im debating between this and arkham city, amazon will have the two of these games on sale, and i will be only able to get one of them

and while see i loove the charm and style of this game, i dont think it has lasting value to it,

im feeling that arkham city has more worth for my dollar with its whole new game plus and the story mode being over 20 hours long and the riddler challenges and such,

the quality of those hours though may vary differently with rayman. im open to the idea that rayman may be the better overall game, but i dont know im just asking.

so what i want to know is can anyone tell me how long the game is, and whats its lasting value, and do you guys think that this game will be hard to find later on?

Rayman is a fantastic game. It is gorgeously hand drawn and is so fun and whimsical it will just make you smile - even when you die. And you will die - and die a lot. The soundtrack is wonderfully fun and each area/level design engaging and different from the last.

In total there are around 60 levels - the bulk of which are in the main world which is divided into a half dozen unique settings. There is also a dark world but to open the dark world you must collect a certain number of teeth so I am far from reach that yet. The levels where you acquire the teeth are sub-paths in the main world that are also locked. To get into those levels you must collect a certain amount of lums to open each successive path. Lums are the coins or rings of Rayman.

If you just blaze through the levels not worried about collecting lums or reaching the locked levels/world you can probably finish the game in six hours. Give or take an hour depending on how good your platforming skills and how quick your reflexes are. However, you are missing most of the game by doing this. The game is about collecting lums and finding all the hidden ones. At the end of each level there is a medal that ranks you based on how many lums you collected and secrete areas you found. Getting the medal for each level will not be something you do in your first six hours. On top of this each level also has an award for speed runs. Again, you will not get a speed run award your first time through a level, or even your second..or third...or fourth.

All in all it is hard to compare the length of a platformer against a story based action game with a set number of quests. Rayman isn't about finishing a level - its about completing it and this is a big difference. To see the entire game you are going to need to do more than follow the path and this means rerunning levels. I have had a great time going back through levels and cannot find a single complaint with Rayman but your mileage my vary. Easily one of the best platform games in a decade.

I have Arkham City on my Christmas list.

The games have similar length to each other both for a core play through and to 100%. I think Rayman is the best 2d platformer since Yoshi's Island. That being said Batman is great. Alot of people had complaints about it but I thought it blew Arkham Asylum out of the water in every conceivable way. You are cheating yourself if you don't end up with both eventually.

I'm not sure, but I'd go with Arkham City; it was, after all, my favorite game of this year... until Skyrim came out :P

It depends on how much of a perfectionist you are. Rayman has a ton hard goals and collectibles that can take around 10 hours or more to get all of them. If you aren't so concerned though about S-raking every level then you could beat it pretty quickly (roughly 5-6 hours). Also a heads up gamestop is having a sale on it for $30 tomorrow.

Go with arkham city and get rayman when it is cheaper, which will be soon if the sales are to be believed

Rayman's probably 5 to 8 hours, but getting 100% took me more like 15.
 
And it's mostly personal taste, but I enjoyed this more than Arkham City (which was no slouch, of course).

I think for what it is Rayman is TOO long, after I got all the fairys I was like right now end game. Nope instead they opended up 4 more worlds for me to go into, thats when I said "Fuck this game"

Batman is more like 15 hours at most for the story. 20 seems like a stretch.

And while Rayman could probably be "completed" a.k.a. running through all the levels once in about six hours, I've been getitng all the secret cages, and going for all the score attack awards, speed runs and bonus (chest chase) levels. That's been going for about 12 hours now and I'd say I'm at 80% or so.

However! I think both games excel at their genres, from gameplay to presentation.

Even though I enjoyed both games, I think Arkham City would be a better purchase. I think I finished Rayman somewhere under 10 hours, but I had no interest in 100% it (rarely do with any game these days). Same with Arkham City. Its core story is great, and some of the side missions were fun, but collecting 400+ Riddler trophies got boring by the halfway point.

@Lnin0: Great post. Sums up the game extremely well.

And I'd pick Rayman.

I completed Rayman and would say that it took me 10+ hours to complete, I will warn you however that the game gets brutal towards and at the end. I was pretty close to giving up several times.

@Hizang said:

I think for what it is Rayman is TOO long, after I got all the fairys I was like right now end game. Nope instead they opended up 4 more worlds for me to go into, thats when I said "Fuck this game"

Same here. Not to mention the levels near the end get "throw the controller across the room" hard. Not my idea of fun.

If you love the gameplay in this game (And unless you just hate platformers in general, you will likely have a blast), you'll want to go for the post-game completion achievements/trophies like I did. And considering how cheap it is now, buying it is a no-brainer in my opinion.

Looks like it's on sale on Amazon right now for $30, for anyone wondering.