After going through the three games that were the genesis of Rayman, it’s almost weird to skip forward to what is, so far, his last game. Ubisoft’s higher-ups have stated that their interest now lied in their copy-paste open-world franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry… y’know, the adult stuff. I sincerely hope that Rayman’s appearance in next year’s DLCs for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle sparks new interest in the character. In the meantime, we have this title, which I really hope wasn’t the swan song.
A Wii U and a PC are very different beasts when it comes to controls. There's one less screen, for one.
Rayman Legends was released on August 30th, 2013 in Europe and September 3rd in the United States for most versions (Windows, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360, Vita), with later releases for PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, and Nintendo Switch in 2017. Notably, the game was originally thought as a Wii U exclusive, but a fear following low sales of other recent titles by the studio made Ubisoft yet again overdose with ports for every console available, forcing some Wii U-based gameplay mechanics to be adapted for other consoles. Thus, one critique of Rayman Legends when compared to its predecessor Origins is that gameplay has barely changed, with only the Wii U-based mechanics being proper new stuff. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, shall we?
The first game was colorful but hard, with a fairly basic story. The second had solid 3D gameplay with sections reminding of mini-games; the story, while darker, still lent itself to plenty of comedic moments, with Rayman as an all-loving hero. That said, two games aren’t enough to establish a pattern, and the franchise was still looking for its tone.
Also a recurring theme from now on: Globox and Rayman being lazy butts who spend all their off-time sleeping or relaxing. What? Heroing takes a lot outta ya.
However, it seems to be in Rayman 3 that the franchise finally settled on what it wanted to be, and that’s summed up in one word: Wacky. It’s more notable in Origins, where Rayman, Globox and the Teensies become a bunch of psychos, more than happy to attack and kill each other while saving the day. The visual signature of both that and Rayman Legends further emphasizes the silliness that’s now part and parcel with the name. But the first shades of that tone can be traced back to Rayman 3.
Today’s game was released to multiple platforms in March of 2003, with different release dates for GameCube, PS2, XBox, PC and N-Gage ports, with a rerelease in March 2012 for PS3 and XBox 360. It's also Rayman’s last mainline game before the Rabbid takeover. And though other games would exist between this and Origins (such as the rather mediocre “Hoodlum Revenge” GBA title that I covered in 2014), I feel it’s interesting to see what, again, changed in this new installment.
Full Wacky
That time a Lum dreamt big. "Take over the world" big.
The game begins on a bizarre revelation: The healing Red Lums, when scared, can turn into Black Lums, fuzzy chaotic beings. More precisely, one of them has become so dangerous it grew arms, and has sworn revenge upon the inhabitants of the Glade of Dreams. The Black Lum, named André (that’s not a scary name! Call yourself, I don’t know, Keith or something! “Oh, André, I’m so scared!” …Said no one, ever!), is quick to plot world domination. He and the Black Lums shear a woolly creature and create disguises. The animal was part of a caravan led by Murphy (voiced by Billy West), who flies off to warn Globox (voiced by John Leguizamo) and Rayman (voiced by David Gasman) of the incoming danger-
Coming from Rayman 1 to Rayman 2 is like seeing night turn to day. Rayman 1 is much more colorful and pretty to look at with its detailed sprite art and environments, sure. However, Rayman 2 was not only done in 3D, but also with the experience gained from the first, so it’s a very different beast. This one doesn't feel like a commercialized version of devs challenging each other with the hardest stages they could make.
Globox and the Teensies are some of the new additions to the series that stick around for the remainder of it.
It’s also a game with a lot more focus on story and building the world of the Glade of Dreams, though in an unexpected turn of events it would end up ditching almost everything from the original game in favor of new characters, items and locations. This would mark a recurring issue of the Rayman franchise, a sort of identity crisis where few things stick around between installments, making it difficult to set a canon (and a tone) for the series. Rayman origins tried to paste everything together, but more work ought to be done about that.
Rayman 2 was first released on October 22nd for Nintendo 64 and PC in Europe, then on the 31st in the U.S., with further releases on DreamCast and PlayStation in 2000, and more ports down the line for PS2, Game Boy Color, Nintendo DS, 3DS and iOS. I have seen the game be played previously, on an N64; so it’s my first time really playing through it, albeit on PC. Let’s see what this game is like.
