Rayman 1

[syntheticgerbil]

Graphics are OK and the framerate is not much different. However when you start your saved game it plays the intro, the quality of which is shite compared to the PS1 one.

Yeah I've read in a few places, mostly concerning the new Policenauts translation, that the Sega Saturn can handle a faster framerate on the FMV stuff than the Playstation but it comes with lower quality or higher compression. Probably doesn't do very good for Rayman when the intro and ending movies aren't exactly moving a ton.

Now I'm thinking how nice it would be if Ubisoft did a remastered version of the original Rayman with redrawn sprites and maybe if they rescanned the background and animation on the intro movie. I'd love to watch the thing in high quality.

I've only gotten as far as Moskito's Nest before the saturn somehow wiped my save off. So before I move on I've gotta check if there's anything wrong with the memory battery, mine still had a black ribbon inside and taking that out seemed to help a little. If I have to set the language again then there's some chance the memory may be dead or dying...ffff

Saturn systems eat those batteries like crazy, so I usually actually prefer the game has a password function on Saturn instead of saving. I think though you can also get a memory cart or something where your saves don't erase. I may bother one day to stop using the internal memory but I only have like 4 games for my Saturn and the battery seems to last long enough to at least finish a game or two.

A quick google search shows the Action Replay save cart that used to be relatively cheap, is very expensive now... oh well...

[spiraldoor]

Now I'm thinking how nice it would be if Ubisoft did a remastered version of the original Rayman with redrawn sprites and maybe if they rescanned the background and animation on the intro movie. I'd love to watch the thing in high quality.

I've thought about that before...an enhanced version of Rayman 1 would probably be a PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade/Steam release, as I can't really see people queueing to buy it at retail. It would have to be done right...that is, include all the stuff from all the versions; the extra PlayStation music, the Saturn fadeouts, the Jaguar BreakOut minigame, etc. The option to play the game with the Jaguar version's music would be good. And each time you replay a level, the bosses' levels should still be there, to eliminate the need for multiple saves; same for the Betilla levels, and all the other stuff you only get to do once per playthrough. The game should also include the Jaguar cutscene where Rayman is chasing after his hair. And the language-selection screen should have seperate "English" and "American" options (for the Magician's different voices). Pressing the punch button on the Moskito-riding level should make Rayman punch like in the PlayStation version, and pressing the grimace button should make Moskito shoot like in the Jaguar version. The game should also include the PC's version of the first Bongo Hills level; the level straight after it should be the PlayStation's version of the first Bongo Hills level. It should also include the texture differences of the PlayStation version (different-coloured flowers, fruits, present in the sky, purple Moskito and so on). It should also fix the mistake where only two of the windows glow for the final hybrid in Candy Chateau instead of three. And it should run in 1080p @ 60fps.

I could probably go on...

[Cairnie]

I really don't get why they had to use different Magician voices they're both like, American accents fgs.

[PluMGMK]

purple Moskito

I thought you didn't believe in him.

[spiraldoor]

purple Moskito

I thought you didn't believe in him.

I don't care what you "thought". Moskito should be purple in the fight in Moskito's Nest.

[PluMGMK]

purple Moskito

I thought you didn't believe in him.

I don't care what you "thought". Moskito should be purple in the fight in Moskito's Nest.

Do you mean pink or maroon? I don't get this "purple" business.

[syntheticgerbil]

I've thought about that before...an enhanced version of Rayman 1 would probably be a PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade/Steam release, as I can't really see people queueing to buy it at retail. It would have to be done right...that is, include all the stuff from all the versions; the extra PlayStation music, the Saturn fadeouts, the Jaguar BreakOut minigame, etc. The option to play the game with the Jaguar version's music would be good. And each time you replay a level, the bosses' levels should still be there, to eliminate the need for multiple saves; same for the Betilla levels, and all the other stuff you only get to do once per playthrough. The game should also include the Jaguar cutscene where Rayman is chasing after his hair. And the language-selection screen should have seperate "English" and "American" options (for the Magician's different voices). Pressing the punch button on the Moskito-riding level should make Rayman punch like in the PlayStation version, and pressing the grimace button should make Moskito shoot like in the Jaguar version. The game should also include the PC's version of the first Bongo Hills level; the level straight after it should be the PlayStation's version of the first Bongo Hills level. It should also include the texture differences of the PlayStation version (different-coloured flowers, fruits, present in the sky, purple Moskito and so on). It should also fix the mistake where only two of the windows glow for the final hybrid in Candy Chateau instead of three. And it should run in 1080p @ 60fps.

I could probably go on...

Yeah I agree with a good direct download release. It probably would be profitable, but who knows if Ubisoft wants to spend all that time making an HD version. I don't agree though that it should run at 60 fps, since the original was done with the 25 fps for the PAL version in mind and it would look weird with smoothed out frames but with the animation set on a faster frame rate. They sort of messed that up with the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, if you are into that series.

Unless you mean like that they should add in more animation frames so it looks suitable to 60 fps, but no 2D animator in their right mind goes past 30 drawings per second, as that would be hell! Er... this is probably crazy technical now.

Oh yeah, and Ubisoft if they did do a remaster, they could milk the release and add the PC bonus levels as DLC and charge a few bucks each for them.

Gameloft, who's owned by Ubisoft, is putting out an HD Earthworm Jim, so maybe they could do Rayman too? Only thing that sucks is Gameloft rerecorded all of the sounds effects and voices for EWJ and ruined them.

[PluMGMK]

I think the shadow effects on Mr. Sax's sprites could use some improving.

[spiraldoor]

Yeah I agree with a good direct download release. It probably would be profitable, but who knows if Ubisoft wants to spend all that time making an HD version. I don't agree though that it should run at 60 fps, since the original was done with the 25 fps for the PAL version in mind and it would look weird with smoothed out frames but with the animation set on a faster frame rate. They sort of messed that up with the Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, if you are into that series.

How do you know it was originally done with a framerate of 25fps in mind? PAL runs at a maximum of 50fps, and since my PAL version of R1 runs very smooth I've always assumed it was running at 50. Anyway, doesn't the NTSC version of R1 run at 60fps already?

Unless you mean like that they should add in more animation frames so it looks suitable to 60 fps, but no 2D animator in their right mind goes past 30 drawings per second, as that would be hell! Er... this is probably crazy technical now.

This may sound stupid, as I'm no expert, but couldn't they just use interpolation to generate extra frames in between the ones that are already rendered?

Oh yeah, and Ubisoft if they did do a remaster, they could milk the release and add the PC bonus levels as DLC and charge a few bucks each for them.

Yes...they could release Rayman Designer (bringing it to multiple platforms for the first time) as DLC, or include it for free if they saw fit. Same for the 24 good levels (I think they should leave out Rayman By His Fans; that would probably drag down the average review score). They should also give us the red antitoons, red prickly balls etc., since they really should have been readily accessible in the PC version. And I see no reason to disallow use of the bosses in custom levels.

Gameloft, who's owned by Ubisoft, is putting out an HD Earthworm Jim, so maybe they could do Rayman too? Only thing that sucks is Gameloft rerecorded all of the sounds effects and voices for EWJ and ruined them.

If Earthworm Jim HD sells well, it seems possible that Ubisoft will continue to make such updates...and if there's a strong fan reaction against the rerecorded sounds they probably wouldn't make the same mistake again...

[syntheticgerbil]

How do you know it was originally done with a framerate of 25fps in mind? PAL runs at a maximum of 50fps, and since my PAL version of R1 runs very smooth I've always assumed it was running at 50. Anyway, doesn't the NTSC version of R1 run at 60fps already?

Well it's easier for me to talk about this stuff in NTSC terms, but I mentioned PAL since that's probably what the Ubisoft team was running.

