Rayman 1

Which version is your favourite?

  • Jaguar

    Votes: 11 4.5%

  • PC

    Votes: 55 22.5%

  • PlayStation

    Votes: 143 58.6%

  • Saturn

    Votes: 15 6.1%

  • Game Boy Colour

    Votes: 4 1.6%

  • Game Boy Advance

    Votes: 7 2.9%

  • DSi

    Votes: 9 3.7%
  • Total voters
    244
Are there really that many people that have trouble with Rayman 1's gameplay? I won't say it's not extremely hard at times but with ever since my first one or two full playtroughs I don't have too much trouble with it anymore. My main dislike is having to get all the cages. Some of them require you to do things that can be something like jumping to your death. Plus, something inside you painfully dies when you go back to Space Mama's Crater and then fail to get a cage for the second time. I can find about 70% of the cages from what I know but the others are not completed without a walktrough.
 
As far as general gaming skill goes, I'm not even that high up there, yet I also had little trouble with Rayman 1 after my first or second playthrough. The only way I can imagine people having such a painstakingly hard time is if they were only used to Mario platformers and don't have the patience that the game requires.
 
But I honestly think that people that are used to games like Super Mario Bros, should have better platforming capacities since Mario is much more vulnerable than Rayman in damage and much more limited in dodging/attacking.
 
But the games are inherently different, and thus tactics you may have learned from Mario games won't in any way work for Rayman. Mario, for instance, never had to worry about landing on platforms smaller than the width of the player, nor did he ever have to deal with such close-quarter situations. Mario's gameplay is far more comparable to Origins; does that mean that people who play Origins will be better at Rayman 1? Highly unlikely.
 
Despite of both Origins and Mario have similar mechanics, Rayman still owns more abilities than Mario to defeat enemies. I know that both are tactically different games, but I personally struggled with the 2D Mario games due to the limitations of Mario, which can possibily be explained by the fact I'm really used to Rayman's variety of movements and other minor gameplay details like collision detection.
 
Haruka said:
Rayman still owns more abilities than Mario to defeat enemies.
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Rayman can only punch. Mario on the other hand can jump on enemies, shoot them with fireballs, kick koopa shells at them, and more. Rayman doesn't seem to have more...?

Haruka said:
but I personally struggled with the 2D Mario games due to the limitations of Mario, which can possibily be explained by the fact I'm really used to Rayman's variety of movements and other minor gameplay details like collision detection.
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I have no doubt that that's the case, as it's the same with me as well: after I play Rayman for a while, I tend to forget how Mario moves. However, just because Rayman is more agile doesn't mean that Mario's more slippery mechanics aid you. They would to an extent, just like any game of the same genre realistically would, but the platforming mechanics and level design are entirely different. They're hardly even comparable, so the amount Mario or any other sidescroller would help is minimal, virtually nonexistent.
 
Hm, I think the problem comes mostly in anticipation and dealing with obstacles, I've yet to pass the set of slow swinging spiked balls in the Hard Rocks for instance, and always end up using the secret exit.
 
I probably find every 2D Mario game except for Super Mario Bros 2 Japanese version to be much easier than Rayman 1.
Also, Mario does technically have more attacks but relying on power-ups have both pros and cons while Rayman can always punch. Mario must be powered up to do any other attack than jumping. Still, I found his games easier than Rayman 1 (except for SMB 2 JPN - that one was hell)
 
Adsolution said:
Rayman can only punch. Mario on the other hand can jump on enemies, shoot them with fireballs, kick koopa shells at them, and more. Rayman doesn't seem to have more...?
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You are forgetting Rayman's helicopter. Mario cannot glide (at least in his earliest games).

Adsolution said:
Haruka said:
but I personally struggled with the 2D Mario games due to the limitations of Mario, which can possibily be explained by the fact I'm really used to Rayman's variety of movements and other minor gameplay details like collision detection.
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I have no doubt that that's the case, as it's the same with me as well: after I play Rayman for a while, I tend to forget how Mario moves. However, just because Rayman is more agile doesn't mean that Mario's more slippery mechanics aid you. They would to an extent, just like any game of the same genre realistically would, but the platforming mechanics and level design are entirely different. They're hardly even comparable, so the amount Mario or any other sidescroller would help is minimal, virtually nonexistent.
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True that. It was a hell of a challenge finishing The Lost Levels all by myself.
 
