If you’ve seen translations of these mangas and want me to retweet them here, signal me with messages, or catch my Twitter, @satsy. I’m on there more often than most things.
Check this out! The guy who did the Star Fox and Super Metroid comics for Nintendo Power (and Pokemon Snap official art), Benimaru Itoh, also did an Earthbound/Mother 2 full-length manga. It’s been localised and scanlated to an absurdly high standard by Kenisu. I’ve been waiting for this for a while, and it’s worth the wait! Also check out Satsy’s blog (the source of this post) for even more Mother manga scans (mostly doujin), some of it’s been translated too.
My Rayman quest isn’t just the main titles. I want to play or at least try to play or at least research and talk about every fringe game in the series. So far I’ve done a little article on the educational games and some of the mobile games. This time I’ll be covering Flash games or other standalone minigames. This list probably isn’t complete, it’s mostly drawn from information from this thread on the Rayman Pirate Community forum, where you can also download most of these yourself. And even though I’m just at the end of Rayman 2 games on my main playthrough, I want to knock out all the Flash games from all eras. Ready?
Rayman 1 era
I needed a caveat because the first item isn’t for Flash. Rayman Collector, a French-exclusive PC release of Rayman 1 with extra level packs also had minigames included. You can find them to download as an executable in the thread linked above. Feu nourri is a sort of light-gun target shooting game using the mouse (a common genre in this post, you’ll find)—it’s not clear who you control. Le bouingue is a 2D platformy-type thing where you pop balloons by bouncing as Rayman and Bzzit. Multiplication des pains is kind of a shooting game, you control Rayman’s disembodied fist to punch things. They all use Rayman 1 assets exclusively.
This game (in the “webased” folder in Drolpiraat’s archive linked in the thread) appears to be a version of Rayman 1, similar to the GBA port going by the aspect ratio. The music’s not bad and it looks fine though small, but it’s not perfect; jumps have no air control, for example. It’s probably the worst way to play Rayman 1 but likely the easiest, since it’s possible within a browser.
This one (“raymangbc” in the “Other games” folder in the archive) is obviously a port of the GBC version of Rayman 1, which is a unique game as I covered. Unlike the previous Flash game I mentioned, it’s unclear whether this is an official Ubisoft product. It has the nice pixel art of the original game but the animations are much smoother and Flash-like. Unfortunately it too suffers in the control department and is difficult to play well.
Rayman 2 era
This one, simply labelled “jeu” in the archive (French for “game”), is the simplest of the lot. Basic black background, two pirate heads moving around like a DVD player boot screen, click on them for points. It’s presented in the shooting gallery style. It’s totally boring; the most interesting thing about it is its use of the Jungle Fever font, as used by DKVine and subsequently by Retro Studios in Tropical Freeze, although that may just be my computer’s font settings. At least it has music.
Globber is the name of one of Globox’s children, but in this case it’s a portmanteau of Globox and Frogger, as this is apparently a Frogger clone that Ubisoft had on the Rayman 2 website or some such. Unfortunately it was not archived and this splash screen and a description is all we have, and it’s the only one on this list not playable today.
Globox 2001 (“ubi” in the archive’s Other games folder) is another shooting gallery, put out by Ubisoft to celebrate the new year. It’s definitely the strangest one. You play as Globox shooting little (presumably) evil Glutes, ghosts, and flying skulls (the only ones that are a danger, since they shoot you if they get too close). You have to hit a certain number of targets to progress. There are three areas, each with three levels. Each is an Earth location with landmarks scrolling in the background. The first one is an English/European city (there’s both Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower visible, among others), your enemies wear bowler hats, and the music is a James Bond pastiche. The second is an American desert with your enemies in cowboy hats. Finally you’re in China with cone hats everywhere and dragons instead of ghosts. Then you win. So I guess Globox is on Earth for some reason, it’s happened in the Rayman series before. The game is OK, the third life counter head is just Murfy lazily recoloured to look like Globox grinning, and apart from its questionable premise the art is at least amusing.
I talked about Rayman vs. Cullcut in my educational games article. What I didn’t realise is that it’s all taken from Rayman M. As you can see in the screenshot, the two enemies on the side are Henchman 1000 and Razorwife, who are exclusive to M/Arena/Rush. Cullcut below is also from that game, although it was recoloured orange in Rush. The original release was a French typing test game, where you type words correctly to stop Rayman from being lowered into Cullcut’s jaws. Drolpiraat, the forum thread’s game curator, translated the game with its entire word list into English. Teach your kids with a game designed to promote an obscure Rayman spinoff!
Rayman 3 era
The only recorded Flash game based on Rayman 3 is Jeu de Tir (“shooting game”) which is a, um, shooting game. Well, instead of a gun you shoot out Rayman’s fist to punch Hoodlums (and Red Lums to restore your health). The character graphics are smooth and colourful (and it’s always nice to see 2D art of characters that were conceived and only seen in 3D), but the background’s a bit dodgy. At least it’s well in Rayman 3’s world instead of a black void. There’s no music but the sound effects are fine with your enemies laughing at you and such. The game implies there’s an ending but it’s kinda hard, so I don’t know if Begoniax is indeed in there. Try it yourself!
Rayman Origins era
Slap, Flap & Go was produced to promote Origins. Rayman punches Globox to send him flying past various Origins obstacles and backgrounds. You can boost Globox slightly and try to keep him bouncing off things for more distance and Lums.
Rayman Legends Beatbox is a Flash game, application, toolbox, something. You move characters from the game around, and each represents an instrument track in a piece of music from Legends. So you can hear just the percussion, or make your own mix of instruments without others. There’s also a free-create mode which lets you mash tracks from different songs together. It’s clever because the game itself has a lot of track variants in different levels. This was also released on smartphones, but it’s not really a full game.
Wasn’t that fun? To keep up with my Rayman Quest posts, check this post.
I had fun with this game. Well, the race sections anyway. It was interesting how they expanded the roster solely based on Rayman 2 stuff. So here’s the cast of Arena plus Globette from Rush, minus Dark Rayman because he’s just a skin. Besides, this way there’s an even match of goodies and baddies, although I don’t know if Dark Globox would side with the pirates just because he’s bad. I like to imagine that when it comes right down to it, even nightmares would reject the incursion of pirate outsiders.
You know, they never explain why Suzy is purple when she’s supposed to be the daughter of the Doc, a normal human (well apart from the pervasive limblessness, but everyone has that). Maybe she was exposed to some of the Doc’s weird science, or she could be an adopted alien. Or even half alien on her mother’s side. You decide!
In the grand tradition of cheesy TV show tie-ins to video games comes the Rayman animated series. Made three years after the Donkey Kong Country started airing, it uses similar 3D CGI technology but a bit more advanced; it looks a lot better than that show did. Only four 11-minute episodes were made before its cancellation. It was made in French Canada (much like the DKC show) and dubbed in at least French, English, and German. Once again I will link to Haruka Tavares’s Youtube channel, where you can watch all four episodes in all three of these languages, and also the short making-of documentary. There was a DVD release but only in France, although it has all voice tracks included.
Looking at the screenshot above, you might be forgiven for it feeling unfamiliar. The show was produced at the same time as Rayman 2 was still in development but for whatever reason did not use the characters from the game. Nonetheless the world feels very inspired by the game’s style and tone and some of the characters seem like parallels or replacements for game characters, such as Betina being inspired by Betilla/Ly and Lacmac being a stand-in for Globox.
Aspects taken directly from the games include Rayman himself, Flips who is a Ludiv, and Razorbeard who in this case is the lackey of the main villain. The initial premise is also based on an early story iteration for Rayman 2, of a cosmic circus kidnapping Glade dwellers as attractions. Also, strangely Ed from Tonic Trouble has a cameo as a jack-in-the-box.
