Rayman Legends (Vita)

Rayman Legends (Vita)

Platformers are a rare breed in the retailer space nowadays. Other than Nintendo, not many other publishers dare to enter that realm of uncertain sales. Ubisoft tried with Rayman Origins a couple of years ago to high critical acclaim, yet mediocre sales. Luckily for fans of platformers, Ubisoft didn't let that prevent them from trying again, resulting in Rayman Legends, another imaginative and fun platformer from the brilliant minds at Ubisoft Montpellier.

The detailed, colourful graphics really pop out on Vita's OLED screen.

Return to the legends of yore 

Legends' gameplay is an excellent proof of the fact that simplicity isn't a bad thing. The game is played with the d-pad and three buttons, which might sound simple and it can be, but you can push the simple mechanics to incredible lengths if you know what you are doing. When you are trying to shave away that final 0,5 seconds in your quest for a diamond trophy in the challenges, you'll learn all kinds of little tricks how you can increase Rayman's speed, get through certain parts faster or keep his momentum going.

There's really not much to complain about with the basic gameplay per se, other than it is perhaps a bit disappointing that Michel Ancel & his Montpellier crew didn't really come up with any new moves or abilities for Rayman. His skill set is exactly the same as it was in Origins. As it is, the game almost feels more like an expansion pack rather than a full new game, mostly offering more of the same.

Of course the depth of gameplay would be nothing without good level design and this is where Rayman Legends shines, for the most part. You can take your time searching every nook & cranny for secrets, collecting every lum and trying to free every Teensie, yet there is a lot of room for speed runs. Most of the levels can play very differently when you don't have to worry about collecting every lum and can just speed through the levels as fast as you can.

While Legends mostly feels similar to Origins, it does have some new tricks up its sleeves. One of the more fun addition are the music levels. These levels have been designed in a way that everything that happens on screen is in sync with the background music, so you are jumping, hitting enemies or bouncing on them in the rhythm of the music. The songs used in them are mostly new Rayman-fitting arrangements by Christophe Héral from more or less well known classics like Eye of the Tiger, Black Betty and Woo Hoo with a couple of original compositions from Héral. The music levels aren't too hard apart from the 8-bit versions, but they still offer fun variety to Legends' level selection.

Mini-Rayman is just one of the fun gameplay gimmicks in the game

Perhaps the best part of the offline content are the Invasion levels, especially for gamers who want a bit of challenge. These levels were originally missing from the Vita version, but after three months of waiting they were added into it for full level parity with the home console & PC versions. They are essentially time trials, where you have to go through remixed parts of the levels in the game as fast as you can to save all the Teensies. There are added enemies and dangers which mean you aren't playing the exact same thing as in the normal levels. In these levels, you really have to put your skills to the test if you want to save all Teensies. For the more experienced gamer, these aren't anything too impossible, but they do require much more skill & understanding of the gameplay mechanics if you are to get through the hardest of them.

Some legends are best forgotten...

Legends' origin as a Wii U exclusive game is most clear with the addition of new type of touch-based Murfy levels. In both the Wii U & the Vita version, you are not in control of Rayman's friend Globox, but have to rely on his AI to get around the levels while you are in control of tiny green creature called Murfy. Your job is to flip switches, move platforms, tickle enemies & cut ropes as the AI controlled Globox tries his best to die.

Unfortunately, the Murfy levels are the weakest part of Rayman Legends. You are in the mercy of Globox's AI, which can lead into incredibly annoying leaps of death that no human controlling the game would ever do. Globox seems to have no sense of self preservation, opting not to save himself even when it would be as easy as extending your leap by a couple of meters. The Murfy levels during the main campaign are passable, but frustrations will arise when you are trying to get through some of the harder parts of challenges. To give an example of how big of an issue this is, there was a daily challenge you couldn't even complete because no matter what you did, Globox would just jump into his death.

