The terrible camera and below average graphics don't detract any enjoyment from the great old-school vibe of Rayman 2.

User Rating: 7.1 | Rayman Revolution PS2
Rayman 2 Revolution is one of those games that was undoubtedly amazing back when it came out, but now will most likely go unnoticed by the gaming population due to the evolution of the platforming genre. Gamers seem to want big guns and a genuinely interesting and complex story in their platformers now. Up until recently, this wasn't a necessity for the platforming genre. Rayman 2 is a perfect example because a lot of the mechanics in this game that were brand new and what everybody saw as the epitome of a next generation game are now archaic.

In Rayman's home world, there are evil robot pirates that are capturing everybody in their path, boarding them on their ship, and making them their slaves. Rayman was one of the unfortunate victims and that's how you'll meet him at the beginning of the game. As fate would have it, Rayman escapes with his good buddy, Globox, and he's off to find the four masks that can help him defeat this evil. Going back to my example of Rayman 2 seeming really old, the story is practically absent. Platformers now have deep, complex stories told through hours of cutscenes. This story is barely there and when it is, it's not deep, interesting, or even mildly amusing. It's only there to give the protagonist a reason to fight evil.

The gameplay shows it's age all over the place, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Although many gamers prefer the newer platformers with big guns and loud explosions, I've always preferred the traditional run and jump platformer, and on those grounds Rayman 2 delivers. There are hardly any battles in this game. Most of the time, you'll simply be navigating from point A to point B while avoiding dangerous traps and collecting an assortment of items. The reason why this is so fun is because it's so unique despite the crazy amount of platformers that have come before and after it. It's hard to describe all of the charm that is present in the simplistic yet geniusly designed levels.

When you do have to fight, it's never for too long. Usually it will only be 4 or 5 robots that can be killed very quickly and you can be on your way. Besides the boss battles and one area where there seems to be close to 30 or 40 enemies, the combat is pretty scarce. Luckily, that's exactly how platformers should be. Rayman isn't the most versatile character to fight with, but what he does have is useful. In the original game, Rayman threw his fist in front of him to take out the bad guys. But that game was a 2D side scrolling adventure. Since this one jumps into the 3D realm, throwing your fist and having to wait for it to travel back to you would be too time consuming. Instead, Rayman can now fire blasts out of his fists. Honestly, that's about as deep as his moves go. There are some upgrades you can purchase with the lums, small yellow creatures floating throughout the environment, that you'll find. You can buy a rapid fire, a bounce upgrade which has your blasts bounce all over the place, and others. There are only 4 or 5 upgrades and it's really not all that deep, but they're all useful.

Besides the lums that I already mentioned, you can also seek out and find cages that some creatures are hidden in. In the original game, it was mandatory to find these cages or you couldn't access the last level. Luckily, it's an option in this one rather than an annoyance. For every 10 that you find and break open, you can unlock a mini-game that will raise your health meter if you successfully complete it. Some are fun and some aren't. One has you riding a roller coaster, one is a jumping puzzle, another one is a simple race, etc. They're all very generic and since the game's not all that hard, it's tough to justify finding all of these cages to raise your health. After buying all of the aforementioned upgrades with the lums, you can unlock three extra mini-games that are there simply for fun. One is a soccer game with the baby Globox's, one is a multiplayer battle game, and one is sort of a moving maze where you must get to the middle of the arena, grab the item, and bring it back to the beginning. None of them are particularly interesting so there's no need for these either.

To get to each level, Rayman will have to traverse around a main hub in the game. Apparently, this wasn't present in the previous versions of Rayman 2, but since I've never played them, I can't say. The hub was a nice addition that helped make Rayman's world seem a little more lively, but at times it did become rather difficult to figure out where to go. There are signs all over the place that tell you what is in each direction, but the destination that you want to go to isn't always there. So unless you've memorized a lot of the area, you can expect to spend at least a little bit of time backtracking all over the place to find the next level. Aside from locating where you need to go, there isn't much else to do in this area, so you won't spend too much time in it anyway.

One of the greatest changes that the development team changed from the previous game is the difficulty level. The original game was unrelenting, asking the player to spend hours upon hours and days upon days practicing one little area just so they could get to the next one without losing too many lives. You only had a select number of lives and continues so the ridiculously hard difficulty wasn't a welcome trait. Thankfully, this game isn't any harder than other platformers like Crash Bandicoot. There are a few areas that switch up the action a bit that are pretty difficult, but it's nothing that will mentally kill you. For example, Rayman will be riding on a rocket shell through some parts of the game, both in the air and on the ground. The parts on the ground aren't too bad, only requiring some quick thought and precise movement, but the ones in the air are hard. It controls terribly and it's sometimes difficult to know where to fly since you'll be asked to fly through some very small cracks that are barely noticeable.

The worst part of this game is the camera. The old school feeling is great, but the old school camera is awful. First of all, to turn the camera you have to use the L1 and R1 buttons. Since I've gotten used to using the right analog stick to do this, I was constantly moving that around forgetting that it's completely useless. It's hard to break a habit, but once you get used to it, it's not too bad. However, it's not just the player movement that fails. Even when the game takes control of it, it's unbearable. It rarely got the best angle for the action and you'll probably find yourself taking on damage simply because you can't tell where the enemy fire is coming from.

The graphics is one of the big areas where this game takes a hit on it's score. I know it came out over 6 years ago, fairly early in the Playstation 2 lifespan, but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't look too good. The character animation is all over the place and they look like robots when they turn their head. It never looks fluid. Also, the environments and character models were pretty plain and boring. There's almost nothing in the environment worth looking at and most of the characters come off as uninspired rejects of the genre.

The sound is the other area where the game hits the floor. The story certainly isn't anything special, so I guess it's fitting that the dialogue and voice acting be that way as well. Rayman sounds like a complete dork and Globox is overly annoying. The other supporting characters are the worst offenders of them all. The sound effects are also pretty plain. The best thing about the sound is the soundtrack. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was enough to bring the sound up to average.

To sum it all up, Rayman 2 Revolution fixes a lot of problems that the first game had despite the jump from 2D to 3D. The difficulty level is much more fair without being too easy and finding the cages isn't mandatory. It's an old-school game and it takes the foundation of what a good platformer should be and runs with it. It has a few problems, like the terrible camera and the sometimes complicated hub world, but for the most part it works. The real reason the game is getting a fairly decent score instead of a really good one is because the graphics and sound are considerably worse than what we've come to expect. The great gameplay is still there, but the visuals are pretty ugly and the sound is timid and boring. Fortunately, gameplay is always the reason why a game succeeds or fails. Because of this, Rayman 2 Revolution is easily recommendable to any platforming fans that long for the glory days of platforming without big guns and mature themes.