Rayman Legends

[Master]

Are you getting it for the Wii U, then?

[Bradandez]

It's almost like Clippy:
"It appears you suck playing this level, wanna call it quits, ya big loser?"

That made me chuckle.

[Rayrobi]

I think it is time for me to write my review about Rayman Legends. Now that i have played a lot more with it, I had time to think about the game and what to tell about it.

Rayman Legends is truly the biggest game of the entire franchise, and maybe that's it's greatest advantage. There are many levels in the game, 43 normal levels, 28 Invasions, 12 musical maps, and 40 remastered Origins levels. Lets first talk about these.

The levels
The worlds are really similar to the ones in Rayman Origins however, but there is much variety in the levels in each individual world. I really liked the new gameplay elements, like Murfy eating cake, or the stealth action in 20000 Lums Under the Sea. The invasions were pretty fun because i always felt i need to do a better run, and it was fun to replay these again and again, especially by having my brother in the game too. The music levels were pretty neat, I liked every one of them, Eye of the Tiger is the one i replayed the most, i really like its music and the gamplay. The Origins levels were sometimes really the same as in the original game, but on the other half is pretty much remastered ( Swinging Caves is a perfect example, it felt much more detailed than any other in my opinion ). What i really liked in these levels in Origins is that they were challenging, and so were they fun, but in Legends the difficulty radically decreased in some levels, especially the Tricky Treasures, and it was just too easy to reach the end. The levels where you can rescue the princesses were something i didn't get, mainly you rescue a princess by completing a level which doesn't even contain the princess or such, it is just dull. However the openness of the game was a great thing, you don't have to complete the levels after each other, but you can select between them and the worlds freely.

Gameplay and Story
It was a real disappointment for me to see Legends lacked a story even more than Origins did. I could easily understand the the nightmares multiplied, 5 Dark Teensies suddenly appeared, they seem to lead these nightmares, but that's it. Rayman Origins, however didn't really have a story either, but rescuing the nymphs and obtaining powers, saving the four kings, sometimes talking with the Magician using his hat gave it a little feeling that it might contain a story. In Legends, there is no such thing, it sorta feels like Rayman Jungle Run, because your main goal is to catch many lums and rescue all of the teensies, and that is it. There is no such extra in any level, like the nymphs or the Magician's hat. Why i dislike it is because the previous Rayman games had great stories, and i was missing this from this game.

The cup system in Rayman Legends is a great thing, you can show off how many cups you got, you can get higher and higher in Awesomeness ranks, and then there are the leaderboards, so you can see how you rank against other people. However i do not get this lucky ticket system. Basically the fact that you can win Teensies(!) and TONS of lums by scratching them, Ubisoft is really thinking big, but what is with you can earn 150000 lums for rescuing all the teensies, or 30000 for completing the Living Dead Party, or the 10000-25000 lums you would get for diamond cups in the challenges? And 1.000.000 lums to unlock Rayomz is too many.

The online challenges introduced a new style of gameplay. You can race against people, and earn more cups and it's fun. However the challenges feel repetitive after some time, as there are only 5 levels and 5 game modes.

The murfy gameplay
It is something really new, cool, but poorly done at the same time. I had time to play both of the versions, so i have experienced that Murfy's AI works far more better than the character's AI does. If you play on PSVita/Wii U, you can not only move platforms, but interact with lums, tickle enemies, interact with things in the background, like spiders, squirrels, bugs so you can earn extra lums. The touch based gameplay and rotating the controller/PSVita to advance really sounds cool, if it wasn't for the dumb AI, who doesn't know what it should do sometimes. For example, if there is a death pit, and he slides off the wall, he doesn't do a wall jump, instead he slowly slides into death, and it intentionally does not collect lums a few times, and if you do something wrong with Murfy, like sliding a platform to its place, the AI can easily die even if the next platform is close and he could easily fly there. Sure there is no problem if you play in co-op ( however, it is really a dumb decision and a waste of money to buy another PSVita only to play 2 player co-op, basically you buy another controller for more than $200 (-.-") ).In Xbox 360 or PS3 versions however, Murfy's AI is pretty much well done, and you can concentrate on playing with the character rather than with Murfy, which is far better, and of course, any of the players can control him. There is only a little amount of times when he does not do something right, but most of the times, he's working well.