We've waited entirely too long to see Rayman in a game again.
I still have UPlay stuff to get through… I’ve been thinking about playing more Ubisoft games for the blog, seeing as I have so many waiting on that platform alone… I mean, I own 17 games there and only played/reviewed two of them. I’m long overdue for a themed month. Well, the title gives it away: I’m gonna review some Rayman in the coming weeks. Besides, with the announcement of Rayman being added in 2023 to the Sparks of Hope DLC for Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle, I feel this series of reviews is justified.
Nice, I'm already 25% through!
When I said I got all of my UPlay games for free, I lied actually; I bought three games, all three of which were pretty inexpensive. Those are Rayman 1 (also known as Rayman Forever), Rayman 2: The Great Escape, and Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc. For all the time I spent talking about the Rabbids (both the game and all associated media), it’s a shame I spent so little time discussing their parent franchise.
The three games I mentioned are the genesis of Rayman, his humble beginnings as a new platforming mascot from Ubisoft. His first outing in 2D, followed by two adventures in 3D. We know what happened next: Some spin-offs and secondary adventures (Hi, Hoodlum’s Revenge), a long series of mini-game titles (hi, Rabbids), and finally a few highly-stylized titles (hi, Origins and Legends; by the way, if the month is going well, I might tack Legends to the list as I have that one on Steam).
So, today’s game is the one that started it all. Rayman 1, also nicknamed Rayman Forever on Ubisoft’s platform, originally released on September 1st in North America for the PlayStation. The version I’m playing was released on UPlay in 2016, and includes Rayman Designer, a level maker, as well as Rayman by His Fans, a pack of 40 fan-made levels. But what is Rayman 1 like? Oh, you’ll see…
"Et-lat e-may out-way!" Yeah, if you want to understamd
most of anything said by the voice actors in this game, you
got to brush up on your pig latin skills.
Ouldn't-shay e-bat oo-tay ard-hay, o-nay?
I spent most of Part 1 explaining the various elements
of Rayman Origins, like the levels, and everything the Electoons are used for…
I guess everything else will be discovered as we go through the game’s plot! I
only covered the first three worlds, so there’s got to be something more in the
8 remaining worlds, right?
Past Gourmand Land, we reach the Sea of Serendipity.
Immediately, we’re shown a land of pirates, and we save another nymph who gives
Rayman the power to dive! You heard that right, folks; at the start, Rayman couldn’t
punch or fly, and he couldn’t even dive underwater. He had to learn these
things by saving nymphs!
He's got a point there! Less bones to break!
Plus, Rayman has everything else that matters. And I do mean everything else.
It’s almost silly that he had to re-learn many of
these things, since Origins chronologically takes place between Rayman 2 and
Rayman 3, at a time where Rayman probably had some of these abilities already. We also
get to learn a couple things, especially through the Bubble Dreamer Polokus’s
comments: Apparently Rayman has no limbs because the nymphs, who made him to be
the protector of this realm, ran out of Lums and thus only made the important
parts. Arms, legs? Who needs that, right? Also, who knew that Globox is
supposed to be colored red like the other wizards we see from his species, but
a weird berry he ate turned him blue?
Only the Rayman series can make that stuff up, folks! It's good to have that comical edge in the mythos.
The Sea of Serendipity has a very distinctive
soundtrack – so far, we could hear the Lums singing in the music of the
previous worlds, but this is where they become very clearly audible. Oh gee, I
didn’t know Alvin and the Chipmunks had been reduced to singing on video game
soundtracks. And is that someone drowning in the
background of this track? Uh... let’s move on…
These sages should be happy. Yeah, their beards are tugged
in a pain beyond belief, but at least they're not on this
ultra-dangerous adventure.
Past this world is the Mystical Pique, a mountainous
area that also houses a monastery, where several of Globox’s wizard fellows can
be met. Believe it or not, they’re floating on air. And their beards can be
used as vines to jump from platform to platform, too! Rayman’s world is the
land of ultra-strong beards that never rip off. In the Mystical Pique, Rayman
saves the fifth nymph, who teaches him how to run on walls! Hurray, now Rayman
can replicate Sonic! And look at that Mario loser, only able to wall-jump…
Rayman can do that AND run up walls too!
