Developer(s): Ubi Picture
Publisher: Ubi Soft
Platform: Nintendo 64, PC, Playstation 1, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Calculator, Toaster, Potato
Hours played: 6 hours (For this review. If we’re talking since my childhood, then it’s closer to 500)
Tempestuous seas devour lonely isles gasping for air. A fairy sorceress mourns the fall of her world and the enslavement of its creatures. She speaks of one final, last-ditch attempt at liberation. Boney hands scrape against the floor boards through cage bars. Harrowing cries beg for water. Terrified, bloodshot eyes witness one of their own be dragged past them and dumped in a cell. This poor soul’s cell mate is the world’s last hope, a colourful, limbless platforming cartoon character left broken and powerless by the new regime.
This was four year-old Charles’ first impression of what a ‘video game’ was, what a video game could be. Little did he know that that disc shoved into his family’s now-ancient PC would shape his aesthetic tastes and pave the way for a lifelong love affair with gaming. When it released in 1999, Rayman 2 instantly found itself topping various ‘Best Games of All Time’ lists because of its vibrant levels and tight controls. 21 years later, Rayman 2 is remembered mostly for being that game Ubisoft ported to every platform available before they started making open-world to-do lists and tower-climbing simulators. Even despite the mid-2000’s decline in interest for 3D platformers, the blueprint your Super Mario 64’s and Rayman 2’s and Banjo & Kazooie’s were working from has developed considerably. What does Rayman 2 have to offer gamers nowadays?
Recently, I played through this game for what must be the hundredth time. That little disc became GOG, that ancient desktop a modern laptop, but this was the still same game that made me. And 21 years on, nearly my whole lifetime later, Rayman 2 still has some of the tightest narrative design of any 3D platformer. I can’t think of a single game of its ilk that contextualises its levels so strongly – besides maybe the later Jak & Daxterand Sly Cooper games, or Psychonauts, all of which came years after this game – only rarely taking control away from the player. Everything in Rayman 2 feels deliberately designed to deliver moment after moment of player-driven storytelling. So, allow me to indulge in gushing about how Ubisoft made me not only feel for a limbless thingamajig and his fantastical friends, but feel like one of them, too.
Story
“I really think having a strong story is a new trend in the gaming industry for this kind of game. Now, the goal is no longer to move from one level to another, but to write a story. So this element is a very important difference from the original Rayman. It creates more of an epic dimension to Rayman 2. The story-line also ties in meaning with the action, which is a strong feature of Rayman 2, and provides the players with more surprises and, above all, more emotion!”
Michel Ancel, Series Creator and Director of Rayman 2
Rayman 2 has a story to tell, and it’s trying its damn hardest to make sure you love it. Every level tells a self-contained story that serves the wider theme of rebellion. Every challenge overcome feels like dealing a massive blow to the pirate’s plans for world domination. The traditional tutorial level is here contextualized as the titular great escape. You’re dumped in Rayman’s cell and have a safe area to get a feel for the controls. Shoot through a destructible grate and suddenly you’re sliding down a chute to freedom. In the space of a minute, the game has conveyed that it will have different gameplay styles and has given the player a chance to experiment with Rayman’s default movement, all framed by an escape worthy of the game’s subtitle.
From here, Rayman 2 continues to justify its setup with levels based on liberating Rayman’s friends and tearing through pirate strongholds. The former scenarios feel particularly inspired. Exploring a level and organically stumbling across Rayman’s friend, then freeing or restoring them to health so they can help you is a great way to get us invested in this world and show off the best parts of Rayman’s personality. The heartwarming reunion cutscenes are all rendered in the in-game graphics, which are surprisingly expressive for a late 90’s game. When companions tag along, they don’t burden you with escort missions or slow you down, but use their unique skills to help Rayman navigate the way forward. The hulking Clark charges through walls to open new areas. Carmen the whale (who we’re told the pirates were going to kill for her blubber to oil their ships) leaves air bubbles so Rayman can swim through an extended underwater cave. The crown, of course, has to go to Rayman’s best friend Globox, whose rain dance short-circuits laser barriers and… waters a bush so Rayman can hide in it and sneak through an identification-controlled door. He’s the guy who gives Rayman some of his power back so he can break out at the start of the game, so it’s only fair that you bust him out and return the favour. Gameplay-wise, these segments are seldom more complex than getting a key to open a door, but having Rayman’s friends support him with their unique skills really sells the idea of everyone in the Glade of Dreams contributing to this rebellion.
And boy do those aggressors need rebelling against. It’s a testament to the developers that they could make a character concept as cliché as ‘robot pirates’ as simultaneously threatening and goofy as it is here. For little Charles, the Robo-Pirates were the first platformer enemies that felt like they were actively hunting me down at every step of the adventure. The game routinely checks in with their leader, Admiral Razorbeard, throughout the campaign. He instantly shows his disregard for the lifeforce of the planet through gameplay, when he eats a yellow lum, the game’s main collectible, bringing the total down to 999. After committing such a heinous crime, seeing this ruthless tyrant get progressively infuriated with Rayman’s progress is incredibly satisfying.
This relentless pursuit to get Rayman’s head on a spike translates brilliantly into level scenarios. My favourite level in the game, the one I instantly think of when I hear “Rayman 2”, The Precipice, sees Rayman running across rickety ledges jutting out the side of a cliff while a pirate ship gives chase, blasting pieces of the platforms away from under him. You then need to scale a watchtower in the middle of the sea while the water level rises and – you guessed it – the pirate ship keeps shooting. From there, you glide to another side of the ravine and continue running before diving through a crack in the mountain and hovering down into a gorge while – you guessed it – the pirate ship keeps up the chase. At the end of the level, the ship drops anchor and the captain disembarks to take you on personally. This level is utterly sublime. It’s the closest realisation of Ancel and his team’s goal to create cinematic, gameplay-driven moments and evokes the strongest feeling of heroism that I’ve experienced in a platformer.
It’s not all perfect, however. It’s pretty much universally accepted that fighting the pirates is pretty dull: they have these long invincibility frames between hits and their tactics can be thwarted by strafing and jumping. Luckily, the designers seemed to recognize this weakness as pirates aren’t too plentiful and the majority of hazards are environmental or other creatures from the Glade of Dreams. Their motivations are also a little messy. The game’s manual, in-game cutscenes, and creative directors contradict each other. Pauline Jacquey, Rayman 2’s producer, stated in an interview with IGN that the pirates’ “mission is to capture the inhabitants [of the Glade of Dreams] and to sell them to an inter-galactic circus”. On the other hand, the game’s manual states that the Robo-Pirates want to “conquer and enslave [Rayman’s] entire world”. Granted, these things are not necessarily mutually exclusive and the Rayman series is infamous for having zero continuity of tone and for retconning Rayman’s origin story with every new instalment, but some more consistency would be nice. Although at this point, the series’ unrestrained approach to canon almost enhances its mystique, leading to the theory-crafting and fan speculation this fanbase is known for.
Rayman 2’s story is essentially a nature vs. technology rebellion plot in concept no more complex than ‘Bowser’s kidnapped the princess. Get her back’. It’s that contextual meat on the gameplay and story’s bones that adds meaning and emotional weight to the tried and true formula of running and jumping.
Atmosphere
As artistic influences behind Rayman and his world, Michel Ancel cites “all kinds of stories: Russian, Chinese, Celtic, etc. [… and] Tex Avery, among others, inspir[ing] the cartoon aspects”. If the first Rayman represents the light-hearted side of fairytale and folklore, then Rayman 2 is Jacob Grimm and Tim Burton getting high together and deciding they want to terrify a generation of kids for a laugh. Rayman 2’s tone goes places, from spooky and unsettling, to epic and heroic. Ubi Soft’s trademark artistic prowess and musical mastery are the perfect vessels to carry such tonal range in this unassuming kids game.