Generally games ran at 30 fps TV standard before real time 3D became the standard, which even then stayed at 30 fps until I think the Dreamcast came along. Animated movies and shorts in the US have always been with 24 fps in mind.

While you can run things at 60 fps, and more often than not that's become the standard for anything 3D now (although still most cutscenes run at 30fps in 3D games) or 2D games that almost exclusively run tweens or move shapes, it's probably never going to change for animators using more traditional 2D techniques not moving shapes to stay within the 24 fps/30 fps NTSC boundaries (and whatever the PAL equivalent is), even digitally. Drawing more frames than that, while it can look nicer can also lend to a lot of jittering and is just a nightmare of work. Even in the past, animators have more often than not drawn things that double up 12 frames per second for film running at 24. It's not always easy to tell the difference. It's a lot of creative, technical, dynamic, and structural factors. I guess it's kind of hard for me to explain correctly if you don't already have knowledge in animation principles and frame rates generally used. Sorry about that.

Anyways, I just think it would be a lot harder to add frames to the first Rayman instead of just cleaning them up and redrawing, touching up, or filtering the sprites at a higher res.

This may sound stupid, as I'm no expert, but couldn't they just use interpolation to generate extra frames in between the ones that are already rendered?

Yes that's possible too. It may cause more problems than it's worth for a remake though, since interpolation isn't always very accurate and will probably still require someone to clean up each interpolated frame, which may get pretty labor intensive. It could also cause too much jittering to the original animations, as mentioned earlier, since higher frame rates are harder to achieve smoothly in 2D if they aren't basic shape tweens. It could also upset purists too who just want the original animation.

It just depends how much money and time Ubisoft would be willing to put in such a remake (I would hope a lot of both!), but I recommend everyone buy Earthworm Jim HD anyway, and maybe Ubisoft will get Gameloft to work on an HD Rayman if they think they can get money from more remakes.

Hopefully they won't rerecord the sounds for a possible Rayman remake. I'm actually betting they rerecorded for EWJ because I assume the original high quality sound files were lost, but Ubisoft should have then tucked in a Rayman vault somewhere.

[PluMGMK]

You think they're actually going to do this?

[syntheticgerbil]

I have no idea for sure, I'm just speculating.

I would guess if Gameloft makes some good money off of one remake, since this is the first time they've done anything for Earthworm Jim, Rayman has gotta appear in their remake queue sooner or later. I mean Gameloft has made a ton of Rayman cell phone games by now, so they can definitely handle the art (the gameplay I'm not so sure about, but then again the game's design should stay intact as the original in a remake).

Remakes are selling a lot more these days as downloadable only type things, and seem to be much more profitable, as they take much less effort than a brand new game. Only problem is when people mess things up or change the art style like LucasArts did with the Monkey Island remake. But sometimes people do a great job like with Klonoa or Broken Sword.

The only problem is it would be competing with the PSN version of Rayman 1 were it to come out, so they'd probably have to have that taken down.

I guess I mean to say is I've got my fingers crossed, because the market is ripe for profiting off of a good ultimate Rayman remake. It would also maybe help tell Ubisoft we want more platforming and adventuring and less minigame collections if it were actually made, released, and well bought.

[Haruka]

I need your help Gerbil, have you installed Rayman Collector games on Windows Vista? I suceeded on R1, now the others I'm having trouble to install them on a Windows Vista.

[syntheticgerbil]

No I don't have Windows Vista, I've never tried.

If DosBox works on Vista, it should work. I think the side exes for the games Rayman By His Fans, 60 Levels, and Rayman Designer all use the same config file as the regular Rayman, so sound should work if you just install then and then run them from Dosbox.

Other than that, I'm not sure, sorry.

[Phoenixan]

No I don't have Windows Vista, I've never tried.

If DosBox works on Vista, it should work. I think the side exes for the games Rayman By His Fans, 60 Levels, and Rayman Designer all use the same config file as the regular Rayman, so sound should work if you just install then and then run them from Dosbox.

