Michel Ancel & Ubisoft appear to have taken a page from their 2008 Prince of Persia reboot, as the smooth transition between failures and respawning is implemented flawlessly. What helps make the game's challenge feel so fair is that I was never forced all the way back to the beginning of a level as some kind of archaic punishment for failure. Indeed, a portion of the last level is one of the most challenging and rewarding bits of gaming that I have ever played, and I loved every second of it. Rayman Origins does so with a colorful flourish. This may sound like a very simple scheme of progression to implement, but a good difficulty curve is something that very, very few games pull off. The levels start off very easy, then get steadily harder to the point of being outright brutal in the final stages. Doing so requires a very polished experience, as nearly every aspect must be in prime shape for me to think "I'm just not doing this right" rather than "this game doesn't work the way it should." Rayman Origins is definitely the good kind of difficult, and I wouldn't have it any other way. There is a very fine line between legitimate challenge and outright frustration, and few games can walk that line successfully. The platforming requires timing, patience, and skill, resulting in the kind of supremely satisfying experience that I normally associate with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) days. Rayman and his companions control like a dream, and the levels are simple yet wonderfully intricate at the same time. Death is greeted not by an overlong animation or cut-scene, but by a quick and simple return to the last checkpoint. Gone is the woefully outdated limited lives system that the Mario series has been chained to. Were it not for the current-gen production values, it would be a dead ringer for a 16-bit era title, but Rayman Origins manages to showcase the best parts of a bygone time while not ignoring advancements made since then. As someone who has no previous connection to Rayman, I can say that it's a fantastic game in its own right.Ī classic 2D platformer in every sense, Rayman Origins certainly has the feel of something that was made in the late 90s or early 2000s. I've seen "nostalgia trip" applied to Rayman Origins in many places on the internet, and while nostalgia is certainly a factor in its critical success, calling it a nostalgia trip and leaving it at that does not do the game the justice it deserves. As applied to video games, it's often a nice way of saying " if you weren't into the old titles, don't bother." It implies that without the fuzzy feelings of the past, the property in question would not be all that noteworthy. "Nostalgia trip" is a term often used to describe the revival of something that tugs at the heartstrings of those who fell in love with it as kids. WTF Disco dancing with the main villain for absolutely no reason. LOW Not being able to see Rayman when the screen zooms out. HIGH Finishing a particularly nasty bit of platforming in the last level. Combining the Best of the Past and the Present
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |