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.
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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.
Darkest Hour
The game begins on quite the gloomy news: Things are bad in the Glade of Dreams. Razorbeard and his Robo-Pirates, who scour the land on their airship, the Buccaneer, have shattered the Heart of the World. It broke into a thousand Lums that scattered across the Glade and depowered its magical inhabitants. This includes Rayman, who was quickly captured and brought into the ship.
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The helicopter hair is one of Rayman's most
unique traits, so I like to see it be used in
stages of Rayman 2; hopefully there are stages
where gliding is the main focus! |
The story begins as a friend of Rayman, Globox, is also captured and taken to the same cell. He carried within himself a Silver Lum, a powerful type of Lum that can grant powers to people; thanks to it, Rayman regains his old abilities (telescopic fist, hanging to ledges, running, etc.) and uses those to break out. However, he and Globox fall from the Buccaneer way high in the sky, and are separated in the fall. In the tutorial level, Rayman learns about the Lums he needs to collect, and is re-taught his various moves thanks to Murphy, a fly-like creature that will help him on his way. We also see Baby Globoxes worried about their dad; Rayman promises to find his friend. In the next level, the Fairy Glade, he rescues Ly, the fairy of this installment, who tells him about Polokus, the creator of this world, powerful enough to stop the invasion; but to summon him back, Rayman will need to gather the deity's four Masks.
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Ly has a funky sense of style, look at that jumpsuit!
And is that a tail? |
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Definitely the most dynamic level select screen
I have ever seen. |
By breaking cages, Rayman frees some Teensies, little creatures with knowledge of how to rapidly travel across this world thanks to the Hall of Doors, which they let the limbless wonder access. From there, we can see the goals for each level: A number of Teensie Cages to find and break, and a number of Lums to find. Design-wise, levels are mostly linear. Plot-wise, the Hall of Doors is one of the most creative level select screens I’ve ever seen. Some rare extra stages can be unlocked. One example is the Cave of Bad Dreams, unlocked from the third level, the Marshes of Awakening, in order to get an item that’s necessary to access the second half of the seventh stage, Menhir Hills. Another is a friendly race with Ly.
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| Focus, attack, evade, rinse, repeat. |
Rayman has a wide array of moves, even more than he had in Rayman 1. The default controls are the arrows to move, A to jump, Space to shoot a ball of light (which replaces the telescopic fist as Rayman's weapon) and Q and W to spin the camera. Rayman’s default movement is running, but he can walk by holding down Shift, in order to go past sleeping guards; and if he ever enters battle against a Robo-Pirate, he can focus on the target with Crtl in order to make every light ball score a hit. Underwater, he still moves with the arrows, but can rise with A or descend with Z.
Though one issue with the game is combat with most regular enemies; it boils down to shooting at them (or charging up a shot, which is possible later), dodging the enemy attacks, and shooting again once the enemy's invincibility frames have ended. Little variety or complexity on that end.
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Yellow, blue, red. Oh, and as a side-note about the game,
underwater sections are very well thought-out: Move around
normally, but adjust your underwater elevation with A and
Z. That way, you can sink or rise easily in the waters. |
Tied to the core quest are the Lums, which become a recurring item of the franchise. The main, yellow Lums are the 1,000 collectibles you must gather to restore the Heart of the World, but many other Lums exist. Red Lums refill Rayman’s health, green ones are checkpoints, blue ones refill the hero’s oxygen bar underwater, and purple ones are rings you can latch on to swing over gaps using the telescopic fist. Silver ones are plot-related and grant new abilities. Technically, you need a certain number of yellow Lums to unlock each stage, but you might never have to go Lum-hunting in past levels to access new ones.
By collecting all the Lums and breaking all the cages in a level, you get a bonus stage that’s a race between a Baby Globox and a Robo-Pirate. I completely missed the mini-game’s explanation so I didn’t know I had to button-mash the Left and Right keys repeatedly to run during the stage, so I had no clue what to do until I looked it up online. If you beat a bonus stage on the first try, Rayman’s health gets refilled to full and/or he gets three golden fists (which increase his attack power, but he loses a fist each time he gets hurt).
