Rayman Legends

[Harpic fraîcheur]

Are the levels back to orgins the same that the old ?

[incognito]

Same, but the electoons have been replaced by teensies.

[Electoon]

So, not as good then . Nah, I really like the way that they went back to all the Origins textures and gave them Legends style shading - I think the end result looks neat.
Speaking of Rayman Legends, I haven't played this game in ages! I should really get back to it...

[Bionichute]

I don't know what it is, but playing through the Back to Origins levels was actually less fun than the original versions of the levels.

[Adsolution]

I agree, and I'm not positive as to why either really.

[Droolie]

I agree as well. The main reason for me was that you were forced into playing the Origins levels in order to feel that sense of achievement that you've completed the game 100%. Before, when I played Origins again, it was because I felt like it. When Legends came out, I replayed the Origins levels because my desire for completion forced me to. I didn't want to play them at all.

[Bradandez]

I can agree with you guys. I'd prefer the Origin levels in Origins. Something about the Back to Origins levels just doesn't feel the game.

Also, is ChampionRay exclusive to Next Gen consoles?

[Dart]

it appears so, I see nothing indicating it applying to the previously released consoles.

[Haruka]

I agree as well. The main reason for me was that you were forced into playing the Origins levels in order to feel that sense of achievement that you've completed the game 100%. Before, when I played Origins again, it was because I felt like it. When Legends came out, I replayed the Origins levels because my desire for completion forced me to. I didn't want to play them at all.

My exact feelings. I just played those for the sake of the 100% conclusion but I still think that the team could have taken advantage of the extra time to do new levels rather than bringing these back. Afterall, people who never played Origins before almost stop completely to have reasons to buy it.

[Adsolution]

A few select Back to Origins levels would have been nice, maybe one from each world, but including so many was a mistake. I'd be for it if it were re-imagining worlds from a game multiple generations ago, but really, including the majority of the levels from the game's 2-year-old predecessor with minor gameplay and graphical modifications (not even positive ones for the former, in my opinion) is totally overkill, and it could also likely hurt Origins' sales a bit if people are thinking that Legends is basically both games in one, which, funnily enough, it almost is.

[OCG]

Many people on facebook believe when you buy Legends you get full Origins as well inside sadly.

[todpole]

And they even have the bosses from that game. All of them. Even the final boss. That I believe was a major mistake and probably just been a Wii U exclusive. What could be an exclusive for the other systems. maybe a port of a 2d rayman game or a GBA game. like Raving Rabbid or Hoodlums Revenge

[Master]

I think Legends disappoints when it comes to Back to Origins and the "Retro" levels, I think given the time they had there, what they could've potentially given might have been less in quantity, but far greater in quality and lasting effect. In terms of content intended for RL, RL is pretty tiny, it's the Origins levels that gave it the bulk, which is pretty meh.

[Haruka]

I have got a friend who got Rayman Legends last Christmas, and I did tell him that since he now owns Rayman Legends he hasn't got reasons to get Origins since the big majority of the game is fused into Legends. The 120+ levels announcement in the E3 made me fear the worst scenario: bringing the Origins levels back. One of the wierdest decisions I've seen, because like Adsolution said, it is not justifiable to do this to a game that is less than two years old and barely changes in the gameplay and graphism. They could have used the time to create real Land of the Livid Dead levels instead of the fake difficulty added to the music levels.

[OCG]

I personaly don't like how they made Back to Origins levels easier than original.
I come from 90's, I need that challange in games
8bit music levels did good job regarding challange but at some points it transforms from challange to frustration. Now here is the most important question for Ubisoft: Where is DLC? Once in a lifetime I wish for DLC and it seems I cannot have it

[Master]

I loathe the 8 bit levels, Orchestral Chaos in particular gives me a headache with the regular spontaneous static, and the whole lot in general is probably the most anticlimactic the series has ever been. Say what you will about TLOTLD in RO, but at least it provided one last grand challenge of all your skills, and I think it was worth every Electoon. Grannies World Tour? Not so much.