Other than that, I'm not sure, sorry.

It plays on mine, but I don't get sound nor music.

[syntheticgerbil]

Are you using DosBox to run it?

The music will always come on if the CD drive is configured correctly in the DosBox shortcut for the game, as it plays directly from CD audio.

The sound is a little bit more tricky and kind of requires some back and forth from Install.bat on the Rayman CD and making sure the Soundblaster Card you are emulating is being emulated while running Install.bat and while running any Rayman Exe. Usually the one you want is Soundblaster 16 with an IRQ of 7 and Port 220. It should come up with auto detect. If the Install.bat doesn't sucessfully have the Magician yell "Perrrrrrrrrrrrrfeeeeeeeeect!" after selecting your sound card, it will never be able to get sound inside the actual game. I don't know why, but it's set up that way.

I don't have my copy of Rayman Collector in front of me, it's at another place in storage that I'll have to bring to my home PC for the weekend.

[PluMGMK]

I thought it was Rayman who yelled "PERFECT!"

[spiraldoor]

A comparison of the original Earthworm Jim with Gameloft's remake. I think the HD version looks a little too smooth. It needs more detail and contrast. I'm not sure if I want these people working on Rayman, but I guess we should wait until the final product gets released before we judge them.

I don't think the downloadable PS1 version of R1 would pose much of a problem to the remake project; the original version of Earthworm Jim is on the Virtual Console, and the remake is coming to Wiiware. No problems there.

Are you sure they aren't rerecording the Earthworm Jim audio because the Mega Drive had poor sound quality? If they lost the originals and wanted them back, couldn't they just download a ROM and extract the sound files from it?

Anyway...I'd hope that a Rayman remake would be made by people who actually care about the source material. I'm not sure if Gameloft does, but they probably understand it enough to not fuck it up. All I would really want from a remake is the PS1 version with antialiased textures and 1080p resolution, ideally with the other versions' unique content added. I wouldn't want them to add anything new, AT ALL, unless Ancel was involved in the project.

Well, we can hope...

[syntheticgerbil]

I thought it was Rayman who yelled "PERFECT!"

Haha, I can't tell because it's the sound that plays when you complete a bonus level and got an extra life right? I always figured it was the Magician because he takes you to the bonus.

A comparison of the original Earthworm Jim with Gameloft's remake. I think the HD version looks a little too smooth. It needs more detail and contrast. I'm not sure if I want these people working on Rayman, but I guess we should wait until the final product gets released before we judge them.

Yeah, I see what you mean. They definitely aren't making much use of the darker colors and that log shows they didn't take the time to distinguished which old dithered graphics should be smoother compared to what actually needs texture.

It is Gameloft though, so I never really have high hopes. It's nice to have it done I guess in the end, as long as they aren't completely changing everything around.

Are you sure they aren't rerecording the Earthworm Jim audio because the Mega Drive had poor sound quality? If they lost the originals and wanted them back, couldn't they just download a ROM and extract the sound files from it?

I really have no idea why they rerecorded it. That's just what I suspect. The thing is there is a Windows 95 version with higher quality audio that many of the sound effects could have been made from. Maybe they are lazy? It's hard to say because they did take the time to put in the extra level from the Win95/SegaCD release.

Anyway...I'd hope that a Rayman remake would be made by people who actually care about the source material. I'm not sure if Gameloft does, but they probably understand it enough to not fuck it up.

Gameloft probably does not, just because they are a cell phone game maker primarily. I don't know if there's any game developer that actually cares about the source at this time, not even Ubisoft. Ubisoft is much different as a company than what they were 10-15 years ago. Maybe Ancel cares but I still feel like he's tucked away in the Ubidungeon™ somewhere...

[Phoenixan]

The log is too smooth compared to the previous one, which actually has some shading and rough texturing to it. The ground also looks a little too smooth, and the character himself is as distinguishable anymore (facial expressions).