We>'re eventually gonna defeat that thing... we just need to stay alive and
stop fighting each other. Easier said than done.
Advantage of nymphs: They're all hot.
Disadvantage: They all have the exact same body type.
At the end of this world, Rayman defeats a golem and
opens the next world… Moody Clouds? Actually no, as Rayman enters that world’s
first level and finds the nymphs trying to open a portal to the Moody Clouds. There’s only one
problem. The four sages of the lands are unresponsive, having morphed into
giant unspeakable creatures - without their power to rely on, the portal stays closed. And thus Rayman needs to defeat them in order to
access the Moody Clouds, where the true enemy lies.
On this, four new worlds open, each connected to one
of the previous four worlds. This is also where the game stops holding back.
You want it difficult? You’ll get it VERY difficult. This game has infinite
lives, and you’ll need every single one of them. I swear I must have spent over
a thousand lives in this game, possibly even more, I died so often.
That trailer's not even one hundredth of the ways to die.
The Jibberish Jungles open the way to the Ticklish
Temples, you can access the Grumbling Grottos from the Desert of Didjiridoos,
the Luscious Lakes are just across Gourmand Land, and the Sea of Serendipity
hides the Angsty Abyss. Each one of them has a King of a realm of Rayman’s
world, transformed and given a monstrous form by the mysterious mastermind
behind this mess.
The Ticklish Temples house Daisy, the cute, flowery
lord of the jungles. Only problem is, it’s been turned into… this:
Sheesh, is that what it looks like before putting on makeup
in the morning?
And that is how a giant, threatening monster loses all
dignity.
The battle starts with Rayman fleeing from Daisy by
taking altitude. Later he gets trapped in an enclosed space with the monstrous
plant and must fight it. This is where I realized, during my playthrough,
something that tends to be a recurring issue with ultra-difficult games like
this. See, Daisy’s pattern never changes regardless of what Rayman does. First
it yells, then it rams into the leftmost wall, and Rayman has to run up the
wall on the left, jump to the ground, run up the wall on the right to smash the weak point
appearing on Daisy’s forehead. Next it climbs on the ceiling and smashes its
head on the exact same spots in the exact same order, then Rayman smashes the
new weak point that appears on its ass. Then Daisy jumps forwards and
backwards, always in the same manner, then attacks with its tongue and the last
weak point is in its mouth. It’s always the exact same pattern regardless of
what you do. After realizing this with the boss fights, I realized the same happened in most of the later levels, especially the ones that had
tons of obstacles always appearing in the same spots and using the same tricks.
Beating every level in Rayman Origins for the first time is a grueling,
difficult task - in the last 5 worlds especially. Beating them again becomes easier and easier as you learn the
patterns. Then you will breeze through most of them. Enemies in games like New
Super Mario Bros. Wii have enough programming leeway that they can still make the game
difficult (as an example, Piranha Plants shoot towards Mario, not in a precise direction), but in platformers where the environment is the hero’s
greatest enemy, and said environment always behaves the same way, the challenge
gets diminished every time you beat one particular level and learn wat it does, and when it does it.
Well, that was a rant!
Here's a dragon stomach in serious need of TUMS.
When Daisy is defeated, it reverts to a tiny, cute
form. Aww, adorable! That’s one saved King, time to go save the others. We face
the Mocking Bird again at the end of the Grumbling Grottos. The Luscious Lakes
end with a battle against a giant dragon – or, well, a fight against the weak
spots in its belly, with accompanying rising and sinking lava and waves of
freaking fire, because no matter where Rayman is, everything wants him dead.
And of course, once it’s beaten, the battle isn’t over, then you have to make
Rayman run out of its mouth. Again; patterns, learn them, because the obstacles
are always in the exact same places. Then, we fight the final King in the Angsty
Abyss, a tiny shrimp that became a giant dragon-like monster shrimp.
Allergics beware, this is a King Size Shrimp.
With all four Kings saved, the way to the tenth world,
Moody Clouds, is open. What awaits for us in there is a land of clouds, of
course, as the name indicates, but it’s combined with a factory-like place containing robots and giant deadly machinery. Then again, that’s fine, it’s just the 666th
deadly thing in this world.
