Despite the name, Rayman 3 GBA is almost totally based on Rayman 2, but it also plays very much like Rayman 1. As such it goes a long way toward making the series feel cohesive and bridge some gaps. The speculation is that the team at Ubisoft (the Rayman PC wiki claims it was made by Ludi Factory, but I don’t think that’s true after reviewing names in the credits) was working on a 2D iteration of Rayman 2 for GBA when Rayman 3 was in development, and at the last minute added a few enemies and design elements from 3, along with the name and boxart for branding purposes.

As I said though, the gameplay very much makes it a sequel to Rayman 1. The large, detailed sprites also help it to look and feel like an extension of it, although as with the Rayman 1 GBA port (and Tonic Trouble GBC) they leave the playing area feeling cramped. (Another quick similarity to TT GBC: unused content from the main game makes its way in here in the form of Scaleman the Hoodlum boss who appears in R3 concept art.) You have Band Land-style sliding, swinging from Purple Lums, telescoping fist attacks, etc. Ly of course takes the place of Betilla to give you new abilities, some of which are unique to this game. Funnily enough the map screen is a hybrid of Rayman 1′s world-level overview and the 2D traversable screen of Rayman 1&2 GBC. Most of the environments (which look pretty nice) and setpieces though are taken from Rayman 2.

The plot involves the Black Lum (possibly Andre, although that doesn’t sit perfectly with the theory that this is a prequel to 3) inhabiting Globox as in 3, but Globox is not heard of again after that. Razorbeard seeks the power of the Black Lum and apparently joins forces with it at some point, and you have to fight through Robo-pirates, Black Lums, Zombie Chickens, and the occasional Hoodlum to stop him and his Grolgoth (again). The usual cages must be smashed, but it’s never actually established who is in them. Teensies appear in Rayman 3-style guise only at the end of each world.

R3 GBA also follows R1 in terms of its difficulty. Extra lives are scarce and deaths come easily. Without savestates I might even have ragequit as I did with the original game, where I didn’t have such conveniences. Luckily I was able to complete it, as I found the meshing together of series elements to be fascinating. Hint for finding yellow lums and cages: in each section, try walking left from the starting point. You’ll be surprised how often that grants rewards.

I couldn’t test the multiplayer modes, or the extra minigames from connecting to Rayman 3 on the Gamecube via the special Link Cable. The multiplayer seems to be expansions or competitive versions of existing gameplay; I haven’t mentioned the Mode-7 car racing levels, which control pretty badly. The GCN link though supposedly does some cooperative stuff using both screens, which sounds interesting.

I should mention that this game was ported to the Nokia N-Gage. It ends up looking better, with slightly smaller, cleaner spritework which may actually expand the visible play area, despite the horizontally smaller screen. Not sure about that, but it probably sounds much worse. There’s no way to emulate N-Gage games though so the GBA will do. There was also a version for Symbian that’s greatly cut down compared to this version, which I’ll talk about later when I cover other mobile games.

I have to reiterate how much this draws from the 3 main classic Rayman games to make something that feels cohesive. For that reason it’s essential for Rayman fans and really deserves its place as a “Rayman 2.5″. It looks really nice and has great conversions of Eric Chevalier’s Rayman 2 score to sound good as well. Just be prepared to use savestates if you’re going for 100%, especially on the kart racing or waterskiing levels.