If you want to talk scary in Rayman 2, you can’t omit the aptly named Cave of Bad Dreams. You know it’s bad because when you first find the entrance tucked away inside another level, the Robo-Pirates have placed a warning sign saying they want nothing to do with what lurks beyond there. You know you’re going to have to go in there at some point and when you do, it does not disappoint. The Cave’s guardian, Jano, a legless, nightmare-fuel corruption of Mikey from Monsters Inc., challenges Rayman to a race through the cave. If the limbless wonder succeeds, he can take the elixir he needs to save his friend. If Jano should catch him along the way, though, he will “show you no mercy”. Yikes. The level is kinda spooky with its demented fairground soundtrack, writhing tentacle floor, and bony hands trying to suck you into the walls (just classic Super Mario stuff, y’know), but nothing prepares unsuspecting children for the final segment. Jano tunnels out from the floor and chases you down a slide section and the camera switches to a viewpoint from inside Jano’s sawblade-lined jaws. This is where Ubi Soft’s “particular attention on the camera movements” comes into its own. Platforming… genius! This level even ends with a fake-out ending where the player can choose Jano’s boundless treasure instead of the elixir, complete with a pudgy Rayman reclining on a desert island, cocktail in hand. This level burrowed itself into the memory of everyone who played it, and so many levels in Rayman 2 are crafted with this level of personality, constantly offering something fresh and exciting.
It can’t be overstated that, for 1999, Rayman 2 is a technical marvel. Granted, it has the advantage of being a short, linear game and cuts were made to get it running on other consoles (don’t play the Playstation 1 version), but some of these levels are really impressive in scale. I’ve mentioned The Precipice and its deep gorges, but The Iron Mountains also has these great setpieces of infiltrating a pirate detention facility, then breaking out by riding a shell (these sentient bomb critters that think they’re horses/dogs), all while a giant bipedal robot bounds after you. Textures, while not offering the hyperrealism expected of today’s AAA titles, are incredibly distinctive. They have a hand-drawn quality and accentuated curves to them: climbable vines, or the designs emblazoned on the exteriors of pirate strongholds, all look unmistakably Rayman and miles ahead of the contemporary competition. This game even queues more amped-up versions of the same music track to play when you hit certain milestones in a level. What early 3D platformer even does that? What modern 3D platformer even does that?
It’s much easier to see the seams of Rayman 2’s artifice now (where textures end on a piece of jagged geometry, how the skybox clouds scroll way too quickly, how areas that give the illusion of distance are actually just small boxes with some trees drawn on) but when those trumpets are blaring and the bassline syncs up with Rayman’s frantic pitter-patters as he runs through vibrant fantasy worlds, that’s where Ancel’s vision of a cinematic platformer is most elegantly realised. The magic and atmosphere is still there.
Level Design
“Our general goal on Rayman 2 is to give the player the feeling that they are right there in the heart of the action. So the enemies and the camera movements have been especially designed to fulfil this aim. When they play, they really feel that they’re doing a great job, but actually the gameplay is not that hard, it’s just challenging and spectacular.”
Pauline Jacquey, Producer
In terms of level design, Rayman 2 does a lot with surprisingly little. Many critics have noted that the geometry of its obstacle courses is pretty simple and this is fair. The controls are tight and they don’t demand too much dexterity from the player. Rayman’s health bar offers a generous number of hits to the point that combat is a non-issue. Like Ly the Fairy’s motivational respawn quotes, Rayman 2 wants you to succeed, but it wants you to feel like a hero while doing so.
Despite being mostly linear, there are some moments where the game throws a fork in the road and they are always a treat to stumble across. Accessing The Cave of Bad Dreams requires you to return to an earlier level, and there is a hidden warp-point in a later level that links up to a previously inaccessible portion of The Fairy Glade. The grandpappy of secret nooks and crannies, however, is The Sanctuary of Stone and Fire. When I was a young’un, I had no idea just how many secret alcoves were tucked away in this level. Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered an entirely optional tomb segment with tight platforming challenges, creepy spider enemies, and a shell riding challenge to break out to the surface. No sugar rush before nor since has given me such a boost. There are even secrets in earlier levels that require knowledge of mechanics that are only explained in future levels! Remember that lum Razorbeard ate in front of the player, lowering the collectible count to 999? Well, let’s just say that eagle-eyed players will discover that the lifeforce of Rayman’s world is not extinguished so easily. In such an overwhelmingly depressing level at the end of the game, this secret is like a glimmer of hope that the planet will repair itself and life will be reborn. This is absolutely a stretch inference from an endgame easter egg but Rayman’s world is bizarre and dark enough to invite such conjecture. It’s the reason why this fanbase is so passionate even though the series is relatively dormant.
