The platformer genre has always shared a lot of the same DNA with the racing genre, but the points of comparison are rarely clearer than they are here: finding new ways to shave half a second here becomes increasingly important as you get ever closer to progressing far enough to unlock the final set of levels. Your goal is to finish each one in 60 seconds, but really anything below 40 seconds – the time you need to beat for the maximum reward in each section – feels like a failure.
Every level will, as you progress, become ‘invaded’, repurposed and remixed into a challenge level. While there’s a general swiftness to most of the game’s levels, it’s in the frequently brutal speedrun challenges on offer that Legends shines brightest. There’s a real purity to the game, then, a focus on a handful of mechanics that are polished to perfection, allowing the player to build up a mastery that serves them well once the difficulty starts to ramp up.Īnd ramp up it does. snatches control of Rayman away from you). The only thing close to an exception is the addition of Murfy, a little dude who accompanies you on some levels and can alter objects with a tap of the B button (unless you’re playing on the Wii U, in which case you assume direct control, which is reportedly a total bummer for the lone player because it means that the A.I. Rayman and the numerous other unlockable playable characters can run, jump, glide and punch, but the few power-ups they pick up along the way are rarely real game-changers. Legends manages this despite being fairly pared down. It helps that the artwork is almost absurdly beautiful too, bringing each level to life with more colour per level than most big games manage in their entire campaigns.
There are very few levels that don’t inspire a big smile, and the few that aren’t amazing are, at least, home to numerous genuinely interesting design choices. It’s a game that reinvents itself constantly, throwing out wonderful ideas that could sustain entire games to try out something new, never giving you a chance to get bored. Rayman Legends is to 2D platformers what Super Mario Galaxy was to 3D. As you progress through each world a dizzying amount of ideas are presented and tested. The game leads you not by holding your hand, but by featuring level designs so utterly exquisite that you can’t help but see the patterns that form, the paths you can take, the secrets lurking just off screen, even as you hold down the trigger to sprint through each level. Rayman Legends is probably the best non-Nintendo 2D platformer I have ever played.Įvery section of every level in Legends is designed with a perfect line in mind, meaning that a run in which you find every secret, collect every item and get a gold trophy at the end for your good work feels not only satisfying, but somehow correct. Donkey Kong Country Returns is a masterpiece, but it has now been usurped. Super Meat Boy, wonderful though it is, did my head in over hour-long sessions. Limbo is one of the best games of this generation, but despite the mechanics behind it one might struggle to call it a truly excellent platformer. There are games that I appreciate without loving, and although the last few years have been something of a new golden age for the genre thanks to the indie uprising, the ones that have grabbed me have been puzzlers at heart. It’s a genre I adore, but one that I can be quite picky about when nostalgia isn’t involved. I have played and loved a great many 2D platformers in my time: the first piece of games writing I was ever paid for was an article about Bubsy for the SNES, a game I still love dearly to this day. I say this to foreground the statements I’m about to make about Legends, lest they seem hyperbolic. I tried hard to love Rayman Origins, but couldn’t. It looked wonderful, it had a fantastic soundtrack, but for me it lacked a sense of flow, its level designs disappointing constantly, never allowing me to get into a good rhythm or gel with the physics and controls that drove everything. One of my most controversial opinions of this gaming generation – certainly the one that has led to the most accusations that I simply do not possess a soul – is my claim that Rayman Origins wasn’t all that great.
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