Who's the best Globox in the world

Another new addition to Rayman Legends are the daily & weekly challenges. These are randomly generated levels where gamers around the world compete for trophies. There are five types of challenge levels which can be further divided into a few different sub-types of challenges. In one type of challenge level, you might have to collect 150 lums as fast as possible while falling down a neverending pit filled with fireballs, spikes and other kinds of deadly traps. In another, you are trying to climb an infinite tower as high as possible with an increasingly challenging set of obstacles getting in your way. As mentioned before, unfortunately Murfy-levels are also a part of these challenges and they are the worst part of them as well.

While you'd think you'd get tired of repeating the few different kinds of challenges every day, the challenges are different enough to counter tedium. The set of challenge rooms in the Dojo are a fundamentally different experience from trying to make sure you are constantly moving up in the Infinite tower challenges or controlling the pace of your constant falling in the Neverending Pit.

9 seconds to go to one of my few diamond trophies.

The reward for the challenges are bronze, silver, gold and diamond trophies, each rewarding you with a certain number of points. In addition to challenges, you can get a set amount of trophies from the regular levels. The points you get are counted towards your Awesomeness level, which is a completely pointless addition to the game. Your Awesomeness level doesn't really do anything past a certain point and is mainly there to force perfectionists/trophy hunters to play the game daily. The base game only nets you around 4000 points, so to get to the final 11th level of awesomeness (6000 points), you have to go through months of daily Rayman Legends gaming. Unless you're continuously among the Top 1% who are rewarded with the 50-point Diamon Trophy, your maximum number of points per day is probably 20 or even less if you can't even reach the much more attainable Gold trophy.

As far as the more superficial side goes, Rayman Legends doesn't disappoint. The 2D art is even more beautiful than in Origins and the game looks gorgeous running on Vita's OLED screen in native resolution. The game manages to mostly keep up the respectable 60fps framerate throughout the 120 levels helping the controls feel extra responsive, but there were a few Invasion levels where, for example, the molten lava effects on the screen caused some slowdown.

The soundtrack offers the kind of catchy fun, whimsical tunes Origins did which compliment the colourful yet sometimes goofy style of Rayman perfectly. If you are not humming the themes as you play and don't get a smile on your face while listening to the happy melodies of Legends, you might just be dead inside. If only Christophe Héral composed more music for video games, the video game music world would be that much better for it.

All-in-all, I can't feel but a little disappointed in Rayman Legends. At its best, it's platforming nirvana on the palm of your hands but some things like the Murfy levels definitely bring down the package as a whole. As it stands, Legends perhaps has higher highs than Rayman Origins, but it also has the lowest lows of these two games. Legends is a no-brainer for fans of platformers, but you have to approach it with the knowledge that you aren't getting as thoroughly perfect a package from beginning to end as Origins was and the fully original content is over a bit too soon. The Vita version is a very good port - especially with the now-returned Invasion levels - but the lack of online multiplayer is a bit disappointing, considering there are likely a lot of people who don't have real-life friends with a Vita and interest in Rayman. Of course Rayman works perfectly well as a single player game as well, so us Rayman-loners of the world can still experience the platforming bliss. Alone.

Pros

* super-tight controls & simple yet deep gameplay
* imaginative & well designed levels
* Invasion levels offer challenge to those who want it
* daily & weekly challenges are a great way to get more out of the game and its mechanics
* the graphics are as gorgeous as ever
* Christophe Héral's OST perfectly compliments the visuals and shenanigans of Rayman

Cons

* doesn't really noticeably improve or add anything on top of what Origins already did, gameplay-wise

* the whole Awesomeness-thing is completely pointless and requires way too much grinding with the game being as it is

* Murfy levels are, frankly, passable at best, shit at worst

* there are too many Murfy levels vs. normal ones

* the ghost/closest challengers features in the Daily & Weekly challenges are a bit broken & often don't work

Verdict: GREAT. While Legends is a somewhat disappointing sequel because of the numerous mediocre Murfy levels and slight lack of wholly original content, at its best it's a masterfully crafted platformer that puts a lot of others in the genre to shame and even puts up a fight with Nintendo's best ones.

INFO BOX

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 (upcoming), PlayStation Vita (tested), Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One (upcoming)

Release Date (Europe): August 30th 2013 (PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360), September 13th 2013 (Vita) & February 27th 2014 (PS4, Xbox One)

Number of players: 1 (offline), 1-4 (online)