Drolpiraat wrote:Beware, huge post incoming...
DROOLIE'S RAYMAN LEGENDS REVIEW
Here’s a review of Rayman Legends I wrote. It might sound a little harsh to some, but don’t forget: I really like the game. I’m just pointing out the problems with it that prevent it from being better than certain other Rayman games. Keep in mind that it’s entirely my opinion and I’m open to discuss everything that I wrote in it. I might even change my mind (but not likely)!
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately – about what makes a game good. With all the work I do for Dreambound, I have to: I do not want to spend ages on a game that is bound to be forgotten. All this thinking made me, I think, able to point out exactly what I like and don’t like about something. For me, it seems this largely depends on feeling.
And Rayman Legends felt good, but not great. Here’s why it could be better:
Let’s get right to the worst part: the story.
In Rayman Legends, it is completely non-existent, and this might be the biggest weakness of the game. Partly because there is no story, the game rarely feels like a real adventure. Sometimes, when the levels flow together and form a place that could exist within the Glade, you finally start to feel start to feel like you’re really exploring that place, and you try to imagine your own story, and maybe the story behind that place as well. And this is really what the Rayman series is all about, isn’t it? It is a shame then that too often, you are reminded that the Glade in Rayman Legends is simply a backdrop for a game that focuses entirely on the gameplay.
Let’s try to imagine this: you’re in Toad Story, battling your way through toad settlements while climbing the beanstalk, until you reach the magically floating ruins of a castle in the clouds. The sun is going down, and you’re nearing the big toad’s hideout. A lot of toads are defending this place. To rescue the Teensies, you enter a door… only to end up in a completely different area. Random things like prickly fish and doors fly at you before you can finally rescue the Teensy that needed your help.
… What just happened?
The magic is gone too when you enter an invaded level: while the destroyed versions of the normal levels provide an interesting opportunity to imagine a story, it’s a missed one, because the player has no time to do anything else than rushing through the level to get the best possible time. As always, gameplay gains the priority over everything.
The gameplay itself is rather neat, but after a while it might start to feel a tiny bit repetitive. As mentioned before by several members, there are a lot of “don’t stop running”-levels. I liked the way you had to figure out the fastest way to get to the goal, but sometimes it stopped me from appreciating what the Rayman series is really about for me.
The world – both what it is and what we imagine it could be. The Glade of Dreams has always been an incredible, mysteriously beautiful place. Especially in Rayman 2, and also in Rayman 3. Who didn’t imagine what secrets could be hidden behind the corner in one of the Sanctuaries, or what could be hidden in the tunnels in the Desert of the Knaaren? The unique, curly, surreal, beautiful art style and mysterious, atmospheric music that could be found in both Rayman 2 and Rayman 3 (yes, even Rayman 3 had all of that, in all worlds except for Clearleaf Forest, Hoodlum Headquarters and the Tower of the Leptys) certainly made it easy for our imagination to run wild!
But, you might say, the world in Rayman 1 was actually not so different from the world in Rayman Origins and Legends. So why is it that Rayman 1 is still considered a better game?
I think it’s because Rayman 1 was quite slow and allowed you to take your time in everything. A slow pace allows the player to stop and appreciate the nice backgrounds and the beautiful music, which isn’t forced to be as upbeat as it constantly is in Rayman Origins and Legends.
Yes, it seems slower is better. Not only does it allow the player to fully appreciate everything, but it also allows for some nicer music. Probably the most beautiful track in Rayman Legends, Lost in the Clouds/Under the Suns’ Warmth, was too slow for the game, and because of that, didn’t even make it into the game. Sadness.
And don’t people play games in their free time, to relax? Because I don’t think Rayman Origins and Legends let people relax a lot, while Rayman 1, 2 and 3 had a lot of moments when you could just stand still and admire the beautiful vistas and the music. Rayman Legends has those moments too (the beginning of Ray and the Beanstalk for one) but they are much fewer.
This all sums up exactly why I think Rayman 1, 2 and 3 (and perhaps Rayman M) still rank higher than Rayman Legends in my opinion. As you can see I thought about it a lot and let no nostalgia have a part in my judgment.
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Now, for the actual game.
- The gameplay is great, the game is challenging too! Especially that Dark Rayman invasion in 20 000 Lums Under the Sea.
- The music is great, but there are no slow tracks, which is sad.
- The graphics are great, but even though they tried to replicate the curliness, it still misses atmosphere in a lot of levels.
- The bosses are great, but the bosses in the original trilogy were more frightening.
- Too much Lums, too much Teensies. A lot of replay value was added by doing this, sure, but let me quote spiral for great justice:
spiraldoor wrote:When a game tries to achieve replay value through a large number of tasks or tokens, it ties its value to the idea of completion. When a game like this is maxed out, it loses its appeal. None of that stuff matters unless the underlying mechanisms and atmosphere of the game are so interesting that you keep playing it and thinking about it even when you've strictly done everything that's there for you to do.
And Back to Origins, well…
The inclusion of Back to Origins ruined the experience a little for me. Playing through it again was a chore, just like it was when I played through it for the first time. In my opinion, Rayman Origins was not a good game at all: even though it was Rayman’s first appearance in a while, he had changed a lot. I remember Michel Ancel saying that Rayman is supposed to be “crazy” and that they had forgotten that a little in Rayman 2. Don’t ask me how he and the team came to that idea, but somehow they did, and they built the rest of the game on it. Every of the aspect of the game was influenced by this madness: the music, the worlds, the characters, the enemies and even the collectibles (why did the Lums look like they came straight from the Rabbids series?). Thanks to the craziness, there was no inch of feeling or atmosphere left in the game.
Being a Rayman fan, I finished the game, but I didn't think I'd ever replay it. Well, I just had to in order to complete Legends. And don't even get me started on the "differences". Only the cages have been moved, lums have been replaced and that's about it. :/
Because of the difference in atmosphere between Rayman Origins and Legends, it feels to me like Rayman Origins was better than Back to Origins, not only because the bright backgrounds are distracting now that Rayman blends in more, but also because the Teensies and all that just don’t fit with the overly crazy Origins worlds.
And one last thing: Rayman Legends is not 3D, which makes the world infinitely less interesting than it could have been.
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All in all, I really, really, really enjoyed Rayman Legends. My review might sound very bad, but I only mentioned the little problems I could find. Everything else was good. Which means overall the game was good too - but (I might be nitpicking) it could have been a lot better.
) sound and backtrack to see what has changed. We have levels such as part of Anguish Lagoon or The Hard Rocks, where one can take wildly different paths. The Dream Forest sets the stage so perfectly. I mean, think back to every world... You enter Band Land, you make your way up into the sky, gliding and jumping and hovering while accompanied by beautiful music. You enter The Blue Mountains, you hear the awesome howling music, it is, again, beautiful. The running on pencils and bouncing on Yin Yang balls over a sea of oil, set to a beautiful background of clouds, with heart-caressing music. Then there is the music of Crystal Palace, the three unique levels of darkness, of repairing Joe's machinery, and of sailing past sharks. There's a pattern, by the way; 'real' worlds (jungle, mountain, cave) are alternated by 'fantasy' worlds (music/air, art/theatre, candy). There's so much to explore, abd going back to levels to unlock new cages is never a chore, levels are actually difficult... It's... Childish, in a very positive way - despite the difficulty. Magical. The vibrant colours, the little details, the beautiful music (seriously!)... No platformer has achieved this ever since.