The make or break for a lot of players new to Rayman 2 will be the staggering gameplay variety. Having too many incoherent gameplay styles and not giving the player time to fully get to grips with them has been a black mark against many games of this kind (see: the entire Sonic the Hedgehog franchise between 1998 and 2010). Rayman 2 escapes criticism in this regard since most of the gameplay styles feel quite natural and are variations on a style the player is already familiar with. Waterskiing on the back of a snake controls similarly to sliding, which controls similarly to riding a shell. Flying with a burning powder keg controls similarly to flying on a flying shell. Rayman spins his hair like a helicopter to hover; if I jump into an updraft, then I will fly upwards. I will add that as someone who knows this game like the back of my hand, I’m not in a place to judge how intuitive and readable these mechanics are to new players, but I do distinctly remember young Charles racking his brains over how to get through a tough segment he had been banging his head against for hours. A certain spinning chair section can really drag if trying to collect all the lums along the way. Fortunately, the game doesn’t expect too much too soon and will throw infinitely respawning health pickups in your path so you can keep retrying without the threat of a game over.
That said, I’m a self-confessed lover of this gameplay variety. Every level offering a bit of something unique alongside the cosy familiarity of smooth platforming makes them so memorable. They allow the developers to inject Rayman’s trademark humour into the gameplay cutting through the dire circumstances of the story. Levels where you ride plums across molten lava, levels where you break into underground compounds locked by four separate switches, levels where you descend into the bowels of a temple riding atop a floating flower because why not? Rayman 2 has got it all. The only time I feel it goes a tad overboard is in the final platforming (or lack thereof) level, The Prison Ship. Maybe they could have kept the slide section to infiltrate the ship and then added some platforming challenges inside the Buccaneer where you release the remaining inhabitants of Rayman’s world before going to face Razorbeard at the Crow’s Nest. There could even be a cute moment as the last prisoners are leaving where they beg Rayman to escape with them. He would decline because he knows that the pirates will simply go on to terrorise other worlds if they are allowed to escape and they have Globox. A final character beat like that would have utterly walloped me in the feels. As it stands, you drop into the furnace of the Prison Ship where there’s just a load of lava??? This seems like a structural oversight on the pirates’ part. I get that the whole thing is collapsing but where did all this lava come from? The ship is in the sky. It’s a narrative blip in an otherwise tightly scripted, rip-roaring adventure.
Conclusion
Rayman 2 is a game that comes along once in a lifetime, the perfect combination of creative vision and a relatively unexplored frontier of 3D platforming. It fuses its ambitiously nuanced story with its varied gameplay more seamlessly than any platformer I can remember. Its most inspired ‘epic’ moments still land, wrapped up in their art style equally zany and unsettling. This game has been with me from the start and represents a kind of touchstone for the things I appreciate in game design: bold, tonally dissonant worlds, gameplay-driven storytelling, and perfectly orchestrated level design. With the recent resurgence of 3D platformers and nostalgia for those of this era, there are a lot of narrative lessons we can still derive from Rayman’s greatest escape. Don’t be afraid to take tonal risks with established mascots and expand the universe. Give purpose to the actions the player performs in each level. If you want to make context sensitive gameplay styles, make sure they don’t overstay their welcome unless they have the depth to justify it. Do all that, and you’ve captured my adoration, inspiration, and money. Rayman might not have any limbs, but his games contain a ridiculous amount of heart.
If you need any more convincing of how dedicated the Rayman community is to the little guy, check out Rayman 2 HD, a modern remake created from the ground up by fans. It looks like such a promising fan project: just reading the ‘about’ page on their website and their Twitter, I can tell that they get what made the original great and what can be improved. I will continue to follow it closely and I’m beyond excited to see how it ends up!