While the circus forms the basis for the first episode, the story is actually an ongoing arc which quickly progresses from imprisonment to an escape, to Rayman and friends as fugitives hiding out in a city. I suppose from there it does devolve into an episodic sitcom format with the gang in an abandoned apartment having wacky scrapes involving the detective who is hunting them.
There’s a lot of unique content to the show’s world. The circus master Rigatoni is a typical cartoon villain, but he quickly disappears from the show. The primary antagonist is Inspector Grub, a loser detective who becomes a sympathetic figure by the end. His species seems like a much taller variation of a Teensie, and they populate the city of Aeropolis where the action takes place. This city is a developed society with public transport, tall buildings, etc., which is not often seen in the series, but it’s pretty self-contained and surrounded by forest so it’s not too out of place.
The circus inmates who escape with Rayman are a bunch of unique misfits; apart from Rayman and Flips, Lacmac is a blue rabbit-like creature who is strong but stupid, Betina is seemingly a human girl and the “sensible one”, and Cookie is an anthropomorphic mammal of some kind who is the complaining hypochondriac one but who has useful skills. What with the strange species and societies throughout the series and especially in Rayman 3, it’s not inconceivable that this setup could be in the same world as the games (yes I’m making that argument).
I enjoyed the first two episodes when there was an ongoing narrative more than the later two which fall back on cheap sitcom tropes. The dialogue is not great throughout but the scenarios are interestingly strange; I liked the monorails, the giant car-eating monster, the flying circus, the on-the-lam feel. The show looks good for the time, and the visual design is quite strong; out of all of it, the design of the buildings and environments feels the most like Rayman and much like the Super Mario Bros movie is the best part of the show.
After watching it I’m convinced that there’s no reason it can’t be part of the game world. Razorbeard could just be acting the minion part as a result of being down on his luck after his defeat (either after Rayman 2 or Rayman 3 GBA), and everything else fits well enough (Lacmac even makes a secret cameo appearance in Rayman, apparently). I’m now integrating it into my internal continuity. One final strange note; the voices are a mixed bag what with Betina having three different actors between four episodes and the cheesy cartoon tack most of the cast takes. But Rayman is voiced by Billy West who is apparently doing an early iteration of his Fry voice, only a lot more… Bostonian, I think? If nothing else that’s worth watching for.
It’s a treat for a game world I’ve become fond of (Rayman 2′s, that is) to have a spin-off centred around it. Rayman M/Arena/Rush has a complicated release history; but first, what is it? It’s a multiplayer-focused game (although the single-player modes are fairly robust) that’s split in two. One half of the game is the battle mode where the opponents’ health bars are depleted by your attacks, there’s random weapon pickups, and you’re in a small enclosed arena. The other is the race mode, where you run through an obstacle course, trying to get the optimal path to beat your opponents to the goal. Both modes are based on Rayman 2′s 3D platformer engine and controls.
So about the different releases: Rayman M was released on PS2 in Europe with lots of modes. Rayman Rush followed in Europe and NA on the PS1, with a big downgrade in visuals and physics (it seems based on the PS1 version of Rayman 2 while the lead version is most likely built off the PS2′s Rayman Revolution) and the battle mode completely removed. I didn’t mind that, the race mode is clearly much more fun to me. The content of the race mode is mostly the same but with simplified course layouts and one or two unique courses. The main NA release was titled Rayman Arena, on PC, PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox. From what I’ve read, while the PS2 and PC versions were similar to Rayman M, the GCN and Xbox version was significantly rejiggered with different menus, new characters and costumes (good), and crucially two whole sub-modes removed from Race mode. Unfortunate.