Graphics and Music
These are what i really don't have any critics for. The gorgeous music really fits in with the beatifully drawn environments, this is what i like the most in the game. The game looks so neat and realistic. There are so many nice songs in the game and it is great to listen to them while you play.

Verdict
I said before, that Rayman Legends is the best Rayman game ever made. I guess i have gotten to think about it enough, to say that it is a great Rayman game, but not the best one in the franchise. It has great art style, beautiful musics, it has so many levels, the fun kung-foot minigame, and the online challenges, but the fact that it lacks even a minor story, and the gameplay and its elements are the downsides of this game.

Score: 82/100

[El Dango]

That's right!

[sonicbrawler182]

However, the main problem with Legends wouldn't be solved yet if it wasn't so fast, because it just doesn't have the adventuring spirit the games once had. This is the difference between games like Journey and Rayman 2, and games like Rayman Legends. Both Journey and Rayman 2 were adventures - "journeys". Like you said, in Journey, half of the game's story is supposed to be the experience you have, alone or with companions. It's a journey, the focus of the game lies on that journey, the title emphasizes it, and like Rayman 2 all elements of the game work together to give you the feeling that you're actually on a journey! In Rayman Legends, the elements that can make the game feel like an adventure - those that can create the right atmosphere - are all lacking:
The visuals are pretty, detailed and sometimes create an interesting world but with a few exceptions, they are all things we've already seen. For example, too many games and movies show us castles, so why did they have to put us in a completely generic-looking castle again? I would have loved a more stylized castle. Put some feeling into it man!
The music is well-made, but just like the visuals lack feeling, so does the music. Christophe Héral is a good composer, but it's saddening to see his talent partly go to waste in my eyes as his music is often forced to be loud and fast-paced. This is very noticeable, as the Toad Story music (Lost in the Clouds, which didn't even make it into the game, and Ray and the Beanstalk) which is the only slow music in the game, is suddenly full of feeling.
The coherent worlds have been traded for incoherent levels.
No man, there is no mythos, no matter what you say.
The story's too generic and needs a bit more focus, even if it's not that good.

I'll just answer to this part as it's all I need.
On the atmosphere thing, I don't care what an easily editable online dictionary tells you. Since forever, atmosphere has simply meant the overall vibe a place gives off. It never has specifically referred to calmness or gloominess or anything like that. That's why you will always hear people say, for example, that a concert has a "lively, noisy, and busy atmosphere". I can list tons of examples of common uses of the word. So no, atmosphere does not, and never has, referred specifically to blue feelings.

Who are you to tell me that Rayman Legends doesn't feel like an adventure? If for some reason you felt that, then whatever. But it's hardly a fact. I was overflowing with adventurous spirit as I played Legends. More so than in Rayman 2, actually. Because in Rayman 2, Rayman is a polite, obedient hero who listens to what Ly and others tell him to do all of the time. This shoehorns a particular persona into my head, and so I feel less like I'm adventuring, and more like I'm being a lapdog (not that I dislike Rayman's personality in Rayman 2, but it really does make everything in the game feel very forced. The fact that HIS world is in danger, and that the game establishes why he personally cares about most characters, are the only two things that save him from feeling like a generic obedient hero). At least in Legends, Rayman's personality is more free, and I don't feel like I am doing the things I am because I have to help Rayman save his friends. In Legends, I didn't need a story excuse to want to care about playing these levels, the levels were just so interesting and varied (without feeling incoherent) that it was all I needed to get raring to venture through them (it also helped that the level design was consistently perfect). However, in Rayman 2, I didn't find myself raring to get to the next level - I found myself raring to get to the next cutscene. I didn't want to write a new chapter of MY personal ADVENTURE, like in Legends. I simply wanted to see the next part of Rayman's QUEST. And that's the key difference - Rayman 2 is a quest. A means to an end.
Rayman Legends is an adventure. The game never has to end, because it doesn't have such a definitive quest as it's focus. As long as I enjoy the locations and the feeling of either trotting or blazing through them, I can always have fun with them. And in Legends, I don't even have to be Rayman, I have other avatars to choose from, ones that I may feel better represent myself (though I do think a character creator would of improved this aspect even more). Rayman 2 does not have that quality, because it's a quest. It's the kind of game I will only play every year or so, because it needs time to feel fresh again. And I don't even have to boot up the game to get the full immersion of Rayman's quest, I just have to find the cutscenes on Youtube. Legends is a game I have literally booted up everyday since I bought it. And I assure you I will not stop anytime soon.

And you are talking about Rayman 2 as if it's an open world game, but it isn't. Much like Legends, the levels are very linear, with very small hallways worth of a detour (I haven't played Rayman Revolution to know how much more open it is, but it's unfair to compare a revised game, that had numerous versions prior to it to look back on and refine, such as Revolution, to a first time release like Legends). Secrets are not that hard to find at all in Rayman 2. They aren't in Legends either, but don't damage control by trying to make Rayman 2 seem more open ended than it is.

Though I'm going to stop here, because honestly, points like this are best left to reviews of the games. I plan to do a Rayman Retrospective when I get my YouTube account off of hiatus. So I will save my points for that.

I won't reply to you if you reply. I'm sure you have points to make after reading this...though please keep in mind that I do understand your side of the coin, it's just I honestly do not want to get into habit of writing essays on a forum again to cover every single little detail of a discussion.
Though I think both Rayman 2 and Rayman Legends are masterpieces, just for different reasons. I prefer Rayman Legends overall as the gameplay was simply more fun and refined to me, the worlds had more variety, it's variety in atmospheres was greater, and it had greater feeling of adventure. Though Rayman 2 accomplishes other things better than Legends does. And I do want to play Revolution ASAP to see if it rivals Legends more than the original versions of Rayman 2.

In all honesty, the perfect Rayman game would combine the best aspects of both Rayman 2 and Rayman Legends, IMO.

[Earth Gwee]

Kinda random. I made a thing: http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/ ... 6o3lt4.png Pretty much what I thought that one scruffy-looking silhouette of Rayman would look like. If anyone remembers that.

He's got a nose on his nose! Great drawing though

One's for showin', one's for blowin'.

[OCG]

Are you getting it for the Wii U, then?

The price seems a bit high for my taste, plus I am not sure which region of console to get and when will purchase be done.

[TheTempurmental]

sonicbrawler182, I gotta say, I love how you debate! It's just very fair and doesn't sound mean-spirited, which is hard to accomplish when arguing on the internet.

[Bradandez]

I just passed 900,000 Lums! Almost there!

[sergiomonty]

Thanks to sonicbrawler182's argument, I think I prefer RL over R2 now...woah. R1 is still on top, though.

[OCG]

Sonic had really good argument. Although I still prefer R2, he did make me appreciate RL more.

[Bradandez]

I kinda preferred Legends over 2 to be honest.

[Haruka]

My ranking still keeps like this: Rayman 2 > Rayman 1 > Rayman 3 > Rayman Legends > Rayman Origins.

[Henchman1028]

My ranking still keeps like this: Rayman 2 > Rayman 1 > Rayman 3 > Rayman Legends > Rayman Origins.

For me, its: Rayman 3 > Rayman 2 > Rayman 1 > Rayman Legends > Rayman Origins

[spiraldoor]

My ranking still keeps like this: Rayman 2 > Rayman 1 > Rayman 3 > Rayman Legends > Rayman Origins.

Same here, except for the positions of the first two, but it's a close call.

[Haruka]

The first two titles are definitely my favourites, but I still have a larger preference for R2, despite of R1 being a pretty good game, but then, one game is 3D and other is 2D, it makes comparasion a bit unfair and complicated.