Yup, definitely a fan of Mister Dark.
Just check those posters behind him.
Rayman runs through a few engine levels, and then we get a
sequence of levels making up the “final dungeon”, if we can call it as such. In
“The Reveal”, we arrive in the room where the true villain appears: It’s a
Teensie known as The Magician. A big fan of Mr. Dark, apparently. May or may
not have hatched this entire plan only because he was bullied at wizard school; the beta script for the game is kinda unclear. Why is it such a twist? Because the Magician... it's also this same guy, who followed you around to track your progress all this time, and was overjoyed at your successes in collecting Lums and Electoons.
Can you say "Traitor all along"? I mean, I knew something
was up once I realized he wasn't sincere when dry-humping
the big tube full of Lums.
Mechas of all the bosses so far?
Yeah, no... weonly have two.
Can you imagine the insane cost for parts and maintenance?
Not out of resources, the Magician sends Rayman down a floor trap, and the
limbless wonder has to battle mechanical versions of Daisy and the Mocking Bird from earlier. With these beaten,
Rayman runs back to the Magician’s room. Caught off-guard, the enemy drops his
hat, realizes he’s cornered, starts bobbing his head, and then dances. Yup,
dances. Much like how other Rayman enemies just break into a dance number when
they’re beaten. So wait, since the Rabbids let Rayman join in their musical
competitions so easily, does that mean they were always defeated from the
get-go? I’m probably overthinking this. Rayman embarks on the dance number and has a fun time until the music ends… at which point the Magician flees. Oh, crap! He played
us! But that’s alright, we can follow him.
Fleeing from deteriorating evil lairs is intense workout,
even for big-name video game heroes.
What follows is a sequence awfully similar to the
Treasure Chest Chase levels, where the pattern of the level doesn’t change
whatsoever, and Rayman isn’t allowed a single mistake as he runs, jumps and
swings among the falling debris of the Magician’s Tower. It’s just as hard as
the later treasure chest levels, too! You need ungodly precision to pull it
off. Still, Rayman catches up with the Magician, who jumps into a flying boat
to flee some more. Rayman gives chase on his trusty Moskito, shooting at flies
and bombs on the way. Hey, are we ever gonna get to battle that damn Magician
and his damn ship? Technically, we get to weaken it, but we can’t stop it.
Sun-shattering kaboom in 3... 2... 1...
It eventually reaches the end of its course… that is,
breaking the glass around a miniature burning star in the deepest of the Moody
Clouds factory… shattering it, destroying the entire goddarned factory in the
process. All four playable characters (Rayman, Globox, any Teensies) fall from
the sky… and land right in the spot they were in when they were loudly sleeping at
the start of this entire mess, going back to their raplike slumber. Nobody
knows if the Magician survives, and it seems that nobody cares. But wait,
aren’t the inhabitants of the Land of the Livid Dead still angry?
AKA the land of Never-Catch-A-Break.
That’s okay. Beat the treasure
chest chase level in every world, collect the 10 ruby Skull Teeth, bring them all back to the skeleton blocking
the way to the Land of the Livid Dead, and then enter that level… which is, by
far, the most brutal one in the game. It starts with a quick platformer section
with attacking boney grannies, then Rayman has to run
and jump through a section that involves a giant skeleton spine speeding
through. That part continues with a lot of high-flying, which would remind one
of these chest-chasing sections… also, a lot of running upwards on falling
platforms. Every single part of this requires precise timing. The next area?
FIRE. FIRE EVERYWHERE. And you must carefully run across platforms, than
navigate your downward flight to avoid streams of fire… but you can’t be too
slow because there’s a goddamn spiky vine chasing you downwards!
Somewhere out there, Mario is watching with his mouth agape,
while Kaizo Mario brushes it off as "no big deal".
That's one Hell of a tough-looking boss.
What do you mean, it loses all of its eyes in one turn if
you're fast enough and then it just has one big weak spot?
