Rayman Origins

Well shit, I was late to this party.  But better late than never, right?

Rayman Origins is a game I bought a long long time ago on my Vita but because of Project Diva F and other games in my backlog, I only got around to playing it recently.  However I'm glad I did eventually decide to pop it in because Rayman Origins is one of  the best platformers that I've ever played.

The game is extremely thin on story but given the genre and the series that it's part of then it can be forgiven.  Basically, Rayman and his buddies are sleeping and their constant snoring pisses off a bunch of twats that live underground.  These twats start causing trouble and it's up to you to put them back in their place.

The gameplay in Rayman Origins is fucking amazing.  It's fast, fluid, responsive and navigating your way through the stages is just satisfying.  If you get killed it doesn't feel like the game was being bullshit, it's because YOU fucked up and the only way to unfuck yourself is to get good.  The levels also contains a little bit of exploration as you hunt for Lums (little fairy things) and secret cages.

There is a ton of content in this game too so you can get a hell of a lot of play time out of it.  Every level has a bunch of Electoons that need to be rescued, kind of like Rayman 1.  On each stage there is 1 set of electoons at the end of the stage and 2 hidden in the level.  Upon finishing the stage the game counts the Lums you found and there are 2 more available that way.  On top of that, there's an extra electoon for speed running the stage within a time limit.  This sounds like it would be bullshit because it means you have to play through every stage twice but it's not because the way you approach a stage normally and the way you approach it to do it fast are totally different.

This isn't true for every level in the game as there are some stages that mix up the formula a bit, but generally speaking that's how it works.

Then on top of all that, there are special stages where you find little red gems from chests.  Collecting all 10 of these gems unlocks a hidden world that is pretty fucking challenging and sort of acts like a final exam for all that skill you built up over the course of the game.

But challenge is the major problem I have with Rayman Origins, it's too fuckin' easy.  I blasted through all the stages and got all the Electoons first try with very little resistance.  The game grows some balls in the final and secret levels but the challenge comes in way too late and there isn't enough of it to satisfy masochists like myself.  Still though, the games easiness doesn't really affect it too badly because generally speaking the thing is just outright fun to play.

Finally there is multiplayer, but I didn't do it even once so I can't comment.

So yeah, go play it if you haven't already, it's awesome.