You see, Polokus dreamt this world into existence, but he's too far from it to influence what's going on. Rayman's quest for the Masks of Polokus takes him to the Sanctuaries, sacred places protected by Guardians; he must then take the Masks to Polokus in order to reconnect the Creator with the Glade and fend off the Robo-Pirates. Two Guardians are major bosses of the game.
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This boss, the Guardian named Axel, will go
down in one hit. The tough part is to lure him
towards the giant icicle that kills him. |
The Rayman Roulette
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| It's like if horse Bob-Ombs existed in Mario! |
This Rayman title, despite being mostly a platformer, indulges frequently into sections that feel like mini-games. And it’s delightful. Waterskiing down the Bayou? Getting chased down a slippery ramp by a large-toothed monster named Jano in the Cave of Bad Dreams? Two races against Ly? Taming living bombs (named Walking Shells) to ride them like they’re wild horses? A level set underwater, with the challenge being to stay alive by catching bubbles of air? Lighting powder kegs up and using them like rockets through halls where the floor is swamped with toxic goo? Hell yeah.
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| This game sure likes bomb mini-games! |
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Globox can summon rain clouds. Dude has
water powers... and he's scared of robots?!? |
Of course, amidst all of these, there’s the usual platformer fare, though now and then the game likes to throw interesting twists. In The Canopy, we rescue Globox at last, and Rayman’s friend has the ability to dance to summon the rain, which destroys the traps set up by the Robo-Pirates. However, Globox is also terrified of the Pirates, so he’ll run and hide whenever pirates are nearby. Another level I loved, the Precipice, is a mad rush across wooden bridges on the sides of mountains while being attacked by a Robo-Pirate ship, and it's amazing from beginning to end.
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| More pirate-ship piloting sequences please! |
Beneath the third Sanctuary, Rayman is temporarily granted the ability to fly with his helicopter hair instead of only gliding, and that skill is needed to travel through deadly corridors of thorny plants. Wished this stuck outside of the level, but eh. And the penultimate level, the Iron Mountains, is a whole sequence of those: First, we free the Baby Globoxes from a pirate stronghold, then we ride another Walking Shell to escape through gravity-defying halls, and then we rescue all of the other Baby Globoxes from four mines, which we reach by stealing a Robo-Pirate airship and flying around the area with it. This also leads Rayman to the fourth and final mask, which he brings to Polokus. However, the deity says he’s only good on the ground, useless in the air; therefore, he grants Rayman greater powers in order to stop the Pirates for good.
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Well, when I was thinking of "Grand Polokus, Creator of the
Glade of Dreams", this... form isn't exactly the mental
image I had. |
Facing Razorbeard
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Nothing like having a brand-new mechanic
thrown at you for the very last stage and boss! |
The final level, The Prison Ship, is where I start cursing at the difficulty. No green Lums whatsoever, and the stage is made of two sequences: The first is a slope-sliding segment with triggers that Rayman must shoot at in order to create the path forward. The second involves a tiny bit of platforming followed by a brand-new mechanic involving a new version of the Walking Shell that flies; it will also turn on itself as you control it, so you'll have to recalibrate Rayman and his steed by holding down the Ctrl key. That sequence is long, tedious, and most of it is down to good old trial and error until you finally know both the controls and the path well enough to carry through, which’ll take a lot of attempts, a few minutes every time.
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What, you were expecting a platform boss at
the end of this platform game? Too bad! |
This culminates in a fight on the Crow’s Nest against Razorbeard, who got his hands on a giant robot, named the Grolgoth. It starts easy, but things take a bad turn during Phase 2; after Razorbeard breaks the floor, the combatants end up in an area covered in magma, with the Grolgoth trying to hold on to poles so that it won’t take a lava bath. Rayman, meanwhile… gets another Flying Shell. Oh joy, nothing like a final boss fought while dealing with a burdensome mechanic we still just barely master. 4 to 5 times, Rayman must venture into a tunnel, collect a projectile to shoot, aim at the Grolgoth’s arms so it'll fall into the lava; repeat, with the Grolgoth shooting Rayman-seeking energy bullets and even temporarily raising the level of lava at times. Even for a final boss battle, this was insanely hard.