[OCG]

8 bit Orchestral Chaos gave me a freaking headache. It did not took me too many tries to beat it but oh god, my eyes were hurting me a lot afterwards.

[Bionichute]

In all honesty, I still consider Origins a much better game. While I do consider the mechanics and physics a lot better than Origins, the game REALLY doesn't make good use of them. I can boil my complaints into a two areas:

1. Story: Legends has basically no story to it. There's no reason why Rayman and friends are running around, and the only concrete goal is to save all the Teensies. The problem with having only the bare bones of a plot is that there really isn't a reason to care about what's going on. This is a problem I have with the New Super Mario games, too. Having no plot at all gives me no reason to play through it, I have no motivation to do anything.

Origins managed to have enough plot for it to matter. It followed a simple three act structure, with there being a huge twist in act three that really added a lot to it. Legends is just all over the place, and adding non linearity to it makes it seem very schizophrenic in it's lack of story. There's no pacing like there was in Origins, like building up to The Magician's reveal via dialog. In Legends, The Magician is evil, and there are now five of him running around for no well explained reasons, he's simply there because he was the villain of Origins and this is technically a sequel.

2. Difficulty: Rayman Origins was hard, but not unfairly hard. Yes, it was frustrating to get to the end of a section and die, but the lack of checkpoints was helpful if you were trying to get the Lum Medal at the end and you screwed up. The frequent checkpoints may be good in multiplayer, but if you're trying to get the highest score it just winds up being an inconvenience.

The purple Lums also irk me. Getting a Lum King and collecting all the red Lums was frantic, fun, and rewarding. It also gave you a catchy tune to motivate you. The purple Lums are ridiculously easy to get, and it winds up slowing the gameplay down instead of making it funner. The lack of enemy types and their almost uselessness is sad, and the fact that you only need to hit them once to get five Lums makes it a lot less challenging.

The final world relies on awful visual tricks to make them more difficult, but it winds up being of the bullshit kind. Running through those levels more than once wound up being a headache. TLOTLD in Origins had you use all of your wits and abilities to get through, but it still supplied checkpoints after each section. Each section was it's own little challenge, and passing them felt good, and you might have even wanted to play it again to see if you could do better. Passing the 8-Bit levels was a chore, and you never wanted to play them again.

By the way, despite this game looking great and sounding great, it's still not as visually and musically appealing as Origins, or even Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.

[Adsolution]

I completely agree with the above, especially about how the mechanics in Legends aren't made good use of. It's not a retcon of any previous opinion of mine either, a few things explained:

- I never thought the story in Origins was well-executed (it wasn't that complicated, yet the game somehow managed to make it confusing, likely as a result of it being the adaption of a hefty script), but it at least existed to a basic degree. Legends gives you objectives but no context, like mentioned above. It wouldn't really be a problem if there wasn't anything new in the game, but I'm genuinely curious as to what the Magician's motivation is here or what the hell he's doing.

- Despite having criticised Origins' direction, I always commended the gameplay on being outrageously fun. It lacked variety at times, but it was one of the most genuinely challenging games I'd played in a while. Legends, unlike Origins, doesn't cater to the mechanics of the character, it ignores them for the most part and it figures that as long as your player is able to somehow get through the level, it's alright. It's not bad when you have so many mediocre games to compare it to, it just felt like a lot less effort was put into the level design, and it's clear how much effort was put into it with Origins.


However, I do like the art of Legends more than Origins. While both only have a few truly atmospheric music tracks, I was happy to find that the few surreal, fantastical environments from Origins that I wished there were more of were present far, far more in Legends. I'm mainly thinking about that level in the Sea of Serendipity where there's all that giant, organic, bioluminescent, colourful plant life; that was probably my favourite environment in the entire game.

[Haruka]

I have got to agree with the majority of the arguments exposed by Bionichute, but I also underline what Adsolution added just after. I still think that the graphism of Rayman Legends is better, but now that we think about all of this, I would say more now that Rayman Legends works more like an expansion to Rayman Origins rather than a sequel. If we are going to exclude the Back to Origins levels, the game is much shorter than Rayman Origins (that on the first playthrough took me approximately 20 hours to complete it).