I've downloaded and tried out the demo of Rayman Origins for the Nintendo 3DS after arriving home from school.
I'm disappointed with the demo. Really.
Lets start with the 3DS Menu three-dimensional image/animation: Rayman Origins logo with the 4 main characters around it with a quality similar to someone that grabbed Microsoft Paint and did copy paste while saving in JPEG format. The sound you listen is nothing more nothing less than a Rayman Origins Rayman "Yay!". I was hopping a better introduction image.
Then I open the game. The video of Ubisoft's logo had an echoing music, like if it was playing two 3DSs at the same time but one with miliseconds of delay.
The loading screen isn't the animated logo, but just a static and pixelized logo with the yellow smiling face rotating. The loading took a little to perform.
Then the shock comes when I see the main menu... but hoping this wasn't the same in the demo levels. Two of the three levels aren't the same ones as in the HD/PC demos.
- Swinging Caves
Playing in the Shade (Instead of Aim for the Eel!)
Shooting me Softly (Instead of Murray of the Deep)
Before playing a level, it is shown a table with the control buttons:
Move: Analog Stick or D-Pad
Attack/Inhale: Y or X
Jump/Shooting: B or A
Run: L or R
I started to play the Swinging Caves. I almost had a collapse: I saw VERY pixelized graphics, horribly blurry and without big detail. You barely see the Lums and the Skull Coins in the screen of how small they look (and pixelized), and you struggle to land in the water lilies due to their size. The control buttons symbols look ridiculously pixelized too. It is an insult to see graphics like this knowing the real quality of them. I do think the 3DS graphics look worse by far than the Wii ones. I don't know if the capacities of the 3DS couldn't give a little more graphical detail but if not, I'm really shocked.
The 3D effect was also disappointing for me. I was hoping to see stronger 3D effects of the background, the gameplay background, the characters in there and the background more close to us. It just gives a little deepness in the further background but nothing else.
While Vita players can use the screen (touch compactible) to catch Lums, in the touch screen of the 3DS version you... have a schematic "map" with a medalion with the face of your character that shows how far you are from the end of the level (and when you replay it, you see the Electoon cages schematic location, aswell for the catched Skull Coins), marked with a cross. Right: no interaction with the touch screen guys! Nothing! It is true the gameplay screen in the 3DS isn't the same one of the touch screen, but couldn't they have thought in something? Unless the full version has got exclusive 3DS content that uses the touch screen capacities but I highly doubt. I'll remind that Rayman DS and Rayman 3D have got the same issue of the touch screen interaction. (I know, Rayman DS had the stylus control, but really, who ever used this? Especially right-handers?)
The framerate is terrible, terrible, terrible. It often goes slow motion especially when you try to do fast moves (Try to imagine the Time Attacks now). For a game that requires control precision, this framerate (that I would say it gets cutted to 30FPS often instead of running smooth) is not funny at all. Instead of helping, it distracts and makes the player calculating bad the moves and react late while trying to see if the framerate goes back to normal. Because of this I died 3 times in the Tricky Treasure level. (I would like to note that in the exit symbol of the "map" it shows the Skull Tooth icon)
In the Swinging Caves level, I did spot a small adaptation in the Angry Birds-alike wooden structure, in the first hidden Electoon area: there are only two Livingstones and the wooden structure is smaller. I also spotted something really odd: while in PS3, Wii and PC versions I got in average a total of 375 Lums in the Swinging Caves, I got around 475 in the 3DS version. Now here's the question: was this a glitch, or there was something changed in the 3DS gameplay that tries to make gameplay easier in order to try to reward the port defects? I don't know.
The music/sound is very loud when the volume is in the maximum, and the quality is also weaker than in the other versions: the speakers even vibrate! I think the only solution is to low down the volume to half. I don't know if in the full version you can change the volume options like in the other versions. There's a bonus: when you play "Shooting Me Softly", the music is changed to a regular Desert of Dijiridoos level music but it goes to normal when you reach the Glaciar Cocktail (I would like to note the helicopter bombs look also changed to a more cartoon design, with blacker lineart, and with an adaptation since in that part there were less bombs than usual). But the best part is, when you arrive to the last cage of this level, the music gets glitched, constantly repeating itself until it arrives the Magician's Lum Counter screen. This music glitch allied together with the snail-step-speed framerate with the slow Electoons medallion trying to fuse the parts together plus the happy giggles of the Electoons, it is the perfect cocktail to get on your nervs and driving you crazy.
I also noticed the Magician never blinks his eyes when collecting the Lums. He looks like a Zombie. It is particularly scary to death when he glomps the test tube with those eyes.
Resuming, I was really hopping for a good port but I was totally wrong. The game looked graphically so bad along with the 3D effect that I almost had will to turn off the 3D mode to try to create some ocular confort. From what I saw in the game, I can tell there are no relics in here and they'll probably won't appear in the final version either. It is the candy of the Vita players, while the 3DS players are the babies.
When I remind that the Twitter website of Rayman said back in March that "the 3DS version was delayed to June because the team wanted to make sure the 3DS players would enjoy the port as much as Vita players" I had the feeling the port process was having many problems, and now I believe more in that.
Did they say the 3DS would get a price cut of more or less 10€? I'm not sure where I read this but do you want my opinion? I give 4 options for interested buyers:
Number 1 - If you own a good PC and a 3DS but nothing else, buy the PC version. It costs the same as the 3DS version (Unless the 3DS version won't get a price cut at all) and it is much better than everything in the portable game.
Number 2 - If you own both portable consoles, a 3DS and a Vita and nothing else, definitely buy the Vita version for the sake of overall quality and bonus content.
Number 3 - If you only own a 3DS and there's a renting service in your country (sadly it doesn't in Portugal because it is "illegal"
), rent it. You won't want to spend full price for this. Unless you wait for a real bargain, or buy it used.
Number 4 - If you own the game already, and you're more concerned about the quality of the game, don't buy it.
I'm still interested in the 3DS version since I'm a collector, but giving full price for it? No thanks, I prefer to wait.
Do you guys want to bet that this port will be heavily criticized as a mediocre game/port? I can bet.
Long opinion is long.
About the 3d...meh, it was ok. Is sad to know that this game will only be for 1 player, the photoboard only has the fat woman...