OldClassicGamer said:
I probably find every 2D Mario game except for Super Mario Bros 2 Japanese version to be much easier than Rayman 1.
Also, Mario does technically have more attacks but relying on power-ups have both pros and cons while Rayman can always punch. Mario must be powered up to do any other attack than jumping. Still, I found his games easier than Rayman 1 (except for SMB 2 JPN - that one was hell)
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Mario is more mixed with its difficulty. It'll throw some hard stages at you but break it up with stages that are more focused on having you play with a certain mechanic. Especially the New Super Mario Bros. games do that a lot. But even when it comes to difficulty Rayman and Mario are barely comparable like Ad pointed out. Rayman is more about hard platforming or reacting quickly to end unexpected enemy, whereas Mario usually has things like throwing a ton of things at you or having to not get hit.
 
I suppose I should explain the flaws that brought Rayman 1 down for me.

I don't have a problem with the game being hard, I play plenty of hard games, and I often push myself to do better in anything in life if I feel it's worth it.

But the problem with Rayman 1 is that it's UNFAIRLY hard, a lot of the difficulty comes from unclear hit boxes, foreground that looks like background (meaning I've often jumped into walls thinking a jutting out rock was a platform hanging out of some background wall, only to discover that the whole wall is in the foreground), lots of traps that off-screen you (particularly in vertical segments. I hate how the camera in this game does not follow you upwards until Rayman is touching the VERY top of the screen, meaning I often graze off of spike balls and what not that I can't even see, during a tight, upward platforming segment), odd jump physics (Rayman's jump feels ever so slightly momentum-based and Megaman-tight at the same time, which creates a lot of moments where it's awkward to maneuver in the air).

I also greatly dislike how Rayman doesn't have his signature powers from the beginning. It's like if when you booted up Sonic 1, Sonic couldn't actually run fast or curl into a ball until you cleared Green Hill Zone. It's not too bad in the case of the telescopic fist, but the Hair-Helicopter should of been available much sooner. Because when I was playing the first few levels, I didn't see why this game was considered so great at all (other than the graphics and music). All Rayman could do was walk (not even run) and jump. And climb poles. And while he can crawl, it's of no real use early on. Because of this, the first few levels are extremely basic and boring, and there is absolutely nothing about the games mechanics to draw a player in. It's more basic than a fair few 8-bit platformers in the beginning.

I honestly think this game would be a lot better if Rayman had all of his powers from the get go. It's a linear, level-to-level platformer, so holding the powers back from us makes no sense. Metroid games hold back game changing powers from you because they are open-ended and explore-able, meaning the power-ups are a nice reward for exploring such open maps. In Rayman 1, I don't feel rewarded when I get a power-up, I just question why I didn't have such a significant ability from the beginning, especially since the decision to hold them back from me meant that the first few levels HAVE to be basic and boring to compensate for my basic and almost non-existent move set. The level design in Rayman 1 is linear, and very focused on challenging your move set, so it's a bad design choice to assume I'd feel rewarded when given a new power-up.

I could probably go on a bit more, but this is the gist of it. Don't get me wrong, I still like this game. It's fun when you have all of the powers, and the otherwise terrible design choices such as the bad vertical camera and the confusing hit boxes are much easier to deal with when I have the powers to help me. But the powers should of been available from the get go. And those terrible design choices shouldn't be there. Both things really broke my immersion, and decreased the overall fun factor for me.
 
Can't comment on the entirety of what you said right now, but I see you've also seen a parallel with the Metroid series, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'd like to see a Metroidvania Rayman game, I think it could work.
 
Master said:
Can't comment on the entirety of what you said right now, but I see you've also seen a parallel with the Metroid series, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'd like to see a Metroidvania Rayman game, I think it could work.
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Totally agree with you.

In fact, if I was asked for what I want from the next Rayman game, I'd say make one more 2D UbiArt game with the same controls and physics as Origins/Legends, but make it open-ended like Metroid or Castlevania.

Then make a new 3D Rayman. :P
 
You raise some interesting criticism. I think I may have to give the game another go to get a bit freshened up on those things. Unfortunately I'm way too lazy to update all the issues from the GoG game. Does the Rayman 1 patch work for it?
 
Adsolution said:
Haruka said:
You are forgetting Rayman's helicopter. Mario cannot glide (at least in his earliest games).
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The helicopter can't be used to defeat enemies though.
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I wasn't talking about attacking but the helicopter gives you extra time to calculate landings or even to dodge better some enemies attacks.
 
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