Ye Olde Games: Rayman

Channel:

Sarioya

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Published on June 22, 2015 12:00:00 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpBw3H15N5I

Game:

Rayman Forever (1999)

Duration: 17:26

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Today's game is Rayman, which was both developed and published by Ubisoft and released in 1995. The DOS version does admittedly pale in comparison to the PSX release, but I'll get into that more later.

Rayman starts out as a simple walk and jump (run and jump seems a bit generous, really) platformer, with the first set of levels acting as a tutorial without being a tutorial that holds your hand, like so many games today seem to do. The first level requires nothing but and jumping to proceed. The second level steps things up as it introduces climbing and enemies which must be avoided, as you have no attack yet. The third level gives Rayman his attack, because he apparently needs a fairy to tell him it's okay to get violent with the bad guys, and introduces the concept of punching things in the environment other than enemies. The fourth level is largely to let you get used to using all of these basic skills while throwing in one final element. At the beginning and end of the level is an Electoon cage to be broken. In order to reach the end of the game, you have to break all of the Electoon cages in each level set. A number of cages, especially in the earlier levels, require abilities that Rayman acquires later, such as being able to grab on to ledges or swing from flying rings, to be able to get to them.

The graphics are quite good, and I think they honestly look even better when being ran through scalers and pixel shaders. There are a few graphical differences between the DOS and PSX versions though. Notably, the lack of fog on the fourth level in the DOS version, and I don't remember seeing the binocular effects on the map in the PSX version. I mean, the binocular view is there, but I'm pretty sure that it didn't do the whole looking around and focusing bit.

The audio is where I feel the PC port suffers, honestly. Now, my version is modded to use higher quality audio, and that helps with some of the issue, but not all. A chunk of the music from the PSX version is missing, including the end of stage music, and the tings (the little blue orbs you collect) make a rather unsatisfying pop sound compared to the PSX version's ting sound. Granted, they do still change in pitch, but it's just kind of there and doesn't really make it feel worth while to gather them even though you can use them for 1-UPs and bonus stages. It's like replacing the coin sound in Mario with, say, the sound of a koopa shell bouncing off of a wall. It just makes it kind of eh, even though you know that you can get a 1-UP. It just feels empty. Nit-picking, I know, but I still kind of feel like it's a valid point.

All in all though, Rayman on DOS is still a great game and is available from GOG for $5.99 as Rayman Forever, which includes the base game, the level editor, and Rayman By His Fans.

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