Thankfully, the final room in this enormous level is
just another boss. Big Mama, the “Mother of Nightmares”, awaits here, bathing
in a pool of lava, staring at Rayman with her 15 eyes. Much like the level that
preceded it, the fight against Big Mama is all about patterns and the player’s
reaction speed. After Rayman runs a bit on Big Mama’s spiky arms, the weak
point appears only for a half-second. Punching it which brings the hero close
to her eyes – and you have to pop them all! Thankfully you have enough time to
pop them all in a single turn, but if you must go through the sequence that
precedes this, just know that it never really changes. Again – patterns.
Popping all of the eyes triggers a second sequence of arm movements for Big
Mama, then the weak point shows up again, and then you can pop the big weak point
on Big Mama’s forehead, which transforms her back to her real form, from a
gigantic monster to a… gothic nymph who actually looks pretty cool? She quips
that this was a nightmare – oh, ha ha, I went through all that trouble and died
150 times in the Land of the Livid Dead alone just to hear that joke, totally
worth it. And thus, with this, I can say we’ve seen everything the game had to
offer.
This whole game is a nightmare... the first time you play, at least.
Nice hair bones, by the way.
…Oh, of course, you can now go hunt every last missing
Electoon, as well as every medal (for collecting the maximum number of Lums in
every level) and trophy (for beating the best time in every level). All for
bragging rights, of course. And two extra playable characters with the
remaining Electoons.
Quite a lot of levels to explore, spread across 10 worlds.
(Technically 11, if you count the Land of the Livid Dead)
So, my verdict of this game? It’s pretty damn awesome.
Hard enough to make you pull your hairs out, but awesome. Seriously, this is
hands-down the hardest platform game I’ve ever played – although its difficulty
is greatly diminished after a first playthrough. As soon as you know the game
by heart, it’s not much of a challenge anymore. You could say that it’s true of
every game out there, but it’s particularly noticeable in Rayman Origins where
the world itself wants to kill you, perhaps moreso than the enemies – but since
the world’s behavior in a level hardly, if ever, changes, if you know what’s
coming, you’ll never have any issue avoiding the various death traps. It’s
different from other platform games where the enemies and their AI lead to
risks of death as soon as their behavior is a little less predictable. The first time you’ll play this game, however, you will think of it as insanely
difficult.
Multiplayer does make the Moskito sections easier.
What is really awesome, though, is the option to play
with up to three friends. Michel Ancel took inspiration from other multiplayer
platform games released around that time (such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii),
implementing a similar system where characters who die reappear in bubbles and
can be saved by other players. The creator of Rayman felt, however, that many
of these recent games lacked a form of player rivalry; you could jump on other
players, toss them around, but never actively harm them; thus, in Rayman
Origins, he made it possible for players to smack around and punch each other,
with actual life losses. As if the game wasn’t already hard enough! Still, I
applaud the idea, I agree with Ancel that some games would have benefited from
that little extra possibility for rivalry.
Gotta admit, this all looks really great.
The art is simply fantastic, the game is an absolute
treat, a marvel for the eyes. Things couldn’t get prettier than that… well,
until we get to Rayman Legends where they give 3D lighting to the 2D models to
give an awesome style. The lands to explore are wonderful, helped by the ton of
detail put in every environment. It’s especially great seeing as said
environment tends to move a lot, making things even more interesting to look
at. The music greatly complements this, even changing mid-level depending on
the mood of the new area Rayman entered. They even manage to be funny with some
of these tracks, adding elements that you might only notice when listening to
the track alone!
16 playable characters, 246 Electoons to collect,
eleven worlds, multiple challenges… Honestly, this game is awesome. You could
buy it on Steam for 19.99$... Or, if you got lucky, you could have received the
game for free through Ubisoft’s UPlay platform. In which case, play it! You
will rage, you will swear, you will probably give up and then come back, and
then you will enjoy it.
Now that this is out of the way, welcome to my first
review of a game I’ve played through Ubisoft’s UPlay service! There’s a lot of
things we can say about Ubisoft these days, many of which are far from positive.
But damn, do they still keep their high standards for their mascot’s franchise.
There is no better proof for this than Rayman’s latest two platforming titles,
Origins and Legends. After being tossed out of the limelight by the Rabbids for
so long, it’s good to see Rayman going back to his roots.
Just look at how stylish this all is!
Oh, it's gonna be great! But will it be difficult?
