It’s apt that Ubisoft refers to the Rayman Legends remake as ‘Retold’. Like any retelling of a story, details change, and emphasis differs based on who’s doing the telling. Some plotlines change entirely, while the technology of the chosen medium can drastically change the tone. Rayman Legends Retold drastically reimagines the look and feel of a fantastic platformer, which has my head spinning faster than its lead protagonist’s ears.
Of all the Rayman games to remake, I wouldn’t have expected Legends to rate a mention. Its charmingly expressive 2D hand-drawn animation style hasn’t aged a day, and the platforming is incredibly tight. Yet that’s what Ubisoft has gone for with Rayman Legends Retold, giving the platformer a 3D makeover.
Giving 2D Rayman the 3D treatment
To be clear, Retold still largely takes place on a 2D plane, it’s just that Rayman, his buddies, and all the environments are now rendered in 3D. It provides more capacity for ‘2.5D’ sections — where the characters move in a 3D-like space without adding a fully 360-degree scope of movement — like the recent Donkey Kong Country games used to great impact. Fully voice-acted cinematic cutscenes punctuate the moments between levels, including Billy West as Murphy, that freak of a flying frog with the Cheshire Cat-like grin.
Rather than a collection of disparate levels, Rayman Legends Retold attempts to add narrative cohesion to its frolicking throughout lush locales. There’s a broader overworld map, adding a sense of geography to the Glade of Dreams that the series hasn’t been known for. Nor have many other platformers, for that matter. A thin veneer of plot justification never got in the way of Mario’s adventures consistently wowing audiences.
With this higher-fidelity presentation, Rayman Legends Retold looks pretty. However, it loses the distinct visual identity of the original game. Beautifully realistic lighting effects and strikingly detailed character models catch the eye (although I’m not sure anyone needed to see such detail applied to Rayman’s teeth), but the cartoony vibe of the original Legends made it stand out.
Now, Legends Retold adopts a similar ‘cinematic’ aesthetic to several other great platformers, including the Ori series or Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. It looks undeniably great, but what sets it apart?
Helicopter platforming
In a several-hour hands-on session before the game’s announcement, I played through the first couple of realms, which included some of the newly added content. It took me a while to adjust to Rayman’s new look. While eye-catching, I still caught myself mentally overlaying the old 2D style on top, trying to spot the differences.
Rayman’s movement, however, took the longest adjustment period. The limbless hero felt quite heavy and slow, quite the departure from what my mind expected to play out on screen. Holding down the right trigger to sprint added a bit more speed, but Rayman still moved with a noticeable heft I wasn’t expecting.
Playing an early build of Legends Retold, it was tough to discern how much of Rayman’s more considered movement was deliberate versus a byproduct of its in-development status. Activating the helicopter ears (how they don’t get tangled is a question that keeps me up at night) took a moment longer than expected, making it trickier to judge distances between platforms and when to jump for those pesky flying Lums.
I’m still a big fan of Legends’ secret-laden levels that haven’t diminished one iota. Between wall jumps, bopping gangly-looking foes with a big ol’ wind-up punch, and obstacles aplenty to avoid, Rayman’s platforming tricks still hold up. As all good platformers should, optional challenges reward your skill with additional rewards. Although I’d say the real reward is the inherent satisfaction of beating a tough section.
Ride the dragon (literally)
New to Retold are dragon ride levels, of which I tried a couple. Acting as a transition between realms, these on-rail sections play a bit more with the 3D space, seeing you shoot fireballs at enemies and obstacles blocking your way, everything whizzing past you all the while. It’s pretty tough to fail dragon levels; every time you get hit, one of the Teensies holding on for dear life plummets to their doom. So, the challenge lies in getting through the level unscathed.
Most importantly, there’s a dedicated fart button. Does it have any functional purpose? Not at all. Pressing the button makes your dragon toot, along with a cloud of flatulence trailing behind. With two players riding dragons at the same time, gas clouds spreading around the screen, it quickly gets hilariously hectic, especially when your dragon bounces another’s directly into an obstacle. It’s this sort of whimsy and silliness that draws me into Rayman games in the first place, so I’m glad Legends Retold holds onto the series’ childlike sense of joy.
There’s also a bit more exploration between levels, breadcrumbing a few extra Lums here and there to unlock additional challenge levels. It’s not too in-depth, mind you, but just enough to make the world feel a bit more lived in.
What do I think of Rayman Legends Retold so far?
What Ubisoft ultimately showed was very much a work-in-progress. On top of the slightly off movement physics, there were missing audio cues, and some animations that didn’t trigger as intended. Pretty standard stuff for a game nearly six months out from release.
Still, I’m waiting for Rayman Legends Retold to unequivocally justify its existence. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced project makes perfect sense; it drastically refreshes the visuals of a game that tried to look as realistic as possible with the technology available at the time. Conversely, the original Rayman Legends looks timeless, with a style that looks as good today as it did over a decade ago.
With some fine-tuning, perhaps Retold will become the launchpad for future Rayman games it hopes to be. We’ll find out soon when it launches on all major platforms on 1 October.
Chris Button attended a hands-on session in Sydney as a guest of Ubisoft.
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