a jump to get there. Despite the fact that I have my own little explanation, I'm still bothered by the lack of an official one, and even if that official one is worse than these theories, I'm still happy because I don't factor in random theories to the story, those theories are an entirely seperate entity.

Logical, well-thought-out explanations which are heavily supported by the official material are not ‘random theories’, and the whole point of considering ambiguities is that any explanations are not ‘separate entities’ but real explanations for mysterious story elements. This is not fanfiction, this is logic. I’m fully suported by the game here; there is no big ‘jump’ which needs to be made. If you do not like my explanation, feel free to come up with your own – but bear in mind that it will not be as good as mine, which is as close to the game’s official implications as is possible. You will not get a more ‘official’ explanation than it.

Yes there is. There are logical reasons, but reasons not touched upon by the game! You have to speculate to make sense of this story! That's horrible! Stupid contradictions are indeed plot holes, ambiguity is indeed not a plot hole, but it's still better than just not explaining things.

The logical reasons for Polokus’s absence are not spoonfed to us at any point, but they are clear in Rayman 2, as I have shown several times. The story is already perfectly serviceable without what you call ‘speculating’, but this ‘speculating’ is certainly not ‘horrible’ – it is far more enjoyable, interesting and satisfying than being told authoratively what we are meant to believe and what interpretation is correct.

[Limbless one]

Protoon & Heart of the world:
In my own view both of these look and act differently
The protoon maintains the world's harmony between its people and nature which could mean it balances the good and the bad of things, so when it’s stolen by dark the difference between good and bad becomes unbalanced which creates freaks and hostile characters (although maybe not literally) two of these new creatures being the antitoons and limbless Livingstone’s.
Since the antitoons are just evil and stronger clones of electoons, maybe the protoon can’t create completely new beings maybe it instead just mixes up different species while tampering with their personality thus creating; Antitoons,(small)limbless Livingstone’s, helicopter tail piranhas and maybe even Moskito.

The heart of the world however is the source of all the power and magic in the world (maybe even powering the protoon [which could also explain where the dark caterpillars and other nasty things came from]) without which certain creatures are unable to use their powers including rayman whereas others still keep theirs like the teensie’s and glutes/globoxes since they were (presumably) born with their powers instead of inheriting them like fairies and the limbless/Rays.

Polokus’s disappearance in R3:
Well as we all know the enemies in R3 are the hoodlums. Right .which are also black lums. Yes .but if we take a gander at the origins of polokus we will see that the red, purple, blue and yellow lums formed to make him so when the black lums appear polokus is unable to do anything since he was created by the lums and in reality the black lums are still red lums since they are able to change back.

Rays hoodie in origins:
Err at some point later in the game it is ripped at the front leaving only the back left intact, since ray doesn’t want to throw away his trademark hoodie so he decides to wrap it around his neck as a make shift neckerchief, for his birthday Betilla decides to knit a new hoodie for ray identical to his old which he wears from now on.

Remember all of this is my own view and wild speculations into Ray’s world please don’t start another argument over this theory please guys/girls.

[Sabertooth]

My god this thread I'm dying
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/ ... 9901004998

Well, seeing as Ubisoft isn't the company making this game but a much smaller division, it's no surprise that they haven't addressed its delay.

[Haruka]

Protoon & Heart of the world:
In my own view both of these look and act differently

I don't think they look so different at all. If you compare them the colour of the glass is the same and there is also energy glowing inside. It is true that it isn't officially confirmed that both objects are the same or not, but I believe they are the same object. After Mr. Dark stealing the Great Protoon we never more see it, neither in Rayman 2 (despite of the Heart of the World/Primordial Core being mentioned, including in the manual) but we see it in Rayman 3. The Robo-Pirates destroyed it in Rayman 2. Perhaps it was rebuilt in the shape we see in the Fairy Council, or it could be the Great Protoon inside the Heart of the World, working as a nucleum.

Polokus’s disappearance in R3:

Polokus' appearance wasn't necessary at all. The Hoodlums invasion to the Glade of Dreams was much less serious than the Robo-Pirates by far. The Pirates were spread in a huge number for the entire world, with forts, machines, war-ships and ammo everywhere. The Pirates were able to destroy the Heart of the World. Fortuneatly neither André or the Hoodlums achieved that. The Robo-Pirates invasion was an emergency, Rayman couldn't do all by himself.

