Rayman Redemption

[Hunchman801]

Just got back to playing the game, I'm in the Caves of Skops already.

And thanks OCG for the patch. I haven't updated my version of the game yet so I have no idea what the new pirates look like though.

[PluMGMK]

I already experienced some of the pain, I can see myself continuing a bunch of times if I continued down this "demise" path.

I wonder does it eventually allow you to upgrade your health as you break cages, or does Betilla try to kill you in that case too?

[Steo]

Do those bad 1up statues kill you too?

[The Jonster]

Yup, they do!

I already experienced some of the pain, I can see myself continuing a bunch of times if I continued down this "demise" path.

I wonder does it eventually allow you to upgrade your health as you break cages, or does Betilla try to kill you in that case too?

Yeah that's something I should look at when I get back to Redemption. I stopped at Anguish Lagoon so I probably don't even have enough cages for 10 yet.

[Mortamon Saturn]

For anyone who wants to see the difference between the designs of the Cabin Boys, here are some screenshots:

Original ones:

New ones:

I like the new designs, but I prefer the original ones. They look more fitting for the game and they look more like pirates, in my opinion. So it’s a nice thing to have the choice.

[PluMGMK]

What was the reason for the change? Seems a bit arbitrary...

[Steo]

Apparently the original sprites were racist I hear(?), but I really don't get it. I guess it explains why the patch is named "RaYCiSS", but seriously, that's a bit much when you consider this game was released in 1995. This is a recreation of that game, and the sprites are no longer ok?

EDIT: Since Linux can't use drag and drop in Wine, I just ran "wine cmd" in a terminal, used cd into the directory of Redemption, then just ran "RaYCiSS.exe data.win". This seems to have worked according to the output.

[PluMGMK]

Racist against what? I don't get it.

[The Jonster]

Yes this was requested by someone on Twitter due to them believing it was racist. Seems there were people who were both for and against it.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ManiacalToas ... 8631163906

[Cairnie]

Basically the big lips. I would have thought the ring pirate was a parody of a parody (Baba from Asterix) of a parody (that other old Belgian comic, Redbeard?) but what do I know.

[OCG]

Just got back to playing the game, I'm in the Caves of Skops already.

And thanks OCG for the patch. I haven't updated my version of the game yet so I have no idea what the new pirates look like though.

No problem, glad I could have provided it
I see later the screenshot comparison was posted in the thread so I guess now you know how they look like.
Personally speaking, I am not a fan of the new design.
If there had to be a redesign, I would have preferred just smaller lips than a complete head change.

Yes this was requested by someone on Twitter due to them believing it was racist. Seems there were people who were both for and against it.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ManiacalToas ... 8631163906

Ah yes, the post that started it all.
Ended up getting blocked by 3 people in the end for simply being against the change and for proposing a compromise in terms of having a toggle option between sprites.
Such tolerance for different opinions, wow.

Basically the big lips. I would have thought the ring pirate was a parody of a parody (Baba from Asterix) of a parody (that other old Belgian comic, Redbeard?) but what do I know.

The thing that I find very weird about this whole situation is that Ubisoft already changed this sprite.
As evidenced in the Japanese manual, the original sprite concept showed that the character was supposed to have brown skin and big red lips.
I absolutely approve that Ubisoft changed colors of sprite before releasing the game because it showed that they realized it could be seen as a racist and that they wanted to avoid such thing. (Even a giant head that looked like a black man was scrapped as a boss battle)
For defending the sprite in the Twitter debate that happened, I ended up getting accused by (thankfully very few people) to be racist myself.
A lot of people lost the ability to accept compromise and other opinions that are different from theirs and it's kinda sad tbh.
Also, one user on Twitter who is a person of color also defended the old sprite and said they did not find it racist at all.
This makes me think some people just love to find things to complain about.
Not saying that nobody is allowed to find sprite racist but I think that the reactions to compromise idea with a toggle option were very extreme and not needed.

[Steo]

It's crazy that things escalate so much over something small. The idea is that this was fine 25 years ago, and this is a remake of that game, so I don't see why it's suddenly a problem now. It would make more sense if they complained to Ubisoft about it 25 years ago instead of kicking up a fuss about it now...

Either way, some games contain racism, and they're 18+ for that reason. Most people who would play Redemption are over 18 by this stage, and even if they're not, how would they know if it's racist? If big lips suddenly mean something is racist then I guess Globox is racist towards The Smurfs.

EDIT: I'm not being racist, but I'm definitely patching the old ones back into my own game because this is so nonsensical that it's literally ridiculous. There's about as much racism in big lips as there is Windows operating systems on my computer, and if you didn't get it yet, I don't use Windows at all!

[RulesOfKulche]

Yeah, I gotta say this whole thing is really silly in my opinion... I mean the sprites don't even show up for that long, and they don't look racist at all to me...

Oh well, a toggle would have been nice, but thanks for the patch anyway anonymous!!

[The Jonster]

Yeah I agree, the option to toggle would have been a great compromise to satisfy everyone who was bothered by the sprites. But this new patch now fixes that problem, so thanks to whoever created it!

[Steo]

Yeah a toggle option would do the job, because quite frankly it's silly having to replace sprites from the original game just because someone's opinion is that they "think" it looks racist. There's nothing about this to suggest that it's racist in any sort of way, it's just some blue guy with big lips. It's not like Space Mama has small lips in the game either.

