Gennaroc- All 4 games have the same stylistic choices on thier forest level, as proven by your picture. Nice try :V
spiraldoor wrote:You are placing far too much emphasis on the aesthetics of the environments and not enough on the tone of the games. Rayman 3 relied heavily on slapstick humour and crude jokes; in this sense it was quite a dissonant continuation. The game tried too hard to be ‘hip’ and ‘cool’, with all the self-referential silliness that brings. Rayman 2 was serious in tone and had a much stronger story; it was the sort of immersive experience in which the player could lose themselves. Rayman 3 seldom approached this trance-like feel.
Stronger story?
Excuse me while I laugh all the way to the bank with Nintendos money
Rayman 2 has a limp wristed story with horribly wet characters who did nothing but moan about how they needed rescuing. There's nothing epic about the story they had to tell and it's full of wasted potential. This isn't to say Rayman 3's story was any better, the only real difference was that Rayman 3 didn't pretend to be anything deeper than it actually was. It's essentially just rayman's bad fur day. I also hate this notion that serious=good, which is complete bullshit. Rayman one is just a slapstick and silly, I don't see why it gets such a harsh reception for essentially returning rayman to his fun, platforming roots. I couldn't lose myself in Rayman 2 in the same way I could with Okami, Mario Galaxy 2 or pshychonauts. It just hasn't happened to me in all my attempts at replaying it on the many different systems. All I've managed to gather is that people were obviously very impressed by something they hadn't seen before, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's been improved upon vastly everywhere else now.
]I disagree. As you are probably aware, Rayman 3’s critical reception was not as warm as that of Rayman. You never see R3 on lists of the greatest games of all time. There’s a reason for that. Those who enjoy the series generally do not like the third instalment as much as the previous two. In spite of the limitations of the hardware the developers had to work with, I think Rayman 2 managed to capture a peculiar atmosphere which makes it uniquely endearing, whereas Rayman 3 was dragged down by its dissonant tone and (in some ways) its combat-centric gameplay. While I don’t deny R3’s graphical superiority or environmental diversity, that game was not of R2’s calibre.
That's a pretty big dollop of snobbery your adhereing to here. I know for a fact Rayman 3 has a decent following and you're essentially disowning the idea that anyone should have ever enjoyed it. R2 has no calibre, it's a lackluster game that just doesn't even hold a candle to anything I've played before or after it. I'll never understand why it gets the reception it does. Is it because of nostalgia? Is it because of its complete lack of trying to be endearing through dialogue and is therefore a completely superficial experience? I'm going with the latter entirely. R3 is not a great game, but in comparison to R2, I had a lot more fun playing it.
I would not criticise Ancel for calling Rayman 3 ‘concrete’; he specifically said that it was too concrete for his own tastes, and that he himself would have made it differently, meaning that he is simply giving his personal opinion rather than passing judgement. He also said that he was unwilling to comment further, or something to that effect; it’s not as if he launched into a scathing rant against the game. It should also be noted that he had planned to incorporate R3 characters such as André into Rayman 4, meaning that he does not wish to ignore the game and that he accepts it as a continuation of the series he created. The Hoodlums were only superficially and partly based on Mr Dark. I am not sure what you mean by ‘purists’. You raise an interesting point about the translation; what is the French word for ‘concrete’, and does it have any other meanings?
Here's the beautiful irony of all this- he says that, and he not only makes a game that is very concrete, even in comparison to Rayman 3, but then he makes a game afterwards, rayman origins, that looks and acts much more like Rayman 3, which is in turn more like rayman 1. After his endorsing the rabbids, I don't think he even knows what his opinion on the subject is :V
Did it occur to you that maybe he doesn’t think Rayman 3 is as good as the other games, and that when he was asked what he thought of it, he answered truthfully? I don’t see any need to create conspiracy theories about his resentment at the developers creating a game without him. Hypocrisy? Or maybe he thinks ‘concrete’ is a construction material suitable for action-adventure games but not for fantastical platformers?
I wouldn't even had questioned it if he'd not been a hypocrite. And now you're saying concrete is something that platformers can't be? It's that kind of narrow minded thinking that's bogged down platformers for decades. Have you never played psychonauts, de blob, sly cooper, jak 2, ratchet and clank, or for that matter, rayman 3? They're more proof of how versatile the genre can be if given the chance. Unfortunately people tend to look only to Mario and Rayman 2- two very superficial titles that, while they offer reasonably solid gameplay, are completely lacking in any wit, soul, or inspiration. They are the epitome of the uninspired platformer, and represent the masses of knock offs that directly copied them.