I played the versions that were available to me on useable emulators: GCN and PS1. I feel I got a good overview of the game from this (although not comprehensive) but the loss of Lums and Target mode from Race hurts. It can’t be overstated how superior Arena’s engine is to Rush: analog control, much smoother momentum, more options in race courses; it also just looks and feels so much nicer. It’s probably better to go for the PS2 or PC version though for the extra modes; Dark Globox and Dark Rayman are the only outright additions (and the latter is only a costume).
So what about playing the game? Well, I found the Race mode very addictive. Learning the best way through a level is reminiscent of speedrunning and traversing these obstacle courses on foot with tuned 3D platformer controls is just great fun, and the courses are well designed with multiple routes. Each character has their own personality in their animations even though their abilities are identical, a trait shared by the Origins games (and comparing, say, Globox’s balloon-like inflation as a hover to his corresponding Origins action is, well, it’s interesting to me…).
The Battle mode on the other hand just felt boring and slow. Combat was never the best part of Rayman 2 and it’s still true here, even with the bells and whistles. I didn’t bother much with this mode and as I said, Rush totally eliminates it, no great loss. The most interesting thing about it to me was having a look around the arenas and enjoying how they’re plucked straight from Rayman 2′s world; forests, beaches, pirate ships, graveyards, sanctuaries, etc.
The characters too are drawn from that game: Rayman, Globox, a Teensie duo, the pirate robot Henchman 800, and Razorbeard are here. Strangely Ly (who appears on Rush’s loading screens) is not in the game, seemingly replaced at some point by a smaller fairy, Tily. Other new faces are the Henchman 1000, Razorbeard’s wife, and Dark Globox who in this instance is a bigger, uglier, Glute. Also in the PS1 version a female Glute named Globette replaces the Teensie team. I’m not familiar enough to identify if there were musical references/remixes, but the music is funky and upbeat, a great accompaniment to the action.
This game doesn’t have a story as far as I can tell (no manual scans online either) so let’s make one up. The pirates and Razorbeard are still around after Rayman 2, as shown by Rayman 3 GBA and Rayman Kart, so this is probably just after Rayman 2. Polokus has woken up and decides to deal with the remaining pirates by challenging them to a contest with his Glade of Dreams champions, being the mischievous god he is. All through the land he sets up courses for his people to race and battle the pirates (and each other). The results? Inconclusive. As we’ll see the pirates aren’t finished after this, but Polokus may not have the absolute authority or inclination to outright get rid of them.
So this game is a strong concept in all its incarnations (well, the race half anyway); it’s just too bad that the later release had to remove features while adding others. I enjoyed Race mode very much, and it comes highly recommended if you’re interested in 3D obstacle course foot races (don’t worry, it’s much more fun than Donkey Kong 64′s race segments) or the world of Rayman 2. Those new characters are also nice to flesh it out a bit (it also introduced the enemy Cullcut, who starred in a Flash-based typing tutor). Finally, I’d recommend Haruka Tavares’s gameplay videos to check out the different versions if you can’t play them.
This is as much for my benefit as yours, but I’m laying out how far along my playthrough is. At the start of the year I set a goal to play through all the Rayman games. Here’s the plan:
Just like Rayman 1 and 2, Tonic Trouble had a Game Boy Color version. Actually, this one came first and released around six months after the N64 version, whereas they came years after their progenitors. It was handled by a company called RFX Interactive and was in fact their first game. I was expecting a similar experience to said Rayman handheld titles, but it was not to be.
Tonic Trouble GBC runs on a completely different engine to those games. It has larger sprites, a wonkier camera and unlockable abilities (like its parent game). Of course, the GBC has even less buttons than the N64, so switching between the stick, blowpipe, magic wand/chameleon powder, and pogo stick requires opening and closing the Select menu which is clunky, especially in the final level since the blowpipe is required for combat but does not allow jumping. At least the pogo stick gets more use for traversal in this version. Ed also has a ledge grab ability—handy but not perfectly reliable—and can run by double-tapping the D-pad, which is not necessary but helps in backtracking for collectibles or switches.
