Imagine you're going out to a restaurant. Scanning the menu, you find the entrees you're used to, the ones that you know you'll enjoy. As you flip to the next page, something in the specials section catches your eye. It sounds delicious, and as you watch a waitress walk by with it to another patron's table, you conclude it looks great too. The price tag is just as high as your favorite dishes though, and you find yourself at a crossroads – do you take the plunge and try it, or stick with what you know you'll enjoy and not worry about the amount of money you spent?
Rayman Origins is that dinner special, and being surrounded by releases like Uncharted 3, Skyrim, and Assassin's Creed Revelations, the full retail platformer has an uphill battle against the “comfort food” that longtime fans of these series will likely flock to. If you're willing to try something new that you're unsure of though, you might find yourself with a new favorite dish.
Rayman Origins
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform(s): Xbox 360, Playstation 3 [reviewed], Wii
Release Date: November 15, 2011
The game starts with a simple premise – our titular limbless hero and his friends, Globox and the Teensies, are snoring far too loudly (and with great rhythm) for the old geezers in the Land of the Livid Dead, so they decide to send all manner of unpleasantness your way in the form of Darktoons: invading the peaceful Glade of Dreams, capturing your friends, and just plain making a mess of everything. The story doesn't go much further than that, but it's enough of a springboard to get this game going, and it serves as a good introduction to the silly and often nonsensical world of Rayman.
Your goal in Rayman Origins is pretty straightforward. You'll be traversing each level, trying to free as many Electoons, little pink balls with blonde ponytails, as you can. This is done primarily by breaking open the cages either at the end of every level or hidden in the environment, or collecting a certain amount of Lums, musical bugs that are the equivalent of coins in this game. Electoons will allow you to progress to new areas both figuratively and physically, by both unlocking later stages and creating stages where they form complex bridges out of their hair (I did say it got nonsensical at times…). By collecting enough of these little guys, you'll also unlock additional costumes for your characters and even some new optional levels.
Rayman got his start as a 2D platformer, and as the name suggests, Origins goes right back to what made this series and, on a larger scale, the genre itself, so compelling. You have the traditional staples of running, jumping, swimming, and attacking foes, as well as some more unique abilities, such as gliding through the air and, my personal favorite, running up walls. These abilities are introduced one at a time through each new “world”, and this method allows the game to be paced brilliantly. When you gain a new ability, the next few levels are designed with learning that ability in mind, so by the time you have all of your abilities by the halfway point of the game, you have them mastered and can now go through the latter portion of your quest by combining them all.
You'll need to have them mastered too, because this game can actually get pretty challenging. While there are some difficult segments, Origins is fairly forgiving in its difficulty. There are numerous checkpoints, an unlimited number of lives, and even the option to skip a level if it proves too difficult. You never feel as though the game is unfair though, as the controls are tight and you can always catch some small error you made.
The platforming action is shaken up throughout the game with the introduction of levels where you ride on “Moskitos”, lovable giant pink insects, in a side-scrolling shoot-em-up. As you play more of these levels, they progress similarly to how the player gains abilities, as you will learn new ways to use your Moskito's shooting and inhaling abilities to your advantage to collect as many Lums as possible. These give a nice change of pace, they never feel like a chore, and are even cleverly used to transition between worlds, which I found to be a nice touch.
Rayman Origins is filled to the brim with optional content to further challenge and entice players as well. There is four player local co-op, which in no way is necessary, but adds some features such as the ability to revive fallen allies as well as the occasional bout of screwing them over, making the sometimes frantic game just that little bit crazier and even more enjoyable.
For those looking for a further challenge, players can attempt to collect enough Lums (read: a lot) in each level to earn medals. Some of these require a lot of precise timing and keen platforming on the player's part to get those hard-to-reach little bugs. The application of these skills rings especially true with the time trials in each level, and they do a great job of showing how much attention to detail was given in regards to the pace the player can move.
No other portion of the game showcases this pace as well as the “Tricky Treasure” levels though. These courses find Rayman chasing a treasure chest who isn't too keen on being smashed open and pillaged, culminating in some of the most frantic, adrenaline pumping action in a platformer I've seen since the likes of Super Meat Boy. Every fraction of a second counts as you run across crumbling plateaus, slide down waterfalls, and dive through the tiniest gaps between spiked walls. It doesn't help that each level is wonderfully designed, as if to distract you from the task at hand.
Let me tell you, you will be distracted numerous times by the sheer beauty and colorful design of each level. Each world feels more unique than the last, from a desert filled with wind instruments serving as your walkways and platforms (with clever use of said wind) to an arctic landscape with spiky oranges, bouncy limes, and watermelon floating in piranha-filled fruit punch. You then get thrown a curve ball when that icy world becomes a hot and spicy Mexican kitchen, with lizard chefs spewing fire and beans gleefully hopping out of chili. And that's only two of the worlds!
Michael Ancel and his team took painstaking effort to give absolutely everything in Rayman's world life and character, and they succeeded with aplomb. Seeing plant life unfold in front of you as you progress, watching the Globox lookalikes meander about in the background of the port levels, and even having your character jump into the background to have it become part of the level are just some of the examples that showcase the meticulous attention to detail. Rayman, his friends, and his enemies are all wonderfully animated, springing to incredible life and always charming the player, even when the creatures aren't exactly trying to be cute. It is, simply put, one of the most visually stunning games of this generation, able to stand tall even among high-profile games like Battlefield 3 that tout their graphical capabilities, albeit in its own unique way.
Overall, when it comes to making a solid platformer, the team at Ubisoft really seem to just get it. They've taken everything we know and love about the genre and spun it into a unique and engrossing experience that is more than capable of holding its own against the platforming giants like Mario and Kirby. The experience is a complete one as well, and you can tell that the developers went out of their way to make their product worth the price of entry.
In a day and age where platformers are oft-considered to be “appetizer” material as downloadable titles, I can say with full confidence that it was an excellent decision to make this game a full-retail one, an entree, if you'll indulge the metaphor a little longer. It may have been overshadowed by the industry's “signature” items that surrounded its release, but as I said, if you find yourself unable to decide which meal suits your fancy, as your server today, might I turn your attention to our specials tonight and humbly suggest Rayman Origins. I believe you will find it quite to your liking.