Rayman defeats Razorbeard and the pirate escapes, leaving the Grolgoth to explode in five seconds and destroy the entire Buccaneer. Rayman doesn’t have time to flee. Down on solid ground, all of our allies (who have fought off the invasion thanks to Polokus) mourn the loss of the limbless hero, of whom all they’ve found is a shoe. However, surprise! Rayman shows up, alive and well! So everyone celebrates. Cue credits!
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Big celebration party! The hero's detached limbs
are all fine! |
Final Thoughts
Overall, this game is great! I have very little negative to say. Maybe my perception is tainted by the fact that I went through Rayman 1 before trying the sequel, but what strikes me the most with Rayman 2: The Great Escape is how much more lenient it is, difficulty-wise, and how few frustrating sections it has in comparison to its predecessor. Is it due to the switch to 3D? Or is it because this one was tested for difficulty beforehand? Who knows.
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The bosses are also quite inventive.
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The Precipice, contender for "Best Level"
in my opinion. |
Either way, the work paid off. The platforming segments are great, with a decent number of environments to explore (though most frequent will be green glades and wooden board pirate ship interiors, because that’s the look of everything made by the Robo-Pirates). The challenges are varied and it’s usually easy to tell where to go next. Green Lums, which are checkpoints, tend to be common as well. If Rayman is hit, he loses hit points; if the hit is fatal, he loses HP and respawns at the checkpoint or the start of the current segment – and if he loses his all of his HP, he only respawns at the start of the segment, no redoing the entire level. There’s no lives system here, which helps alleviate the frustrations since there’s no count down towards a Game Over. The worst you get is a “Try again!”.
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The "Globox Racing" bonus stages are fine,
if annoying since they boil down to button-
mashing and nothing else. |
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Some mooks shake up the formula, sure,
but most combat ends up going the same way. |
As I said earlier, levels are linear for the most part, but there’s a lot of Teensie cages and Lums hidden just out of the way. Speaking of, once I got into the mindset of exploring every nook and cranny, most of the collectibles were easy to find. In some instances, the tricky thing was to catch them, like the Lums in any slope-sliding segment. Yellow Lums never reappear once you catch them.
Gameplay stands out from the many changes and gimmicks throughout. From piloting a flying ship to riding horse bombs to using Globox for rain dances, there’s a little something special in most stages. Yes, you’ll need to adapt to the new thing each time, but the variety is much welcome. Only issue is on the rare occasions where you’re given a new mechanic and need to master it immediately to pass the next section, like everything that involves the flying shells.
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Of course, the only time you're given the power
of true flight instead of just gliding, you're then
forced through a corridor of spiky vines that
hurt on contact, and no nice sights that would
have made that temporary power more fun to use. |
Everything looks nice and detailed for a game released in 2000, and the music is very good as well. The game does suffer a bit from camera issues, though that’s always been a common problem of cameras in games at the time; you can usually bypass the issue by turning the camera around, but there are many instances, oftentimes seemingly random, where that’s not possible. That or the camera becomes too finicky, preventing you from getting a clear angle to either find a Lum or a cage to break. And as I mentioned, combat against common mooks could be more varied.
The story is at a bit of an odd crossroads, so different from Rayman 1 by presenting a world that’s less flashy, but more serious and interesting in its mythos and inhabitants. The plot takes a few nice twists as well, even if the structure is the basic “find the X rare items to complete the quest” type.
Oh yeah, I definitely recommend this one! If you want to check it out or if you’e intrigued by the Rayman platforming games, this is a required stop. Rayman 2: The Great Escape is available on UPlay for 7.99$ CAD, on sale at 2.00$.
On to Rayman 3 very soon!
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