The number of levels is cut back compared to the main game, and it ends up being very short in total. Each world has 3 smallish areas, which are often sort of free-roaming, with collectibles to find requiring platforming and combat both vertically and horizontally. It works pretty well, but enemy placement, large sprites, and spotty hit detection makes it very difficult at times—I made heavy use of savestates, naturally.
The large sprites allow for more detail and it looks pretty nice if a bit muddy at times, with lots of colour befitting its source material. The music is a tad more melodic but nothing special and still forgettable. An interesting point of comparison though in the conversion is the boss fights. Some are decent smaller renditions of setpieces from the main game, but others make use of enemies seen in cutscenes or artwork but not fought, such as the living capsicum or Grögh’s pharmacist. Good stuff!
Unfortunately the plot suffers on the GBC platform. Suzy is missing, Grögh has no presence apart from the final moments, the purpose of Doc’s collectibles is not even explained. At least Agent Xyz has gets an ugly full-frame portrait with advice and exposition. I suppose in those days the manual would be a crutch, but it hasn’t been scanned that I could find.
So it’s a reasonably competent little down-porting job, but probably surpassed by the Rayman GBC demakes that followed it. Fair enough, they were done by different companies. It was early days for Ubisoft’s handheld games. It is a little amateurish and small in scope, befitting a small company’s first game, but I can forgive dodgy execution because it was over quickly. Hm, is that really a good thing? Regardless, if nothing else getting to fight the Pharmacist justifies this game’s existence. Just expect frustration if you’re not allowing yourself an emulator’s conveniences.
EDIT: I forgot to mention a feature I couldn’t experience. Ubisoft’s GBC games often had a “Ubikey”; where by collecting a key in-game and then connecting to another Ubikey-enabled game via the GBC infrared port, you could unlock stuff—in this case, a bonus level. Since I don’t have access to the hardware, it’s a feature that’s lost to the ages… game preservation is a struggle sometimes.
I can finally get my Rayman series playthrough back on track after getting a decent N64 emulator working (Sixtyforce, requires registration). Try as I might, the PC versions just weren’t working for me. So Tonic Trouble then.
From what I’ve heard, Tonic Trouble was a test of sorts for the 3D engine that would power Rayman 2. Whether this is true or not, the games share much of their DNA and end up feeling very similar in atmosphere, gameplay, and music. Not to mention pervasive limblessness. It’s also established that they share a universe, with the General (“Mission accomplished. Sheer perfection.”) from Tonic Trouble’s FMV intro (in the PC version, not this one) appearing late in Rayman 2 to sell the Grolgoth to Razorbeard. Rayman also has a minor cameo or two in this game.
Tonic Trouble is more brightly coloured and cartoon-esque in its design and animation, but can still switch to dark, gloomy environments just like its successor. It does play up the surreal though, due to the effects of the mutagenic can as part of its plot, which gives it elements reminiscent of the first Rayman game as well as Origins. In fact one of the worlds, the Glacier Cocktail, is eerily similar to the icy parts of Gourmand Land in Origins and related games (Legends, Fiesta Run) with its large citrus slices among ice blocks.
But what about the gameplay? This is very much an early 3D platformer with all that entails. Levels are brief and linear with some hidden secrets, but fairly well designed I suppose. You unlock new abilities after each world, but each one has awkward controls associated with it; it doesn’t help that the N64 controller actually has not many buttons after the C buttons are used up on camera control. The gliding move especially is difficult to master, but they make a good attempt to base a level around it which feels very similar to Rayman 2′s lava sanctuary. Combat is not as smooth as Rayman 2, but it’s more puzzley and comes with fakey martial arts vocalisations from Ed, as part of the game’s mildly-lame wacky humour aesthetic. The final boss too is a nice multi-stage fight which uses most of the acquired abilities.
