Rayman Legends

Rayman has always been a fairly weird franchise but the Raving Rabbids trilogy launched our French friend into a level of insanity that seemed unrecoverable. However, 2011 saw Rayman return to his slightly less crazy 2D platforming roots with Rayman Origins, and 2013 has seen Rayman spawn a sequel that very much improves on everything Origins did right. Full to bursting with colourful charm, Legends is in every way the brilliant reboot that Rayman so desperately needed.

Legends has a story but it’s very iffy and frankly completely irrelevant. Rayman and co have for some reason been asleep for 100 years (sounds great) and, as you’d expect, shit’s gone down during their prolonged nap. So naturally it’s up to Rayman and friends to save the world, collect Lums, and save Teensies. But you don’t need context to rescue some Teensies, do you? You also don’t need much context to know that you have defeat bosses, beat musical levels and play some good ol’ Kung Foot!

The main aim of Rayman’s gameplay is essentially to rescue all ten Teensies (adorable little creatures in cages) and reach the high score of Lums for each level. Completing levels unlocks progressively harder levels until to reach the boss stage and eventually a lovely little musical level to end each world on. Legends isn’t exactly a hard game, unless you’re going for 100%, and the levels have a great flow to them if you can avoid dying too much which makes the overall experience an absolute blast. Boss fights are fun and feel appropriately challenging for a Rayman game, meaning that they may take a couple of tries but are ultimately more fun than frustrating. The musical levels are an absolute treat to play, they feel so meticulously crafted and the music is so excellently timed to your own movement that you can’t help but feel anything besides an exciting mix of exhilaration and awe. The general crux of these musical levels is simply that you traverse the level in time to the music, it sounds simple but it’s an absolute blast.

For those who don’t know, Rayman Legends was originally announced as a WiiU exclusive title and so some of the game’s mechanics are based around the idea that you’re playing from a WiiU. Which, of course, the vast majority of people aren’t. So-called “Murphy mode” is one of the features that was initially designed for the WiiU and basically has you control a little flying dude in order to manipulate the environment by pulling levers, eating cake, or cutting rope. Whilst on the WiiU it’s quite an intuitive mechanic it degrades into nothing more than a button prompt when playing on consoles or PC, making it feel completely unnecessary and frustratingly shallow. Although it does sometimes play out in a puzzle-like way with the way you have to time the button press it still feels like it should’ve been done differently outside of the WiiU or removed completely.

If there is one thing that Rayman Legends is certainly not lacking then it’s definitely content. There are six main worlds, each with around 6-7 levels each plus boss and musical, that have a pretty nice difficulty curve as the game introduces new mechanics and progressively more complex level design. On top of the 6 main worlds, which must total around 50 different levels altogether, there’s an unlockable set of worlds called “Back to Origins” which contains just under 30 levels from Rayman Origins re-imagined with Legends’ beautiful art style. Daily and weekly challenges feed those who grow ever hungry for some competition, whilst time trials of previous levels are ready for the fast-paced racers out there. As cheesy as it may sound, the new multiplayer soccer mini-game “Kung Foot” is a surprisingly fun break from the usual platforming around the place saving Teensies and whatnot.

Whilst Origins had some pretty decent level design, it’s completely blown out of the water by some of the beautiful and excellently crafted levels in Legends. Level design is fun, colourful, and full of variation whilst the beautiful blend of 2D and 3D make levels look truly wonderful. Some levels are worth playing again just to stop and stare in awe at the beautiful art and gorgeous visuals. Sound design is as upbeat and vivid as the visuals with heart-warming cheers from rescued Teensies and extremely happy victory music. The soundtrack really shines through during the unfortunately limited musical levels, which combine classic beats with some hilarious themes such as a Mexican cover of the classic Eye of the Tiger. Controls feel really tight which makes platforming a blast.