Mr Skops

Mr Skops
Mr Skops
Alignment	Bad
Appears in	Rayman
Location	The Caves of Skops
Portrayed by	{{{portrayed by}}}
Resistance
Attacks	Claw, energy balls
Sex	{{{sex}}}
Species	Scorpion
Relatives	{{{relatives}}}

Mr Skops, also known as Skops the Scorpion, is a giant, dark-pink scorpion with a single massive claw, and yellow spikes on his body. He is the fifth major boss in the original Rayman game, and is encounterd only once: in Mr Skops' Stalactites, the third and final part of the Caves of Skops.

Mr Skops peacefully sleeping

Mr Skops is angry at being woken

He is first encountered asleep on the other side of a fiery pit covered with spiky platforms. Rayman finds himself in front of the sleeping Mr Skops who, angry at being woken, attacks him.

Mr Skops hurling his claw forward

Mr Skops thumping the ground

He attacks by throwing his claw, which Rayman must jump over as it sails part him, and again as it returns to its owner. Mr Skops also strikes the ground with his claw, causing the platforms which Rayman stands on to fall into the lava below, one by one.

Mr Skops getting really angry

Mr Skops looking for Rayman

When all platforms are gone, Rayman must grab the edge of the platform Mr Skops is standing on to avoid his attacks, and then jump back onto the platform when he thumps the ground. Mr Skops then runs away, while causing lava to rise in an attempt to kill Rayman. He also demonstrates his ability to shoot energy balls from his tail, which destroy platforms.

The lava is now rising

Mr Skops firing energy balls

Then, Rayman has a one-on-one battle with Mr Skops, in which he must dodge his claw and punch his energy balls back at him. When has only one health point left, he moves forward, making his last attacks much harder to dodge.

Mr Skops about to hurl his claw

Mr Skops about to fire an energy ball

Once beaten, Mr Skops falls to pieces.

Mr Skops touched by one of his energy balls

Mr Skops falling to pieces

Early version of the game

An extract from an article about the cancelled SNES version of Rayman. The bottom-right screenshot shows a battle with an early version of Mr Skops.

At a very early point in its production, the original Rayman game was planned for release on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In 2010, the French retro-gaming magazine Pix'n Love printed an article on the history of the Rayman series, including several in-game screenshots of the scrapped Super Nintendo version. One screenshot depicts Rayman and his female companion battling a very early version of Mr Skops. This version of the character can still shoot electricity from the tip of his tail, but he looks much more like a real scorpion; he has two claws instead of one, and his carapace is a shady orange colour rather than a bright pink.

Some pieces of advertisement from the game, as well as the packaging of some versions, bear a screenshot which shows Rayman battling Mr Skops in the Dream Forest rather than in the Caves of Skops. It is not known if this screenshot was created solely for the purpose of marketing, or if this scenario actually existed in any early version of the game. Neither of the leaked Atari Jaguar prototypes contain any trace of this battle, although they differ from the final version in numerous other ways.

Image gallery

This image from the original game uses Mr Skops as a visual representation of his domain, the Caves of Skops.

A reformed and benevolent Mr Skops enjoys his holidays after the defeat of Mr Dark by relaxing onboard Space Mama's pirate ship.

Mr Skops makes a cameo appearance in Rayman Junior, as an engraving on a wooden palisade.