Rays hoodie in origins:

That's just a visual detail, it doesn't have great matter. In RRR1(DS) and RRR2 (DS) Rayman's 3D model was R2's one; while the artwork was the nowadays Rayman.

[Limbless one]

Yeah I know that my theorys are a little farfetched compared to others but like I say it's just my own opinion on things.

[spiraldoor]

Protoon & Heart of the world:
In my own view both of these look and act differently

I don't think they look so different at all. If you compare them the colour of the glass is the same and there is also energy glowing inside. It is true that it isn't officially confirmed that both objects are the same or not, but I believe they are the same object. After Mr. Dark stealing the Great Protoon we never more see it, neither in Rayman 2 (despite of the Heart of the World/Primordial Core being mentioned, including in the manual) but we see it in Rayman 3. The Robo-Pirates destroyed it in Rayman 2. Perhaps it was rebuilt in the shape we see in the Fairy Council, or it could be the Great Protoon inside the Heart of the World, working as a nucleum.

We should also remember that many aspects of Rayman 1 have been retconned by the later games – if they can give limbs to Betilla and the Livingstones, then they can certainly alter the appearance of a magical glowing orb. Things often change for no apparent reason over the course of a series, though it helps that the story has a built-in explanation for why the Heart and the Protoon look different.

[Haruka]

We should also remember that many aspects of Rayman 1 have been retconned by the later games – if they can give limbs to Betilla and the Livingstones, then they can certainly alter the appearance of a magical glowing orb. Things often change for no apparent reason over the course of a series, though it helps that the story has a built-in explanation for why the Heart and the Protoon look different.

That also reminds me the different design that the Livingstones have got in the Game Boy Advance's version of Rayman Raving Rabbids. There isn't also a reason for the design change.

[Jewish Candy]

D'aaaaaw... how cute. The blog is asking us to wait. Don't worry Ubiart folks, it's only the Gloons of this world that are mad at ya.
Nice of them to update, I must say.

[MLII]

I do not want Globox to die in Rayman Origins so I can get off on theorising about how he came back to life.

...This probably wasn't your intention but I actually fell off my bed laughing at this. xD

[Haruka]

D'aaaaaw... how cute. The blog is asking us to wait. Don't worry Ubiart folks, it's only the Gloons of this world that are mad at ya.
Nice of them to update, I must say.

I've commented something in the blog.

At least they had the caution of asking the blog followers to wait for 2011.

[Hedgehog673]

Oyayz, finally a proof that the game is still up and going

[Nannerb3]

Just saw the last few posts.... I thought I finally found out something interesting.

[spiraldoor]

We should all make sure to post plenty of positive and encouraging comments. No more whingeing about how much we want a PC version. We want UbiArt to know that their updates are greatly appreciatied; giving them a reason to block everyone from commenting again is the last thing we want to do.

[Sabertooth]

...or it could be the Great Protoon inside the Heart of the World, working as a nucleum.

Holy crap, that's a way better idea. The Protoon is in that hole in the middle of the room, and its power is so great that it illuminates the area around it, making it look much bigger.

And I'm glad the blog has finally acknowledged the delay. It's good to see that UbiArts doesn't truly hate us.

Also,

We should also remember that many aspects of Rayman 1 have been retconned by the later games – if they can give limbs to Betilla and the Livingstones, then they can certainly alter the appearance of a magical glowing orb. Things often change for no apparent reason over the course of a series, though it helps that the story has a built-in explanation for why the Heart and the Protoon look different.

Continuity Drift.

[Nannerb3]

We should all make sure to post plenty of positive and encouraging comments. No more whingeing about how much we want a PC version. We want UbiArt to know that their updates are greatly appreciatied; giving them a reason to block everyone from commenting again is the last thing we want to do.

Yeah...
I'm just glad the site wasn't completely shut down, and the fact that it comes out in 2011 was confirmed, so that's good.

[Skaarj]

im happy that they didnt cancelled it,really it was supposed to be launch now,but they change the launch date,at least it will not happen like jazz jackrabbit 3(i must stop thinking about it) and duke nukem forever,no wait,gearbox is making it,thanks you gearbox