Hunter

Hunter
Alignment	Bad
Appears in	Rayman, Rayman Raving Rabbids (Game Boy Advance), Rayman Origins
Location	The Dream Forest, Band Land, the Blue Mountains, Picture City, the Caves of Skops, Candy Château (Jaguar version only), Forest world, Jibberish Jungle
Portrayed by	{{{portrayed by}}}
Resistance	(Rayman) (Rayman Origins)
Attacks	Hammer-bullets, contact, live bullets
Sex	{{{sex}}}
Species	{{{species}}}
Relatives	{{{relatives}}}

These trigger-happy fools are more trouble than you might think. Bombastic Hunters pepper the Glade with random live ammunition. Though dressed rather ridiculously in pink, these men are verrry dangerous and surprisingly sharp shooters despite their bulging eyes.

—Official site, Rayman Origins

Hunters are enemies in the Rayman series. They are static enemies, turning towards Rayman to shoot at him with their guns. They are encountered for the first time in the original Rayman game, and make a return in Rayman Origins. Although several Hunters appear in the Game Boy Advance version of Rayman Raving Rabbids, they have little resamblance with the original Hunters. In Rayman Origins, Hunters are revealed to be the masters of the Lividstones, who want to become Hunters too.

Appearance

In the original Rayman game, Hunters are limbless creatures with purple bodies, white hands and a red neckerchief, much like Rayman. However, they have big, cleft chins, bald heads with only two hairs, and stylish moustaches. They carry several ammunitions on their chests, which they seem to use to reload their guns. Their guns shoot slow-moving bullets; as the bullet glides through the air, a small door opens on its top and an arm extends from it. The arm waves a large wooden cartoonish mallet back and forth endlessly.

In the Gameboy Advance version of Rayman Raving Rabbids, a different kind of limbless Hunters make an appearance. These Hunters have huge armoured bodies, and wear brown perforated explorer hats, similar to the Livingstones'. Their hats cover completely their faces. The only resamblance that these Hunters have with the original ones are their mallet-wielding bullets.

In Rayman Origins Hunters make another appearance, having more resamblance with the Hunters from the original Rayman game. However, like other returning characters, Hunters now have limbs, looking more human. They have several features of a stereotypical leading safari man, with a gigantic monocle (Similar to the Water clowns') a combed hairstyle, and an enormous moustache. However, their clothes have extravagant colours: A purple coat, a pair of purple shorts (both wrongly described as "pink" on the launch website) and a red neckerchief with white spots. Their hairy hands and yellow, sharp teeth suggest that, like the Lividstones, Hunters possibly also have a poor personal hygiene. Like the original Hunters, they carry their ammunitions on their chests and have enormous cleft chins. This is the only appearance in which Hunters don't use mallet-wielding bullets as ammo. Instead, they use big live bullets with crazed smily faces and red noses.

In Rayman

A Hunter in the original Rayman

Hunters make their first appearance in the original Rayman game, in the level Pink Plant Woods. They can be found in each of the game's worlds; this makes them the second-most common enemy in the game, after the Antitoons. Hunters never move, they are static enemies that continually clean their guns with their neckerchiefs, aim them while sniggering, and then shoot a bullet at Rayman. A Hunter can only be hurt when he is cleaning his gun, as its gun blocks Rayman's telescopic fist when he is aiming it at him. Hunters' resistance is average. Their slow mallet-wielding bullets always move horizontally and are relatively easy to dodge, but have a wide range; Rayman is likely to get hurt if surprised by them.

At the end of the game, Hunters seem to become good people after Mr Dark is defeated, as there's a picture of a happy Hunter having a tea party with Betilla during the credits sequence.

In the Game Boy Advance version of Rayman Raving Rabbids

A Hunter, as seen in the Game Boy Advance version of Rayman Raving Rabbids

A variety of Hunters also appears in the Game Boy Advance version of Rayman Raving Rabbids. They can only be found in the Forest world, a Dream Forest-inspired area containing plentiful references to the first game. Ingame, these big armoured Hunters bear little resemblance to their counterparts in the original, but the hammer-wielding bullets they fire are exactly the same.

These Hunters have a much lower resistance, being defeated with one regular punch. However, they protect themselves with their guns, and in order to make them vulnerable, Rayman must put his Goth costume on, and use the ability to spit gum to shoot at their cannons. With their guns filled with sticky bubble gum, the Hunters will be distracted, trying to pull it out. In that momment, Rayman can defeat them.

In Rayman Origins

The Hunters return in Rayman Origins. Their behaviours are similar to the Hunters from the original Rayman game. They keep static, aiming horizontally at the players and then shooting blue live bullets. However, these bullets are much slower compared to the mallet-wielding bullets, and players can ride on them without getting harmed (Possibly, a reference to the Shell), and use them as platforms in order to get to the Hunters, who usually stand in high places. Some Hunters shoot red live bullets, which act as homing missiles and follow the players for a certain period; those bullets are extremely dangerous, and players can't ride on them. You can however kill enemies with them as they will follow you and can accidentally hit enemies behind you. There is an achievement on Xbox 360 and a trophy on Playstation 3 called Back At You! for bubblizing a hunter with his own live missile, it is easily achieved with the above method.

Hunters are not as common as the original ones, appearing only in jungle levels like the Jibberish Jungle and the Ticklish Temples. Like most of the enemies in Rayman Origins, Hunters can be bubblized with one single attack, but take four Moskito shots to be defeated. During the events of "The Reveal", a Hunter, along with several Lividstones can be seen escaping in the Warship with the Magician, revealing a possible alliance. During the Moskito sequence, the Hunter is hidden inside of a tube, shooting his red homing bullets at the players, and eventually, coming out.

An artwork depicting a scrapped featherless bird-like creature can be seen, with a burned moustache and holding a scared Hunter's monocle. It's unknown what relationship was intended to be between Hunters and those birds. However, one of those birds can be seen on the box art of the game, along with other scrapped enemies.