Rayman Origins review [PS3/360/Wii]

Posted December 21, 2011 by Jamie Donnelly.

Review: RAYMAN ORIGINS sets out to be a glorious return to ’90s platforming, after recent years have seen Rayman take a backseat to Ubisoft’s Raving Rabbids spin-off series. Does it succeed? Read on to find out…

Rayman Origins starts as absurdly as it means to go on. Ever since the limbless mascot first hit consoles in 1995, his world has been quirky and whimsical, but this time round Ubisoft have upped the weird factor to sheep on the banana scale.

The entire game revolves around the premise that a character’s overly loud snoring causes a little old lady to unleash a horde of evil upon the friendly and fun-loving beings that inhabit Rayman’s home. From that splendidly silly starting point, the nonsensical nature of everything only intensifies as it grows into something completely barmy, but always utterly and intoxicatingly charming.

Vivid imagination

It’s up to you to take on the role of Rayman, or his friends Globox and the Teensies, and save his world, chiefly by rescuing electoons (tiny pink blobs with faces and feet) and the magical nymphs from the clutches of darkness. The world that you travel through on your heroic escapade is beautiful, each region with a unique flavour that looks every bit as stunning as the last. Even within single levels, the scenery chops and changes, serving you with a feast of visual delights.

As you complete levels and free the nymphs, you gain abilities that allow you to navigate greater challenges in later portions, as well as letting you backtrack to hidden areas and uncover rewards that were previously unobtainable. You can run, jump, attack, glide, swim, and scale walls in your quest to save the day, and it allows for creative level design that ensures you’re always kept on your toes.

While this collection of abilities could potentially become overwhelming and confusing when used in tandem, the intuitive level design means it’s nearly always clear what you have to use and when. Rayman Origins never makes you feel inadequate by overtly holding your hand via condescending button prompts, instead choosing to guide your actions by way of far more subtle environmental cues.

It starts as a gentle ride, but the difficulty slowly builds and the latter stages will prove a real test to your platforming skills. Every jump and every action must be perfectly timed, and hazardous scenery has to be avoided while various colourful enemies are also doing their very best to kill you (or, in Rayman speak, “bubbilize” you). You get a heart to help you along the way, which lets you survive an extra hit, but not even this can save you from certain types of death.

At the trickier parts, successfully completing a level occasionally veers too close to relying on trial-and-error methods, as several deaths are required to learn a level’s layout, but it never becomes frustrating due to frequent checkpointing so you’ll never be forced to repeat overly long sections.

Platforming is broken up by flying sections in which you mount a pellet-spitting mosquito, and the game transforms into a 2D side-scrolling shooter. While these bits don’t quite match up to the more traditional platforming, they offer a welcome change that prevents the game from becoming stale.

But the best way to highlight Rayman Origins’ sheer brilliance is to talk about its underwater levels. Usually when a platformer dives below the surface it signifies sections that are slow-paced, clunky, and little more than frustrating. In Origins they are none of these things, as you effortlessly swim through the serene ocean settings avoiding an array of spiky fish and aggressively grasping tentacles, not with ease but with a feeling of complete control. Some of the most frantic sections also take place underwater, as swarms of piranha fish or gigantic sea-snakes chase and snap at your heels from the beginning of a level to the end.

High standards

The weakest parts of Origins are the boss fights, but even these are better than what’s on offer in most platformers. A large number revolve around dodging attacks until the boss’ weak spot is exposed (usually an obvious, glowing pink blob), and while there is nothing strictly wrong with them, they feel that bit unoriginal and lazily designed when compared to the imaginative offerings present throughout the rest of the game.

This isn’t to do disservice to all the boss fights, as some are truly memorable – especially towards the end of the game. The most fantastic of all involves racing over glaciers as they collapse into the sea, before delving into the belly of a gigantic bipedal dinosaur-like beast and destroying it from the inside as its fiery digestive tract threatens to engulf you. It’s creative, striking and exhilarating, and it’s just a shame not every boss battle could match its excellence.

Once you’ve completed Rayman Origins, there are still plenty of hours to be spent if you’re happy to revisit the same levels multiple times. Hidden areas containing cages of electoons are scattered throughout every level, but finding them is just half the challenge, and some of the toughest tests lie in actually reaching and opening them. Speed freaks will be pleased to hear there’s also a timed mode, and perfecting your times will require plenty of run-throughs as you work out the quickest route on every stage.

An absolute delight, Rayman Origins looks beautiful and features side-scrolling platforming as perfect as you’ll ever play. It’s let down by too many unimaginative boss fights, but these only fall flat against the high standards set by the rest of the game. 2011 has been packed full of great releases, but Rayman: Origins stands tall as one of the finest.

Rayman Origins takes classic ’90s 2D platforming to its absolute pinnacle, and presents it in a beautiful and whimsical package that you have no choice but to fall in love with.

Rayman Origins, by Ubisoft, is out now on PS3 (reviewed), 360, and Wii.