[OCG]

For me:
Rayman 1 > Rayman 2 > Rayman Legends > Rayman Origins > Rayman 3
When new game comes it will most likely be on third place and others will just move one place aside. Origins was my third favourite until Legends came.

[sonicbrawler182]

I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion on any of the games at all, I'm just trying to express my own in a way that seems at least somewhat justified and logical. I feel like I especially have to do so when criticising games like Rayman 1 and Rayman 2 because I'm well aware of how so many people consider those two games holy grails (not just within RPC, but just in general). I also dislike when debating over things like "I like x game better than y game" becomes heated, as I think there is no reason for it to be. Sure, I'll call bullshit when I see it, like when someone says an objectively bad game is objectively good (such as Sonic '06), or vice versa, but even then I would keep it fairly mild-mannered. And in the case of Rayman 2 VS Rayman Legends, both games are objectively masterpieces (and objectively do certain things better than the other), so deciding which one is your favourite is merely a matter of preference, and whether or not you pick up on certain things between the two games (this is why I am open to other opinions on Rayman 2, because maybe people could help me realise certain things about that would make me like it EVEN more. This is also why I plan to eventually play every version of Rayman 2, because they are all so different).

Like I said before, I want to do a Rayman Retrospective sometime in the future on my Youtube channel, as the franchise deserves such a dedicated study. My opinions on the main games will be better expressed there, in more detail, and with visuals to back up what I am saying. Hopefully I can do it one day.

[Droolie]

Sonicbrawler182 - you debate well, but your arguments are fundamentally flawed. Some of it is justified and logical as you say, but some of it is not.
I'll try to point out some of those flaws, but honestly, I don't want to write essays either. So I'll let this be the last one. I might write short replies later, but those walls of text are really getting quite annoying for me (and I think for everyone else too).

Before replying to this, it would be great if you could read all the posts I and others have written about this so far, incuding my very first "review" and the similar debate I had with sergio. Maybe that way, we can avoid having to repeat the same arguments.

On the atmosphere thing, I don't care what an easily editable online dictionary tells you. Since forever, atmosphere has simply meant the overall vibe a place gives off. It never has specifically referred to calmness or gloominess or anything like that. That's why you will always hear people say, for example, that a concert has a "lively, noisy, and busy atmosphere". I can list tons of examples of common uses of the word. So no, atmosphere does not, and never has, referred specifically to blue feelings.

I was never referring specifically to blue feelings, calmness or gloominess. To the contrary, happiness is one of the best feelings you can get, and Rayman Legends is an incredibly happy game. However, in my eyes, it's a shame that it is always happy, even when the game is supposed to feel I can illustrate this with the bosses: whether I was fighting the dragon, the armoured toad or the giant luchador, I never felt any sense of danger because the developers tried to make everything look so hilarious. I personally didn't find it funny and was merely annoyed by it - but even if you are charmed by the humour, don't you agree that the rest of the feelings in the game aren't very strong?

Granted, I did feel the thrills of danger while fighting the bosses of 20,000 Lums Under the Sea (especially this one) and Olympus Maximus. It seemed to me like the tension was building up in those worlds in general, which was great - only to have it be temporarily broken down by the overly crazy and inappropriate music in the Amazing Maze. Sigh.

In short, in Rayman Legends, the main feeling that's being conveyed is happiness/liveliness. 20,000 Lums Under the Sea and especially Olympus Maximus feel dangerous too. Some hard levels made you feel epic when you were totally owning them. There are debatably more feelings in the game, but those are either very weak (like the slightly macabre atmosphere in Fiesta de los Muertos) or very forgettable. However...

I prefer Rayman Legends overall as the gameplay was simply more fun and refined to me, the worlds had more variety, it's variety in atmospheres was greater, and it had greater feeling of adventure.

... the variety of feelings in Rayman 2 was quite a bit greater.