In 2011, we got Rayman Origins, the first new
Rayman platform game since 2005. Between 2005 and 2011,
we’ve had mini-game collections with the Rabbids, a bunch of rereleases for
Nintendo DS, some remakes here and there, and a karting game, but we needed a proper new platform game. Also,
that last platform game in 2005? Rayman: Hoodlums’ Revenge, which I reviewed for this bloga loooong time ago. Huh. And of course, now that I’ve played
Rayman Origins, I’ll probably have to play Rayman Legends at some point too!
But I’m trailing off. Let’s talk about today’s game, Rayman Origins, which was
released in 2011 for PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox, and in 2012 for PS Vita,
Windows, Nintendo 3DS and OS X.
Are the fairies ever explained to us?
Hm... I don't think there's much to explain.
They do love to all have the same physical pose, though.
Rayman Origins was thought up by Michel Ancel,
creator of Rayman, with a very clear goal in mind: Tie up some loose ends of
Rayman’s continuity, mostly by linking together the first and second game, and
explaining a whole lot of story elements that weren’t touched upon. That’s not
what happened, as in the end the elements did appear in the game but weren’t
used to explain past elements or further the mythos. Many of the plans
for this game’s plot were dropped, which is unfortunate.
Thankfully, the original script was kept among the game’s files, so we have a
bit of an idea of what’s going on.
Oh, and this game is also famous for mad
platforming levels. The difficulty is off the charts, on the first time you
play at least. Join me as I take a look at this game, its current plot, and the
plot it was originally means to have. Let me tell you though, we have no time
for sightseeing, this is going to be quite a ride.
Here
it is, the final post of Rabbids Month! Boy was that a lot of work.
Seriously, I think this is the biggest theme month I've done so far.
Eight posts, an intro, eight lists (Seriously: I'll have discussed
over 96 minigames this month!)... Truly a large project. I still hope
to do something even bigger in the future... but we'll see in due
time. Now that I'm done discussing February 2015, how about we end
this with the final lists?
UK Box art for TV Party
An
issue I quickly noticed with Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party is the
lack of creativity in the minigames. Well, okay, there were also many
“microgames”, but none of them actually has a title, and none of
them can be accessed from a manu. On almost every imaginary
channel of TV Party, there's a minigame that comes up more than once,
except it's a different track/mountain/song/whatever. After
calculating, I noticed that there was, in total, barely 25 actual
“minigames” here, which means that I will be covering almost
every single minigame in TV Party in this post. And, in fact, I'm
still going to be talking about the 25th minigame: Instead
of two lists containing 12 elements, I'll have a Bottom 12 and a Top
13. Because I'm way too nice. Though, as a result, you could just
revert the order of the Bottom 12 list and you'd get a list of all
the minigames in TV Party, from the one I despise most to the one I
like most... But I'm gonna keep the formula intact. Also, please note
I won't be making a Top 12 list in March. I'll review a WiiWare game,
then jump straight to a movie review. Why? I had
four posts with lists in February. I think I can take a short
break from those, mmm'kay?
Okay,
so... Are you ready for the tears and the anger? No worries; as
usual, happiness will follow right after! As a wise Italian from
Brooklyn once said, let's-a go!
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Bottom 12 / Top 13 Minigames
This
is it, the (not really) chilling conclusion! The (far from) epic
finale! The game to end all games (that have already ended)! The last
part for Rabbids Month! When you start playing RRRTVParty, you create
a profile (with an avatar, a name, and whether you're left or
right-handed), and then you're brought to the main menu. There are 4
options: Solo Mode (Story Mode, actually), Party Mode, Training and World Contest. There's also two VHS cassettes on the top-right corner
of the screen.
The first, which gets unlocked when you beat Solo Mode, is Credits, the second sends you back to profile selection.
Let's look at the Solo Mode.
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Bottom 12 - Top 13 Minigames
An alternate boxc cover for the game.
It looks creepier than the one used in the
preceding post.
Well, that Rabbid knows how to keep his
cool.
