I did it!
Hoo boy, what an adventure it was! I beat the whole game in about 8 hours and 30 minutes, way better than I did last time, and keep in mind that I bought
no upgrades or powers at the Magic Well, nor did I complete any of Ly's minigames, however I got all Lums, all Familiar Spirits, beat Razorbeard, and
after beating him, bought everything and completed every Ly minigame (and beat the record on Ray-Type Challenge; I got 60,000 and then gave up because I was tired of it). I beat it in two sittings, I was hoping for just one, but I couldn't make it. I started playing around 0:30 AM (only went to take a piss three times, otherwise I didn't really even move anywhere lol) and at about 8 AM I had to go to sleep (I had 80% of the game beaten and was about to enter the Tomb of the Ancients) because my eyes couldn't focus. I took a nap and completed the rest after waking up.
First off, I was hoping to get a total of 0 Try Agains, but I got 13 (actually more like 16, I'll get to that later). The first one was in the pirate ambush right before Rainbow Creek. I gotta say, beating the game with only the beginning life bar, it felt like one of those old NES games that are really fucking difficult and you have to focus to complete them, like Castlevania. I had to think up a strategy for most of the things I just ran through when playing with all the powers etc. It was a real pain to battle enemies without the double rate of fire ability.
Okay, so these motherfuckers deserve a paragraph of their own: the Red motherfucking Henchmen who shoot John Lennon missiles. Holy fucking shit, I was so stressed when I fought them, I swear! I barely survived most of the battles with them, and each time one of those popped up in the Tomb of the Ancients, I figuratively shat myself. They're the most stressful enemies in the game.
I never really liked the Echoing Caves, but now I kind of hate them, because I had to play the first two parts like six times because the game crashed on me four fucking times in a row in that place, plus the first Henchman murdered me like twice or thrice. I even recorded a video of me flipping the game the bird after it crashed.
Before I went to the Tomb of the Ancients (or rather, before I fell asleep
before playing that level), I was revisiting the Sanctuary of Lava level (the one with the swamp in the beginning). At the end, I had only one hit point left, and quickly entered the spiral door because the tiny caterpillars almost got me... and when Rayman was entering it, he somehow got hit and died
while the level ended. And after that, when Rayman got to the hub, he had literally zero HP left, but was alive anyway (
picture).
While playing, I found a few pretty cool things. At the end of the Marshes of Awakening, if you go to the right (where the Lums are) and look right, you can see Jano waving somewhere in the sky, kinda like in the other versions he's near the beginning of the level, in the distance (
picture). Also, in the area that was carried over from the Top of the World, the textures on one of the walls seem to spell out a French name on them (
picture).
One of the most difficult battles in the whole game was in the 1000th Lum room. I died like four times there and had to replay the first part of the level just as many times, it was fucking irritating. It felt sooo awesome when I beat it (
picture). Keep in mind I still had that tiny lousy life bar.
I also saw an animation of the Yellow Henchman that I never have seen before. In the Sanctuary of Stone and Fire, if you shoot at him while he's jumping, he'll fall to the ground, sit up, shake his head, and get up again. It's pretty cool.
In the end, I had some kinda okay stats (
picture), I guess. Like I said, right after I beat Razorbeard I came back to the Glade just to get all the powers and beat Ly's challenges and saved the game once and for all (
picture). It's a shame it doesn't save after the fight with Razorbeard. It would show a more accurate time (which, in this case, would be 8 hours and 30 minutes or so, again).
The Generator things were actually surprisingly tough to destroy because of the fucking Ninja Henchmen. With so little health, I had to think up a strategy, and I got one - but it's pretty useless because when you have more health at this point, you'd do just fine.
Speaking of the Razorbeard fight, I thought it'd be really fucking hard to beat him, especially the first phase because I didn't have the rate of fire ability, but it went okay. I lost half of my health actually. However, I beat the second phase literally flawlessly, without losing any health, and without getting hit by those things that Razorbeard shoots. And of course I didn't use the secret ammo room thing because I never even got there (seriously how the fuck do you get there).
I think I wanted to say some more crap but I can't remember anything.
tl;dr: I beat Rayman Revolution in two sittings - one from 0:30 to 8 AM with the game crashing a few times there; I got up to 80% on that. I didn't buy any upgrades from the Magic Well and didn't complete any of Ly's challenges, so I had a lousy rate of fire and no accumulation powers + I had a tiny health bar. Red Henchmen are harder than Razorbeard, in fact I wouldn't mind if instead of Red Henchmen there were Razorbeards and Grolgoths in the regular levels, it would be fucking easier. Tomb of the Ancients was the hardest. I got a Try Again 13-16 times. I found some interesting stuff in the game. I noticed a grammar mistake in one of the last cutscenes.
Also, I'm really sorry for the quality of the pictures. I didn't have my good-quality camera on me, just a phone.