Just like in Olympus Maximus, there was the feeling of danger. In Rayman 2, however, it was spread better over the whole game, while also building up near the end. First you got the threat of the Robo-Pirates (which were harder to defeat and thus more threatening than the default enemies in Rayman Legends), the mythical guardians of the masks, the sanctuaries which were full of traps, the lava, the bombs. Near the end, it also built up with the Prison Ship, which was great, like the buildup in Olympus Maximus.
But what made it seem more dangerous was the music, which actually conveyed the feeling that you had to be on your guard, contrary to Rayman Legends. This made it all more effective. Did anything in Rayman Legends feel as dangerous as Jano's chase?

There was sadness, in the beginning of the game when Rayman was captured and at the end of the game when Rayman was thought to have died.
There was mystery, in the Sanctuaries and the Cave of Bad Dreams.
There was the same epic feeling you get in Rayman Legends, in the Precipice.
There were some creepy moments: the Creepy Castle was nothing compared to the Tomb of the Ancients.
There were shocking moments, like when you had to fight Clark.
There were even heartwarming moments, like when Rayman told Globox that he was afraid of the Robo-Pirates too.
And there were moments when you could really feel like you discovered some things, like when you discovered the sunken warship in the Whale Bay.

All these feelings that are absent in Rayman Legends are exactly why Rayman Legends objectively can't compare to Rayman 2 as an adventure.

Who are you to tell me that Rayman Legends doesn't feel like an adventure? If for some reason you felt that, then whatever. But it's hardly a fact.

You're right, it isn't a fact. Rayman Legends can feel like an adventure to some. But the greater variety of feelings in Rayman 2 (and its story) made it easier for anyone to imagine they were really on an adventure rather than just playing a game. That is simply how imagination works. When you feel something, you are inspired to put that feeling into your own story. The stronger the feeling, the stronger that inspiration. I can imagine the story you wrote for Rayman Legends was quite lighthearted, seeing as the atmosphere was like that most of the time.

I was overflowing with adventurous spirit as I played Legends. More so than in Rayman 2, actually. Because in Rayman 2, Rayman is a polite, obedient hero who listens to what Ly and others tell him to do all of the time. This shoehorns a particular persona into my head, and so I feel less like I'm adventuring, and more like I'm being a lapdog (not that I dislike Rayman's personality in Rayman 2, but it really does make everything in the game feel very forced. The fact that HIS world is in danger, and that the game establishes why he personally cares about most characters, are the only two things that save him from feeling like a generic obedient hero).
At least in Legends, Rayman's personality is more free, and I don't feel like I am doing the things I am because I have to help Rayman save his friends.

Rayman is just doing the good thing like he always has, and Ly and the others are just there to tell you what the good thing is. They're not ordering you around, they're helping you in your quest. Let's say Ly didn't do that. Wouldn't Rayman be pretty dumb if he just went around destroying all the pirates in the Glade instead of letting a god help him by bringing him the 4 masks? The latter sounds more doable to me.
Even if you don't like it, Rayman is just doing what Polokus and Murfy tell him in Rayman Legends - just without any text as they decided to have very little dialogue in the game. If he was that free, he would still be asleep along with the others.

At least in Legends, Rayman's personality is more free, and I don't feel like I am doing the things I am because I have to help Rayman save his friends.

Your Rayman sounds like an egoist.

In Legends, I didn't need a story excuse to want to care about playing these levels, the levels were just so interesting and varied (without feeling incoherent)...

I gave an example of a really incoherent level in my personal review. I gave an example of really incoherent atmosphere throughout a world after the first quote in this post (the Amazing Maze). Here's another: Gloo Gloo is completely out of place in 20,000 Lums Under the Sea. It would fit in the Sea of Serendipity though.

... that it was all I needed to get raring to venture through them (it also helped that the level design was consistently perfect). However, in Rayman 2, I didn't find myself raring to get to the next level - I found myself raring to get to the next cutscene. I didn't want to write a new chapter of MY personal ADVENTURE, like in Legends. I simply wanted to see the next part of Rayman's QUEST. And that's the key difference - Rayman 2 is a quest. A means to an end.