You
asked for it (not really), here it is (anyway)! As I was reviewing
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for the Wii, I quickly realized I liked a LOT
of minigames that were in it. Whenever I make a list like this, I
make three columns: Minigames I like, minigames I find meh, and
minigames I don't like. The level of love or hatred for every
minigame will be decided later, once every minigame has been played
once. While I was playing, I found it was very difficult for me to
make these lists. I would frequently cross off one title from a column and put it in another, whether it's one in the “Bad” list
that winds up in the “Meh” list because I felt they weren't bad
enough to deserve being on the “Bad” list, or some from the “Meh” list that found themselves on the
“Good” list, or vice versa... Look, I'm just saying that making
this list wasn't easy, because almost every minigame had redeeming
features. They were almost all either fun to play, creative, simple
or hilarious. I ended up with not enough games on the “Bad”
list, a bit too many on the “Good” list, and also a few on
the “Meh” list, which mean I had to pick among the items in the
“Meh” list to fill the Bottom 12 list. As a result, you might
disagree strongly with me on many points on these two lists. You have
every right to. Just don't be a jerk about it in the comments, that's
all I'm asking. Okay, let's get this party started with the worst, so
that we can then move on to the best!
BOTTOM
12 MINIGAMES IN RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS 2 WII
12.
Snake Charmer (Europe)
Keep a good beat or they'll beat you!
You
hold the Wiimote like a flute. You have to press the buttons as they
light up on the in-game remote. In Easy Mode, there's only A and 1,
but Normal Mode adds the 2 button to the mix. When you make long
series without failing, you get more points. If you fail one button,
the dancing snake bites the poor lil' Rabbid. It's a basic minigame,
but I don't criticize it because the buttons to press are selected at
random. I mean, the concept is fine, and there's a bit of funny –
oh wait, that's it. It's not funny enough. I just had that
revelation.
11.
Spitter Sells (USA)
Well, this is quite the spitting image of impoliteness.
AKA
Serial Spitter in RRR2DS. Yep, it makes the “Bottom 12” list once
again. I've got to admit that it's actually better than the one in
the DS version, but sadly, it seems it's still not good enough to
escape my judgment. You must shake the Wii remote to build up sputum,
and then rotate the Wii remote left or right to aim into the mugs of
the Rabbids below. The Rabbids on the edges of the screen give more
points. This one is actually better than its DS counterpart, because
you don't need to wait for the victims sleeping, arguing or yawning.
Nope. Just build up, aim, spit. And if you beat the high score, then
you can consider yourself a graduate from Jack Dawson's School of
Poor Mannerisms.
Once
again, it's time to look for which minigames I like, and which ones I
dislike! This time, I'm taking a look at the 36 minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, on the Nintendo DS! Take note that since many of those minigames are adapted
from the Wii version, some of the minigames may come back in next
week's list. So, without further ado, let's begin! As usual, I prefer
to start with the negative, so I can end on a positive note.
BOTTOM
12 MINIGAMES IN RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS 2 DS
12.
Art Crime (USA, Europe, Japan)
Bunnies can't color.
The
least bad minigame, mostly because the controls work correctly, there
is no annoying mechanic, and it is not disgusting... but it's also
unfunny. A Rabbid is making graffiti on walls, drawing Rabbids. You
have to color the small zones that appear on the Touch Screen,
without going over the lines too much. The closer you are to 100
points each time, the more points you get. The minigame ends once all
the zones will have been colored, one at a time. It's an alright
minigame... just kinda boring. And there's three of them, so it kinda feels like filler.
11.
Restroom (Oceania)
LOCK THE DAMN DOOR!
A
retread of “Bunnies Never Close Doors” from RRR1Wii. Doors to
restrooms open and you have to close them before the Rabbid notices
and plungers your face. Also, sometimes a Rabbid will pass by, but
you can tap him to make him walk faster and get out of the way. This
minigame works better than it did in RRR1Wii, but once again there's
a problem: Sometimes, you may close a Rabbid's restroom door, but no
score would be recorded. Indeed, to get points, you need to slam the doors once they're at least halfway open. Bad idea...
10.
Simon (Oceania)
ANOTHER
SIMON SAYS. I'm so tired of those. Thankfully, here, there are only
four Rabbids, they make cute sounds, and they're easy to tap. You
still have to be rather good to get the highest score, but it's nowhere
as bad as the one in RRR1Wii. Still annoying that it's the same
concept, though.