Being honest also, would it really matter about their skin colour? They're cartoon pirate enemies in a game, which I will mention again were designed in the 90s. Last time I checked the calendar it was 2020, though sometimes I'd love to go back in time with the way things pan out these days.

I know some people are easily offended, but come on! We can't censor everything, reality is still a thing, and no matter how much gets censored, the reality is that not everyone in the world has the same opinion one another. If people live in a world of censorship then it just means every single thing that happens will offend them, no matter how small.

[Hunchman801]

Haha, thanks for the good laugh, guys. I love how this tweet summarizes it all:

Our poor blue skinned brothers are hurting from this terrible depiction.
The Blue Man Group actually killed themselves and don't get my started on the Smurfs.

Such tolerance for different opinions, wow.

As always, those so-called champions of tolerance are the least tolerant of all.

...Or maybe they're right and you're just a despicable Smurfist for being so insensitive to the oppression of blue people? Da Ba Dee lips matter.

[Steo]

Stop being racist towards those poor blue people, you're upsetting Globox and the Smurfs.

In all seriousness the funny side of this is comical because it's so stupid.

[Mortamon Saturn]

Oh yeah, I witnessed that whole thing on Twitter. It was absolutely ridiculous.
I’m not judging the person who thought it was racist as I accept that anyone can have their own opinions and sensibility (even though I think this whole thing is very far-fetched). However, I’m heavily displeased by how this person and some other people behaved in the thread and in related tweets, clearly displaying reject and hatred for anyone disagreeing. They even went as far as displaying some form of racism against white people. And don’t get me started on the number of people who got blocked. Here are some screenshots I took (and I didn’t even take pictures of some of the worst ones):

Waking up to rAcIsTs.png (7.01 KiB) Viewed 2498 times

These were made by the person who demanded the change. Now, here’s a reply from one their few supporters:

Such tolerance, am I right? All that, over a V I D E O G A M E. And way to make shortcuts: ‘If you don’t have the same point of view as me, then you are automatically white, a troll and a racist.’ ‘If a single one of you use the word SJW (someone feels targeted, I see…), then you all are wrong, because there are only two sides: right people and wrong people. Also, we’re all in a war with only two sides.’ By the way, not a single person really called them an SJW from what I’ve seen, the only time I’ve seen this word being used, it was to say ‘don’t bring SJW stuff into Rayman’ after stating respectfully that the character didn’t look racist because it was a blue limbless guy with goofy big lips like many other exaggerated features in cartoonish games like Rayman. People didn’t talk about free speech either, actually, some of them only talked about censoring and bringing politics into games. They twisted the whole story around for their own favour. And yes, I hid their names after taking the screenshots as I don’t really like to expose people publicly, I still got the originals somewhere but I’m not really gonna dig again in the thousands of pictures of my hard drive right now to find these. ^^’
And I have a surprise for these people: I’m not white, I am Ivorian and Spanish. And yet, I fully disagree with pretty much everything they said.
I’m sad to see all this constant hateful behaviour on Twitter against white people, as if none of them could have any empathy or tolerance (and the same goes for men who are so often generalised in the worst ways over there). It’s totally counterproductive, it only contributes to separating people even more. You do not get rid of hatred with more hatred…

I think it’s sad to see that Ryemanni agreed to the change with this clearly toxic person while totally ignoring absolutely everyone who disagreed and who suggested a toggle option, which was politely and calmly done and even though these people were a majority (as hinted by the numbers of likes and comments). And I don’t think I have seen any reply from these people which were in any way insulting, vulgar, racist or any other toxic thing. And I’ve seen the whole ‘drama’ from the beginning.
Of course, that’s still Ryemanni’s game, he can do whatever he wants with it in the end, but when so much of the game is about customisation (skins, fonts, Tings sounds, Fist’s sound effect, and so much more), I think it’s pretty weird not to give an option like this, especially when so many people demanded it. I still love the game to death and I like Ryemanni for his superb work and for his personality on Twitter and on Twitch, I’m just a bit disappointed by what happened.


… Wait, how did we go from talking about a perfectly innocent game of our childhood to racism, again?
Oh, well, just another normal day on Twitter again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[The Jonster]

Yeah since when is Twitter not toxic?

But yeah I read the tweets a few days afterwards, so that's how I knew the change came across. Ngl I do think it might have been rash for Ryemanni to make this update forcing the change when I'm sure others preferred the originals for whatever reason, but ultimately it was his choice, so I guess nothing much else can be done with that. The patch from anonymous fixes that though.

Thanks again OCG for posting the patch, I'm gonna download it the next time I play Redemption. I'll be honest, I don't really like the new sprites, they don't look as cartoonish to me as the originals did. And before anyone asks, I'm just voicing my thoughts, not trying to sound racist here...

[Snagglebee]

I really love the game Ryemanni did and it's easily the best game I'd see this year. Though I absolutely detest any form of drama I yet had to witness one unfold. I agree with the fact that this was entirely was handled a bit rushed, yet I have to give my regards to Ryemanni for the intention and giving effort in wanting to keep racial elements out of a family-friendly game. However I feel with the above, that the racial claims being a little far fetched. Since childhood I never really saw the cabin boys being even human looking to mock a certain group of people? But if some people do think that way, so be it.
However at this point I think both sides can be happy, as officially Ryemanni removed the claimed racism but those who wish to remain on the original sprites can use the patch OCG uploaded. Props to that Anon for making that patch btw !