Here goes. My goal for the start of this year is to play through all the Rayman games. After each main entry, I’ll play the handheld iterations that took inspiration from it. So we start with the original Rayman. There are many ports and versions of the game, with many subtle differences. I hear the Jaguar version is especially different. However, the DOS version is the most easily accessible from gog.com. In hindsight, maybe I should have tried the DSi version which attempts to ease up the difficulty by giving you more health and such.
Oh, this game. One of the few that I’ve simply given up on due to sheer difficulty. Normally I like a bit of challenge or can persevere if I’m enjoying the game. In this case, my enjoyment was low due to the slow, plodding nature (as well as slow progression with upgrades… I hadn’t even got the helicopter hair when I stopped) and the “European platformer” style maze-like levels with little direction. So when the game is so unforgiving and the deaths so unfair, I blamed the game’s design. Although you get 9 continues (which might as well just be more lives, since they put you at the most recent checkpoint anyway) the lives run out quickly. The sheer length of the levels exacerbates the problem as you must start the whole gauntlet again upon game over, and if you saved with only a few continues left, well too bad.
After rage quitting, I found out some interesting tidbits. The Rayman Pirate Community’s wiki, an excellent information source claims that Rayman 1 was not playtested for difficulty, and I believe it. By watching a speedrunner I also felt vindicated that I would never pull off the superhuman feats of reflexes and memory that he possessed. I also learned that to get to the final boss, Mr Dark, you must find each and every Electoon cage in all their fiendish hiding spots. What a joke!
So I really can’t recommend Rayman 1. Up until Origins, it seemed valid to ignore it since much of what it established was seemingly retconned by subsequent games. Origins though brings back a surprising amount from this one, with the fairies, the antagonist, the earned abilities, the drone enemies, the environments. The confrontation with Bad Rayman, a cool idea, is also recycled for Legends. So I’d recommend watching Spikevegeta’s speedrun of the game instead of playing it yourself (or rather, it playing you like a mangled xylophone).
Just a few more quick observations, because the difficulty wasn’t my only problem here. The powerup system is obscured from the player; there’s two kinds of fist powerups, but you don’t get an indication of which you have, and you lose them when you die or get hit or something? The “winding up the fist” thing is never useful because it takes too long and doesn’t go far enough. Your Ting count is reset when you die, so you’ll never get 100 for an extra life. The music varies between dull and moody, but no tunes stand out. The backgrounds are vibrant but sometimes obscure important gameplay details. Finally, while the sprites are large and have nice animation, this means the viewing area of the screen is too small and so threats can jump out at you.
It really pains me to have to put down a game. But you have to know when to walk away, and I wouldn’t let Rayman continue to abuse me. I still love him though, and have hope for his next incarnation to treat me better. So I’m moving on to Rayman 1’s little brother on the Game Boy Color. I won’t be covering any of the many, many educational games based on Rayman 1. You can play those yourself and maybe learn some French/English/Maths/etc.
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