Rayman Legends
Rayman Origins was something of a pleasant surprise, which means Rayman Legends has some high expectations to live up to. And it is by all objective measures an improved game. It is bigger than origins – containing large chunks of origins itself, even, which makes other comparisons easy. The art, already great in Origins, is even more lively and interesting in Legends and the few gripes I had with the gameplay are fixed. More or less, it is still kind of repetitive at times – the levels that do break up the action are slightly too far between and not always as interesting as the shooter mayhem of Rayman Origins. In addition, the Wii U features mesh poorly with other platforms and while I can see how it would make for an interesting two-player experience it feels like a tacked-on encumbrance now.
The thing I don’t like about Rayman Legends is how it is framed. Origins was mainly focused on the story – a silly store, sure, but walking around the map to rescue nymphs and free the glade kings was always the point of the game – collecting electoons was something you just happened to do and it wasn’t a big deal. In contrast, Rayman Legends presents itself more like a party game and while there is a story you are constantly encouraged to gather different kinds of collectibles, take part in daily challenges, scratch lottery tickets or care for virtual pets – Nothing particularly wrong with that, but it ruins a lot of the mood for me and makes the higher production values go to waste.
It is still a great platformer though. I’ll stick to Dustforce for the truly hardcore platforming challenges, but like its predecessor Rayman Legends manages to provide a really tight game with a generous amount of variation and stellar presentation.