I'll start this off by making it clear that I've never played a Rayman game prior to this one, they were a bit before this young buck's time. This was my childhood Rayman game, and what a childhood game it was. I was hesitating to review this in all honesty, because it's one of the most nostalgic games I could have ever written an undeservedly glowing review of, blinded by the haze of the many hours (and let's be honest, probably days) I sunk into it as a ten year old. So bear that in mind before reading this glowing review: this was one of my favourite childhood games, and it's possible some of that might be clouding my judgement.
Anyway, the plot of this game is that the bad guys are annoyed at the good guys for snoring too loudly, and declare war on them, kidnap all the pink smiley faces keeping the world in balance, and lock them in cages to starve to death. Yeah, I thought my neighbours were getting too huffy when I didn't put in my headphones that one time. That's really all you get in terms of story, and it was done about as well as it possibly could be. Any meagre cutscenes or story developments that follow are hilarious though, and overall this whole game has a great sense of humour, in its animations, sound effects, and character interactions, so much so that it's perhaps one of the best examples of a comedy game you could find in this decade.
The game also looks great, the colours really pop in every frame of the environments, and every world has its unmistakeable look and feel to it. Obviously you're not going to be seeing every drop of sweat dripping down Rayman's constantly pumping legs...oh wait...but the graphics are still gorgeous, and frankly, we don't see enough games as colourful as this anymore anyway.
And that soundtrack...man, it's one of the best I've ever heard in a platformer. No joke. They all tie into and feel nothing less than perfect for the distinct visuals of each world, and yeah, the aforementioned nostalgia cloud may be the only reason I still remember the music in this so well, but I challenge you, nay, DARE you to not be humming along to that song in the Sea of Serendipity after a few levels of hearing it.
But I've neglected to talk about the gameplay for far too long, the meat of the 2D platformer, and putting it simply, it's quite simple, but brilliant. You jump, glide, punch, and swim through the levels, all pretty standard stuff, but the level design really knows how to make full use of all your abilities, and while it's hard to really explain what I mean, the design of every level has such a great flowing feel to it that you can't help but love it, and if you don't believe me, just try one of the time trials on any level and you'll understand how tightly designed they are. Or search around for the hidden cages that never feel completely invisible without a guide. It strikes a good balance between challenging and being unfair...for the most part.
There are nevertheless a few levels that feature some rather obnoxious design (looking at you, any level with those jumping oranges), and the controls can be a little bit slippery at times, with Rayman seeming to suffer from what I like to call "Nathan Drake syndrome", i.e, it being a task of Herculean difficulty to relax his grip on a wall he is hanging on to, and occasionally the hitboxes appear a little wonky.
There's a good amount of variety to break up the traditional platforming levels too, with fast-paced chase levels as a reward for collecting enough of the imprisoned smiley faces, and bullet hell flying sequences every so often in addition.
I find it extremely hard to really convey what I love so much about this game when at its core, it is so simple, so please just take my word for it when I say that it's one of the best 2D platformers I've personally ever played, and that it seems massively slept on to me, not nearly enough people have played it. Even if you don't really like the Rayman games that came before it, you only need to look at a few seconds of gameplay for this one to see that it's nothing like them, so check it out anyway CAUSE NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE HAVE AND IT'S FANTASTIC