I guess I can't argue with that. Rayman 2 is the type of game where your personal adventure is the same as Rayman's quest. Your personal adventure ends up enhancing the official story so that it's even more interesting than it is on its own. An example of this is the discovery of the warship in the Whale Bay. You might imagine that it ended up there after you damaged it in the Canopy, and that Rayman would go in there and get rid of the remaining Robo-Pirates, but it's not part of the official story. Sure, you don't have as much freedom to shape your own adventure, but the overall quality of the adventure is better and you end up enjoying the game more, in my opinion.

And you are talking about Rayman 2 as if it's an open world game, but it isn't. Much like Legends, the levels are very linear, with very small hallways worth of a detour (I haven't played Rayman Revolution to know how much more open it is, but it's unfair to compare a revised game, that had numerous versions prior to it to look back on and refine, such as Revolution, to a first time release like Legends). Secrets are not that hard to find at all in Rayman 2. They aren't in Legends either, but don't damage control by trying to make Rayman 2 seem more open ended than it is.

Quote one part of my post(s) that implied that Rayman 2 was an open-world game. The levels are mostly linear. They are, however, more open than Rayman Legends, simply because the passages worthy of detour are longer. Probably the most open level in Rayman Legends, the Mansion of the Deep, is less open than part 1 of the Echoing Caves. To add to that, levels like the Whale Bay, the Sanctuary of Stone and Fire, and the Fairy Glade were both more open and a lot longer than the Rayman Legends levels. My conclusion is that the openness of Rayman Legends is objectively under 25% of Rayman 2's openness.
As for the length of the games, even though there are more levels in Rayman Legends, the length of both games is about the same, thanks to Rayman 2's longer levels and the fact that you can just rush through them in Legends, while still collecting everything.
Instead of just watching the cutscenes again, it might be a good idea to watch some gameplay on YouTube and remember what the actual game was like, how open and how big it was compared to Rayman Legends.

Rayman Legends is an adventure. The game never has to end, because it doesn't have such a definitive quest as it's focus. As long as I enjoy the locations and the feeling of either trotting or blazing through them, I can always have fun with them.

The same counts for Rayman 2. Even though the game has ended, you can still enjoy the levels. I guess the levels are too long and too open to blaze through though, so they might last a little too long and you might get tired of them if you've played it too much.

And in Legends, I don't even have to be Rayman, I have other avatars to choose from, ones that I may feel better represent myself (though I do think a character creator would of improved this aspect even more). Rayman 2 does not have that quality, because it's a quest.

I guess I agree for the multiple characters, which fits in a story-free game like Rayman Legends. I personally prefer Rayman though - he's got some nice colours. He's also the original character of the series so his design is simply the best of all the options in Rayman Legends.
I would hate to have multiple characters in a Rayman game with a story though - the story would have to establish a different personality for each character and the player would have to connect with each of the characters, which would make it a bit messy.

Legends is a game I have literally booted up everyday since I bought it.

If you bought it more than a week ago, then wow.

I'm not trying to change anyone's opinion on any of the games at all.

Nonsense, a debate is exactly so you can change other people's opinions. Writing those walls of text would be pointless if it was only for yourself.

I'm just trying to express my own in a way that seems at least somewhat justified and logical. I feel like I especially have to do so when criticising games like Rayman 1 and Rayman 2 because I'm well aware of how so many people consider those two games holy grails.

I actually have lots of criticism for Rayman 1, 2 and 3 too. They are far from my favourite games, but they are good games. I really don't like it when people get confused in their temporary excitement and say completely false things about Rayman Legends though, like it having a greater variety of atmosphere or it being more open than Rayman 2. Those statements are not opinions, they are facts that are either true or false. And in this case, I hope I proved that they are false.

[Rulez]

A "ROSE",

What? Does that make the drummer of Muse a Howard? Does that make the creators of Gorillaz an Albarn and a Hewlett? Am I a Chmiel? Do they make beer out of me??