Just finished Rayman - my thoughts

[Ivo]

Ok I know I'm a bit late to the party considering its from 1996 or something. I've been wanting to play this for a while, as I had a demo and liked what I played (on a cover CD of a spanish magazine, no less! Didn't have more than dial-up net at the time I'm sure).

So over 10 years later I finished it on the Saturn. The game is much harder than I'd expect - the Space Mama level is really harsh (fortunately after dying many times, I figured I could skip a very tricky portion, cutting out passing on a checkpoint, by just jumping at the very peak of a vertical moving platform, grabbing a ledge).

The graphics are really good, stand up very well today IMO, gorgeous and colorful, backgrounds included... This is somewhat of a feat I think, considering how old the game is by now. The gameplay is very solid and on the challenging side. There are some quite unfair sections that you can't really do other than trial and error until you figure out what you must do, but fortunately they're not that many.

I was able to get smash all the cages, but it would probably be better to not make that a requirement to be able to access the last level. Some of the trickiest parts of the game involve getting some cages, which should be more optional (you could perhaps only get a better ending, like in Sonic 1 and 2, if you had all the cages).

Ivo.

[ott0bot]

I always like the original, but never played it all the way through. I still need to check it out. Have you played Astal. I really like the look and feel of that game, the controls aren't amazing though. Kinda reminds me of the same era as Rayman. All those cool sprite animated 2-d platfomers in the eary days of the Saturn and PS1 before everyone had to get all poygoned-out.

[Haoie]

I've played one Rayman game on the GBA, and didn't like it at all.

Maybe that's not representative of the better quality titles.

[Pulsar_t]

There aren't many great 32-bit platformers, and certainly Rayman isn't one of them. The very fact Rayman 2 pips 1 is quite telling.

[Ivo]

There aren't many great 32-bit platformers, and certainly Rayman isn't one of them. The very fact Rayman 2 pips 1 is quite telling.

I personally felt it was rather good.

[Pulsar_t]

Good yes, but not a classic imho whenever I think of those (it didn't receive stellar reviews from most magazines, it got an average of 7/10 afaik). You might like Gex (the first one), Skullmonkeys (though I found the gameplay to be a step back from what EWJ offered).. and Mr Bones (haven't tried it myself) A few more suggestions:

http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/ss2dplatform.html
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/08/col ... _tempo.php

I'd appreciate 32-bit platforming suggestions if anyone has any!

[Ivo]

Good yes, but not a classic imho whenever I think of those (it didn't receive stellar reviews from most magazines, it got an average of 7/10 afaik). You might like Gex (the first one), Skullmonkeys (though I found the gameplay to be a step back from what EWJ offered).. and Mr Bones (haven't tried it myself) A few more suggestions:

http://cafeman.www9.50megs.com/ss2dplatform.html
http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/08/col ... _tempo.php

I'd appreciate 32-bit platforming suggestions if anyone has any!

You are right, probably not a "classic" in terms of quality, but it's a "classic" in terms of historic relevance perhaps.

When you compare it to Earth Worm Jim (which you pulled up), yes, EWJ, now there's a classic 2D platformer. Very high quality gameplay there (not the 3D one though).

As you said there's not that many 32-bit platformers of such a great pedigree - you can try the 16-bit SNES games Super Putty (or its sequel, Putty Squad), you probably haven't played that one, if you are willing to continue down that line of 16-bit there's a bunch of very nice 2D games on the GBA as well (the Klonoa 2D game, I fancied also the 2D Crash Bandicoots, there's a very good Spiderman game not based on the movie and so on).

Ivo.

[Pulsar_t]

Thanks for bringing up the GBA! I've had my DSLite for almost a year now, and the only GBA cart I have is SFA3, which I don't play much because of the limited controls (still wishing for a 2D one-on-one for the DS other than Bleach and Jumpstars).. I heard good things about Klonoa on the PS2 so the GBA version is worth investigating (didn't know it existed!)

I'm a huge emulation fan (that's why I come here regularly ) but the DS falls short of greatness when it comes to emulating the SNES or Megadrive. I don't like the PSP so far, and the GP2X isn't optimal for commercial titles. Perhaps one of those newish EeePCs and a Saturn USB pad (is there a place that's not out of them? ) will do the trick?

[Ivo]

There's many nice 2D games on the GBA. Investigate a bit, start a thread "Good 2D games on the GBA / DS" if you want as some people won't see the request here perhaps. I'll drop another nice one on you, Ninja Cop / Ninja Five-O (I'm playing it right now, which is why I've been gushing about it in some other threads).

As far as emulation on the DS, I have an article of which part 1 is text complete (I think, maybe Racket will ask me to edit - he has been too busy to check on it). My first impression of Genesis and SNES on the DS was "isn't worth the bother", but after a bit more testing it isn't that bad on the DS; it's just I'm used to doing it on the PC. But there's other good emus for it, Lameboy and nesDS probably the best IMO. There is also a Neo Geo emu which runs surprisingly well (I was astonished) although that will be in part 2 of the article.

Ivo.

[Flak Beard]

I picked this up for $3 at a local game shop, but just got around to playing it. It's fun no doubt, but only for the first few worlds. It becomes so damn frustrating it's hard to love to it beyond that point. The Band Land levels made me want to pull my hair out! Good thing I didn't drop a lot of cash on it.

So is Rayman 2 much better? What about in terms of difficulty?