There’s a few oddities about this game that should be addressed. There are popcorn machines that briefly transform you to a muscleman to solve puzzles; inexplicably, they’re labelled with the logo for Newman’s Own brand of salad dressing and so forth. The PC version instead advertises Nestle Crunch. There’s also a beta version that was given out before the release of the game, which you will often find (named “Special Edition”) if you’re looking for the PC version. For the record, the PC version seems identical to the N64 one but with a graphical upgrade and voice acting; the beta version on the other hand is vastly different. Beyond merely lacking a jumping animation, there’s many level designs and concepts, collectibles, and enemies that were changed or unused for the final game. I couldn’t play it myself or find a full video playthrough but if you can, it’s worth trying both out.
Tonic Trouble was fine; I had fun with it, it’s pretty short so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a bit basic, the characters can be cliche, and the music aside from the main theme is forgettable. But it has heart. French heart. If you like Rayman and especially Rayman 2, there’s a good chance you’ll find something to like here. Now I’m off to play the Game Boy Color version.
Another RPG classic, fun to draw because of a wide cast of different-looking people. Although again I had the Final Fantasy problem of the characters being vastly different between different official artworks and sprites. Not as bad here as in other games; it seems the iOS sprites are based on SNES chibi artwork, and Pictlogica follows from that. I just ignore the Amano artwork and use either the SNES sprites since that’s what players know the characters as from the games, or the chibi art/revised sprites if I think it looks better. Anyway love these characters! Thanks Square!
On DK Vine, a common query recently has been “Which Brothers Bear is Best?”. These helper characters from off of Donkey Kong Country 3 have all been getting so much love that I was inspired to draw them myself. It also helps to see them all at a glance, in order to determine which one is best. So I put it to you now: which is best?
Let’s go back there. A time before the endless cycle of hype, angst, crushed dreams, recriminations, and conflict. A simpler time when the sheer novelty of the Smash concept filled us with a sense of childlike wonder. A time when the roster could easily be drawn by me on a reasonably-sized canvas. Now I’ve drawn most of these Nintendo All-Stars before, but I’ve made some adjustments to them here to better fit in or match their SSB artwork. But I don’t even know what’s going on with Jigglypuff, she’s just too round for this art style.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, low-detail pixel style!
Nausicaä is the most adapted piece of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. His original epic manga was partially adapted into the proto-Ghibli film (while it was still ongoing, hence the film covers only the first part of the manga’s story). It’s also the only of his works (aside from Lupin III) or any Ghibli works to have video games based on it—the story goes that Miyazaki was so appalled at the poor quality of the games that he forbade any further adaptations of his films. The fact that these video games exist and I can link this fascinating article on them justifies this post on my video game blog, yessir.
So this pixel art portrays most of the main characters of the manga; if you’ve only seen the film you’ll recognise about half of them. The manga has a rich, expanded world and storyline—on the other hand, the only colour is in the covers, so I had to make up a palette for some of these.
The many faces of K. Rool, low-detail pixel style!
K. Rool is such a memorable villain, and part of the reason is his reinvention of himself in various games. New costumes make him stand out in a new appearance and open up new possibilities for a battle. Namco even made a new outfit for him for a bit part in a baseball game, so good on them! That particular design is based on Paon’s reworking so smaller crown, no tail, and no belly armour. The others are all Rare.
It may have a dodgy localised title, and I may be absolutely no good at playing it, but this game is a cool oddity for Yoshi’s Island fans. It’s a spinoff set firmly in that world (as opposed to drawing from Mario World or Yoshi’s Story), so that means lots of characters I have strong nostalgia for, including Poochy! This drawing depicts the characters from Stage Clear mode, which each have unique backgrounds and effects, as well as a partner on the right side.
Green Yoshi, Yellow Baby Yoshi, Lakitu, Hefty Goonie, Poochy, Grinder, Prince Froggy, Clawdaddy, Gargantua Blargg, Flamer Guy, Raphael the Raven, Red Shy Guy
