Customer Reviews

Rayman Forever

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having grown up with platformers in "the golden age" of gaming, I have many fond memories of Rayman, and so decided to write a review on it. This review may seem a bit out of place as I am reviewing the Rayman game for all platforms, but basing it on my own experience with Rayman Gold for PC (very rare now, but definetely worth picking up a copy if you can find one). Debuting on the ill-fated Atari Jaguar, then being ported to Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, PSX, and finally to PC, having been around so long, and having sequels appearing on so many gaming platforms speaks volumes for Rayman's overall quality, popularity, and staying power.

At first glance, you might be tempted to not take Rayman seriously as a platformer, expecting it to be overly simplistic, and aimed squarely at a very young gaming audience. But it would be a big mistake to allow yourself to be decieved by your initial impressions of it. There is a remarkably deep, challenging, and replayable game under the misleading "kiddy game" disguise. Though the game is challenging, it is also a completely satisfying, and near-perfect mix of action, and puzzle solving, and the addictive gameplay spurs you on. The plot is straightforward enough; the insidious Mr. Dark has defeated Betilla the Fairy, and stolen the Great Protoon. Without the natural balance it provides, the Electoons have scattered across the world, and hostile creatures have begun to appear, and capture them in cages. Weakened by her fight with Mr. Dark, and her powers drained by the Great Protoon's absence, Betilla needs time to recuperate before she can be of any help at all. Enter Rayman. As a guardian of this world, Rayman must journey through his now unbalanced, and hostile world to free the Electoons, and ultimately re-claim the Great Protoon to restore harmony. Along his journey, Rayman will meet wacky characters, and have to pass a variety of bizarre challenges. Two of Rayman's best features has always been quirky level design, and zany, entertaining characters. The levels are well thought out and designed, and very imaginitive with challenging objectives in each of the 6 worlds. The graphics are bright, colorful, hand drawn, and have stood up well to the test of time; much better in fact than many comparable platformers of the period. The sound is top notch, and the music too has been well done being moody, immersive, and appropriate to each themed world. Also included in Gold/Forever editions of Rayman is the original game, 24 user-created levels (50 in Rayman Forever) of varying (but overall good) quality, a level editor, and even a nifty, and collectible Rayman fridge magnet (included with Rayman Forever). The fridge magnet is often missing from used editions of Rayman Forever, so if you're considering one, and the magnet is a selling point for you, it's worth your while to communicate with the seller, and verify that it's included. As mentioned previously, and like many of it's contemporaries (like Jazz Jackrabbit 2 for example), a level editor is also included for the creation of custom levels. While it is a more advanced feature, and takes some practice to get the hang of, the level editor is an impressively powerful set of design tools, it's fairly simple to use afer you get acquainted with it, and with a few day's worth of practice, aspiring designers can crank out custom retail-quality levels of their very own.

Fans of mascot platform games are in for a true treat here (especially if you've never played Rayman, or any of his several sequels) as Rayman never fails to deliver challenges, laughs, and hours of replayable fun. Rayman acquires new powers as he progresses, and you will need every one of them to complete this surprisingly challenging game. Also pleasantly surprising, and completely un-typical of most mascot platformers, the controls are very tight, and refined. The game is packed with bonus levels, mini-games, 1-ups, inaccessible areas, and secondary objectives--many of which cannot be unlocked the first time through, thus giving you much incentive to re-play the game. From a game design standpoint, this is clever, and helps extend the game's re-play value as few games actually give you a good reason other than trying to top your original high score to re-play after you've completed them, and in this way once again, Rayman sets himself apart from the half hearted "me too!" platform offerings with a decidedly unique style, look, and gameplay experience.

It is worth mentioning however that being the older game that it is, Rayman Gold is one of those oh-so-rare console ports that HAS to have Win95/98/ME or a compatibility fix to run correctly. Mercifully enough, there are user-created compatibility fixes posted on Ubi's forums which gets Rayman Gold running under WinXP/Vista/7. The version of DOSbox the compatibility patch uses is outdated, so you may need to install the newest version to avoid issues. Also worth noting is that even though these compatibility fixes are emulator based (via DOSbox), Ubi is not handing out Rayman Gold for free; these are actual patches for the retail game as you will still need your original Rayman Gold CD to play. Although the readme for the patch says it doesn't support gamepads, I was pleasantly surprised to find that mine works with it nonetheless. For those interested in, but having trouble finding Rayman, Rayman Forever (essentially an expansion pack for Rayman Gold) is also a viable alternative to Rayman Gold as it has all the same content, but seems less rare, being available on amazon even at the time of this writing. The drawback to Rayman Forever is that unlike Rayman Gold, there have been no compatibility fixes (user-created or otherwise) that I've been able to find written for it, and since it's DOS-ware, it should still work via DOSbox, but is almost sure to demand setup tweaking to run on any operating system newer than Win 95/98/ME. To me, console versions are viable, but low preference alternatives since they don't look as good, usually have some original music and levels altered or omitted, and lack Rayman Gold/Forever's bonus content. Ultimately however, this all leads to the question of what incentive gamers have to choose PC versions of Rayman over console versions (or even emulation of console versions); especially in lieu of them being problematic to run under newer operating systems without some sort of hack, or compatibility fix. The answer is that Rayman games have always been noted for being exceptionally good looking games, and their system requirements were considered quite high for their time. Console versions didn't look quite as sharp (courtesy of inferior console hardware), and had some original levels and music altered or omitted, thus making them a second preference to PC versions.

All in all, Rayman combines many of the best elements of mascot platformers to create a superb game which remains compelling even by modern standards. An instant classic even when released, every fan of mascot platform games owes it to themselves to have Rayman in their collection. Rayman is a tremendously entertaining game that is easily worth your bargain bin pocket change to pick up.

UPDATED EDIT: Rayman Gold is Win7 compatible using the compatibility patch available on Ubi's forums, but the sound overhaul to Direct X 10/11 in Win Vista/Win7 tends to knock out the music.

My son loves this game, he loves the fact that he can create his own stages and play them afterwards. He really loves his game!

When I first got Rayman Forever, my kids loved it.It is a challenging game, but over time you beat the levels and earn new worlds.Even though I got the game for my kids I am typing about what happened.I got this game because we had friends that had it and their kids loved it so we bought it.This is an awsome game because you earn powers and you can fly with one of the powers you earn.My kids loved it so that is why you should get it and I'm pretty sure you will love it also.