Michel Ancel - the creator of Rayman and project lead on the latest title to feature the limbless hero, Rayman Legends - seems to stick out like a sore thumb among his contemporaries. You only need to observe someone like Cliff Bleszinksi preach about the emotional core of Gears of War to know that, in many ways, it has become an industry that takes itself too seriously.
Whilst nobody would discount the game of the year credentials of Bioshock Infinite or The Last of Us, both are enveloped in themes and worlds that nobody would have thought possible in a game 10 years ago, which is why, as good as those games are, Rayman Legends is all the more appealing. Legends, like Origins before it, feels like a throwback. And what a throwback it is.
Amidst the endless violence and unforgiving cursing that dominates many of this generation’s most popular games, Rayman Origins was a welcome tonic in just how genuinely pleasant it was. Legends acts as a similar tonic in 2013, just with an even greater kick. Its throwback nature comes via the simple fact that it’s a 2D platformer, but, unlike Nintendo’s more recent entries in their New Super Mario Bros. series, Legends feels like a real leap forward in just how this genre should be packaged.
Level design is varied and infinitely creative thanks to the beautifully detailed Saturday morning cartoon vibe to both the characters and environments, with levels covering all sorts of settings from fantasy and skylines to ocean depths. Legends strikes a perfect balance between being genuinely challenging, whilst never feeling cheap or unfair – if you fail, it’s your own stupid fault, but it doesn’t make playing any less joyous.
Legends’ wide assortment of levels and challenges are absolutely packed with pure gameplay, making for very little downtime and offering up very little reason to stop playing. Failure is simply a delay, because you know that the reasons as to why you fail are perfectly rectifiable, simply by a slightly earlier press of the jump button, or bouncing off an enemy at just the right angle. The variety in the level design also makes completing levels and advancing all the more enticing, as you desperately scurry around for teensies to save and lums to collect in an attempt to unlock new areas and progress, as the game throws yet more challenge towards you. Every step you take will see more of the level come into view, and you’ll be tested far beyond your simple jumps and punches, as you slide down chains, soar through the air, swim to the ocean depths, sneak through alarms and sprint past deadly traps that could even result in the demise of Indiana Jones. Or worse, see him lose his fedora.
Rayman Legends is at its absolute best when you at your absolute best, as the sense of rhythm created as you weave your way through every new level is simply peerless in the genre. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the absolutely delightful musical levels, which saw my inner perfectionist unlocked in a way it hasn’t been since the heyday of Guitar Hero. Every botched jump resulted in a missed note, which always resulted to heading to the pause menu to restart my pursuit of musical platforming perfection. Jumping and bopping your way through a whimsical remix of Eye of the Tiger was, for me, the perfect representation of everything great about Rayman Legends, as the gameplay, visuals, sound effects and music all came together to create a truly joyous experience.
These musical levels are rewarded to you when you complete all preceding levels within each world, which are all presented as paintings along what is effectively an interactive menu system, which Rayman or whoever you choose to play as can run along and jump into whichever world or mode you fancy. There are well over 50 levels in what could be called the main game, with plenty of timed variations of these levels unlocking as you progress further, which adds a level of speed and challenge to the game that sees it start to resemble something like Super Meat Boy, which is no bad thing for the true platforming aficionados out there. Ancel and his team have also been generous enough to supply slightly remastered renditions of seemingly ever major level from 2011’s Origins, adding quite incredible value to the package.
It doesn’t stop there, though. There’s a multiplayer football mini game that generates more mayhem than almost anything I’ve ever experienced, and daily and weekly online challenges ensure that there’s potentially an endless amount of platforming goodness to keep you occupied, all of which is tied together by leaderboards and a persistent leveling system that adds to the feeling of progression and reward. Collectible creatures and unlockable characters are present too, with the latter adding some nice visual spice to proceedings whenever you choose to indulge in some four player co-operative action, which, like Origins, can result in platforming bliss or unadulterated chaos depending on your friendship group.
Co-op is made more interesting in the Wii U version of the game by a little critter by the name of Murfy, who can be made to move platforms, cut ropes and manipulate the levels via the gamepad’s touchscreen in order to assist the progression of the main player. It’s a neat idea and in my short experience with the Wii U version it worked as intended, but on the other home consoles Murfy is relegated to a face button, and cannot be controlled by a second player. Nonetheless, the addition does add some further challenge and need for quick reflexes in the levels in which he is involved, and mixes things up to ensure further that there’s no chance of Legends becoming stale.
Like everything else about Legends, Murfy is a case of the developer simply trusting the player to take the game that’s been given and progress and enjoy it as they see fit. There’s very little handholding, and it will only be the most skillful of platforming players who will be able to collect every last character, save every last teensie, and surge up the online leaderboards. You can tackle the game’s levels however you see fit, and in whichever order you choose, as every facet of the game is designed to reward you for your successes. The game constantly notifies you of your awesomeness and the new content that said awesomeness has unlocked; Legends quite simply takes tremendous joy in challenging you and rewarding you in equal measure, which is as welcome as it is brilliant.
It’s already been mentioned, but it’s worth dedicating words to just how good this game looks and sounds. The hand drawn style of the characters and levels themselves is fantastic, and every level is bursting with colour and imagination. Characters animate fantastically, with every jump and punch bursting with character. Even after all these years, seeing Rayman’s hair spin around as he glides about the sky like a helicopter is still as delightful to see as it is to perform. Clever uses of 3D models during the game’s boss fights add a nice level of depth and scale to these climactic events, too.
Music wise, Rayman Legends is one of the best of the year, with just a few seconds of any one of the numerous tracks littered throughout capable of brightening up a day. Whether you’re playing or just observing Rayman Legends, the look and sound contribute to the fact that it couldn’t be described as anything less than whimsical.
That word, whimsical, is perhaps why Rayman Legends stands out as much as it does. I mean, when was the last time you described a game as being whimsical? With expansive RPGs and blockbuster shooters dominating the gaming landscape these days, it would be the assumption of many that, outside Nintendo, the role of 2D platformers in gaming has diminished to the point of irrelevance. Well, Rayman Legends laughs in the face of those who would dare make such assumptions, and delivers one of the most genuinely enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve had in many a year. Nobody would discount the quality or relevance of the bonafide gaming blockbusters, but you’d be a fool for discounting Rayman Legends for not being one of them.