Day 19: Rayman Legends
You know, Ubisoft, you have a perfectly good mascot just sitting there waiting for you to make him a new game.
Lyra: And you have a perfectly good set of characters waiting for you to make them a new chapter.
"I'm working on it, okay!"
Lyra: (Threatening) Work faster!
(I throw one of the games already talked about at Lyra's head)
"Yeah, doesn't feel so good having shit thrown at you does it?"
Anyway, the punch line of my opening is that the next game I'll be talking about is Rayman Legends.
So what's the story? Well, after the events of Rayman Origins, Rayman, Globox, and the playable Teensies have gone into a century long sleep (DAMN!) and the nightmares from the last game have come back stronger and in greater numbers. On top of that, the main villain from the last game known as The Magician has split himself up into five dark teensies and kidnapped the other teensies and the game's new playable characters, Barbara and her princess sisters. Rayman's friend Murfy enters the scene to tell him and his friends to wake up and get ready to kick names and take ass.
Not the most robust story in the world, but that's okay because the gameplay more than makes up for it.
First off, there are tons of playable characters for you to choose from like Rayman, Globox, the Teensies, and Barbara and her sisters. They even offer cosmetic costumes for your character (Mario-Rayman and Luigi-Globox are my favorites)
This game, much like many other platformers I've talked about, is very much a Collect-a-thon as there are plenty of lums for you to collect and get a high score, Teensies for you to free, and secret doors that lead to a bonus area to free a Teensie.
Of course since this is a 2D platformer there are plenty of platforming stages that'll test your skills with the genre, as well as the abilities that have carried over from Rayman Origins such as the wall run, punching, swimming, changing size, and hovering in mid-air.
The level design is always built around these mechanics, and on the subject of the level's I can safely say that they have interesting themes and set pieces made all the more eye catching thanks to the vibrant and cartoony graphics. These levels include enchanted forests, a level made up of Mexican cuisine, an underwater level that looks like Bioshock, and a take on Ancient Greece. All of these levels are usually followed by a fun boss fight and a fun yet challenging chase after one of the Dark Teensies.
There are also stages where you get to control Murfy as whatever character you were currently playing as, and the game suddenly becomes a puzzle-platformer where you use Murfy to take down obstacles and enemies.
But by far the level style everyone remembers are the music levels where the player hears a well known rock song and has to jump/punch to the beat. Among these songs are Ram Jam's 'Black Betty,' Survivor's 'Eye of the Tiger,' and Trust's 'Antisocial.' These are by far the most fun levels in the game, made all the more challenging with the Livid Dead Party levels where you have to play through those same music stages with effects like a flickering screen, 8-bit graphics, etc. I could personally take them or leave them as the constant distractions can naturally lead to some rather unfair deaths.
On the subject of challenge, once you've beaten a level, you can always go back and do what they call 'Invaded Levels' where you have sixty seconds to save at least one of three Teensies. To save all three, it requires that you know the level inside and out…which is hard given you're most likely playing the level backwards. I find this to be an interesting challenge to see how well you know the level you just played through and how well you've gotten to know this game's mechanics.
And if all of this wasn't enough for you, this game introduces other modes like Kung Foot, which is basically Rayman Soccer, leader board challenges, and you can even play through levels that were in Rayman Origins.
Rayman Legends packs so much in one package that it's hard not to like it. This is easily my favorite game in the franchise so far, and I sincerely hope Ubisoft gives their Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy games a rest for a little bit just to focus on making another Rayman game.
