review from 1999
It looks gorgeous on the N64 -- with the expansion pak (for very crisp medium-high res graphics) it's easily the best looking thing on the platform, and soundly proves that the N64 can do a heck of a lot more than most people have demonstrated. As peerless as the technology is, though, it's not about the technology.
What Rayman has is perfect mechanics and perfect art. It's more or less a fixed-path platformer in play -- you can go wherever you want to, and there's plenty of wide open spaces and different ways to go, but the bulk of each level follows a more-or-less restricted and obvious path. The structure works perfectly, lacking both the disorientation of Mario or Banjo and the monotony and un-imersiveness of Crash. This form is handled so inventively that running and jumping could never get old. For example, there are numerous "mine car" segments (in which you're carried along a fixed path by some sort of vehicle or slide, and have limited mobility to avoid obstacles), but they're all completely different (unlike Crash's pig vs. Crash's jetski): when you're riding a rocket-on-legs, or skiing, or sliding, or whatever, that's what it feels like and the challenge is appropriate to the situation. Rayman's like an enormous fantasy playground.
I can't say enough about the art, either. The worlds don't feel like some abstract scenery-on-a-path, they feel like worlds, and if you're like me you'll make little squeaking noises the first time you stumble upon a rocky cove with a pirate ship docked and the moon lighting the sea, or see the forest alive with butterflies and fish and little squeeze-toy clattering orphaned creatures. The environments are like beautiful cartoon art, with something clever and stylistically consistent around every corner -- they don't look 3D in any way except that you're able to run around them, and ever so occasionally you'll see a straight line or a polygon face. But not often. The architecture is Seusslike, the colors are chosen and managed with Disney-like effect. All the same merits apply to the characters, except that they're also treated as characters, with real honest to god quality character animation, personality, and these little gibberish voices (they're subtitled) that convey character, emotion, and the situation better than most real voice actors for video games or cartoons. You have to hear the voices to understand, but it sounds exactly like they're speaking their correct lines, just in a different language -- they even say each others' names and certain key words correctly.
Rayman 2 is, simply put, the perfect platformer. Beautiful worlds, wonderful characterization, and so much continuous, fast-paced fun that you could easily play it over and over again even if it weren't for the beauty of it all, like in the olden days of Super Mario Brothers (before you could save your game, before the long, exploration-oriented affairs where value resides in length and size at the cost of pace). And it's pretty dang long as well...