Sure, you can take your time with each section, but it’s when you’re sprinting, leaping and landing by the skin of your teeth that Legends transforms into something astounding. It’s here where the design of the game shines and combines with the responsive controls to tickle the pleasure nodes in your brain. These frantic levels are a joy, demanding that you exercise your fingers and pay attention to the flow of the level, or else meet your maker. However, exceptions appear in the form of levels that pit you against a moving danger, one that is constantly chasing you from the side of the screen, forcing you to move or perish. The design of each area encourages speed and a fluid rhythm, but the game doesn’t punish you for prudence, either, happily allowing you to dawdle around, taking in the sights. Each world that you visit adheres to a specific theme with its own set of mechanics or ideas that alter and change the base platforming experience, ensuring that the game always feels fresh and fun.įor the most part you’re free to take levels at your own pace. If that wasn’t enough there are levels where you must glide your way downward, avoiding spiky vines, and levels where you must control your flight in an endless updraft, battling against flying foes. Each stage offers brilliant variety: one minute you’re sliding along chains while the next your underwater, attempting to evade the deadly searchlights while listening to some beautiful background music. Progress through the game and levels start to become trickier, requiring faster reflexes and pin-point precision to complete, and yet you’ll never notice that they are becoming more difficult because the game has been so carefully building the level of challenge the entire time. Things begin simple, and the collectible lines of Lums along the level provide a subtle yet important hint as to where the level is going. Though Rayman actually has a fairly limited moveset composed of running, jumping, gliding and punching, what Ubisoft manages to do with it is inspired, crafting challenging and inventive levels that will delight at every turn. This is a platformer in the truest sense, one where speed, precision and skill are emphasised, though never over the player’s fun thanks to a finely tuned learning curve that will quickly have you feeling like a platforming master of the ages. Seriously, what’s up with that? There’s more concentrated brilliance in this single shot than in the last several Call of Duty games combined. The only requisite is that you can get over the fact that he has floating hands and feet. Better yet it means absolutely anyone can jump in with no previous experience of the series required. And that’s okay, because Legends doesn’t need to bother with these – they’d just get in the way of the fun. As a side-scrolling platformer Legends wastes no time in attempting to provide some narrative direction for you to follow, nor any time explaining why there are levels with floating cake or why Rayman got turned into a duck and must complete the level with feathers and all. The basic premise here is that Rayman and has friends are woken from their extended nap to find the Glade of Dreams once again in trouble, and the only way to save it is through platforming and madcap antics, because how else would you save a fantastical world? And that’s your lot. Yes, the limbless hero has returned in Rayman: Legends, a game that was originally supposed to be a Wii U exclusive and that received some criticism when Ubisoft announced it was to be delayed in order for it to become a multiplatform release. As a direct sequel I feel it fitting that I should begin my review of Rayman: Legends in the same way as I began my review of Origins: He’s got no freaking limbs! Why has he got no freaking limbs!? Despite playing every single Rayman game throughout the years I still have trouble getting over that very simple fact Rayman is a hero devoid of limbs. Platforms: Xbox 360, PC, PS3, Vita and Wii Uīack in 2011 I scored Rayman: Origins 9.5 out of 10.
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