Rayman 2: The Great Escape
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Rayman 2: The Great Escape is a 1999 platform game developed by Ubi Pictures and published by Ubi Soft for the Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color, Nintendo DS, iOS, and Nintendo 3DS.
Note: This page only focus on the console versions (with the exception of the PS1 version), to see the page about the Game Boy Color port, click here
Development
Rayman 2 was originally conceptualised as a sidescrolling 2D platformer, like the first game. Development on the prototype began in early 1996 with a team of six people and a budget of 10 million francs. It was slated to be released on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Windows in the fourth quarter of that year. The prototype of Rayman 2 featured some usage of prerendered bitmaps of 3D computer models, differing from the hand-drawn presentation of its predecessor. The PC was the original lead platform, but it was switched to the Nintendo 64 mid-development, necessitating reducing the quality of the textures. The Dreamcast version uses the original high-quality textures. The art design was inspired by the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Tex Avery, and was made to give the game's world a sense of mythology.
Plot
In Rayman 2: The Great Escape, the player takes on the role of Rayman, a whimsical and limbless hero from the Glade of Dreams. The game begins with an invasion of Rayman's world by the nefarious Robo-Pirates, led by the sinister Admiral Razorbeard. These robotic pirates have enslaved the peaceful inhabitants of the Glade and imprisoned Rayman's friends, the Teensies.
Why It's A Great Escape
- It was an awesome way to bring Rayman to the 3D platformer genre, since due to how well executed this game was, it ended up not only being one of the best, if not the best game of the series (along with Legends), but also one of the best 3D platformer of the 5th and 6th generation.
- Varied gameplay mechanics in many levels without straying too far away from the core platform gameplay so they don't become tedious.
- Really good graphics for it's time that still hold up well and are iconic, as it is detailed and had great color palette (that isn't as colorful than the first game due to being darker), and they are designed around the dark tone of the game, which mean that they can sometime be dark when in other areas, they can be colorful to look at, also they are so iconic that when you see one character model, you can definitely tell that it's this game, in fact it look better than so many games released back in 1999.
- Tight and responsive controls that are always responsive (except in the sliding parts) and never are clunky to use, also they aged surprisingly well because most 3D platformer back then had clunky controls, here they are very simple in a good way, and is designed for everyone.
- Even the swiming controls are great and this is one of the few games to had good swiming controls since most games of the time had terrible controls in the water levels, even some of the 2000s games had poor controls for these sections but here there's nothing that is like that.
- The difficulty here is way more balanced than in the first game, since here instead of doing horribly hard levels that are very frustrating, the difficulty is well balanced and is neither too hard nor too easy, and even if you had unlimited lives, there's still challenge since the checkpoints aren't that present for the most parts, and it force you to be careful, also some of the later levels can be surprisingly challenging.
- Excellent level design that despite being mostly linear, contain some explorations to make it up, and the levels are very fun in their own right, especially because for it's time they had unique level design and the levels are very fun to explore.
- Cool box art for every versions, especially the original box art and Rayman Revolution NA cover, the other are also great to look at and overall it is cool to look at and even tell what would happen in the game, it's also contain darker colors than in the first game box art, most likely to reflect the game dark tone.
- Like with the first game, Rayman can immediately jump after grabbing from a ledge, showing how tight the controls are, and it would continue to be this good with the next games.
- The story is well made and an improvement over the first game story, since it involve darker themes and the story is quite deep.
- The story also had a fair amount of funny moments that are vague while still keeping the dark tone of the game consistent, such as the moment where the lums all wanted to be the king and that they get into a fight, which is very funny.
- In addition, this game is probably the darkest Rayman game along with Rayman 3 and Legends.
- Obtaining all Lums and breaking all cages in each level unlocks a bonus minigame to recover heath.
- Solid one on one combat style that is very fun and while it didn't aged too well, at least it did inspirated other games to do the same thing such as Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 or the infamous Frogger: The Great Quest, and almost all of the bosses had to combat system.
- After clearing the level "Cave of Bad Dreams", Jano (he was not named Jano until GBA Rayman 2) offers the player his treasure, and in most versions of the game the player can actually say yes. If they do, they get a comical non-canon ending with a fat lazy Rayman resting at a deserted island surrounded by the treasure.
- In the PlayStation version of the game, defeating the final boss unlocks a demo of the 2D prototype of the game, which is great for those who wanted to get the 2D game instead and show what it could have been.
- Great soundtrack that contain lot of variaty and are overall a joy to listen to, as they range from catchy, to relaxing and sometime downright epic.
- Lot of new characters are introduced to this game, most notably Murphy and Globox, which are some of the most important characters of the franchise now, and those characters also got characters developments though the series and are likable, much like Rayman himself.
- Instead of having lives, Rayman has a large life-bar which is relatively easy to refill, and falling into bottomless pits only takes away a small amount of life. Breaking cages permanently increases Rayman's life bar.
- Epic final boss that may be the best final boss of the entire franchise, especially on the N64 version since considering that the villain of this game is really intimidating, it make everything better and the battle is also challenging, the PS1 version had a different version of the final boss where the gameplay is more like a Space Harrier clone in the phase when you defeat the boss.
- The PlayStation 2 version titled "Rayman Revolution" is regarded as the best version of the game due to lots of new content added, actual voiced dialogues and updated graphics thanks to its new engine RenderWare (the engine used for Burnout series and many other good looking games).
- The Dreamcast version is also great as it has slightly better graphics and exclusive minigames in the new world "Globox Village".
Bad Qualities
- The PS1 port, while not too bad and actually decent, is a noticeable downgrade from the other versions due to lacking lot of levels and having downgraded graphics (though they are still good).
- The game also suffered from two bad handheld ports, including both the Nintendo DS and 3DS versions as Rayman DS and Rayman 3D, respectively.
- The Game Boy Color port named Rayman 2 Forever also suffer from being a huge downgrade from the first game on GBC, because of poor level design and the fact that the game overall is just not fun to play.
- Sliding sections have very stiff controls that make grabbing Lums very frustrating because Rayman contiously refuses to take simple turns.
- While the combat system is great, it didn't aged well because of the fact that next Rayman games such as Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc had better combats that this but still it is fun to use and it still aged better than some other games of it's time such as Super Mario 64 combat (who didn't aged well but for another thing).
- The game is still short, as if you know what you are doing, you can complete it in only 5 hours, the PS1 port is even shorter, clocking around 3h30.
- The hub world in Rayman Revolution, while not a bad concept, is flawed and was what make that version underrated in the first place, since it is a pace breaker for a lot of peoples, especially in comparison to the level select of the original Rayman 2, also it is somewhat confusing to navigate though the hub world.
- While still great, the soundtrack is rather washed out on the N64 version.
- The race bonus stages are terrible, mostly because you need to press the button as fast as possible and if you fail one or two seconds, then it's screwed.
Reception
The game was critically acclaimed by critics, often called one of the best 3D platformers ever made. The Dreamcast version is usually said to be the best port of the game. The PlayStation version on the other hand is considered the worst as it lacks a large amount of content with some levels being completely removed.
In fact, the game was even considered to be the best game of the series, though nowadays there's a debate of what is the best game of the franchise, this game or Rayman Legends.
On Metacritic, both the N64 version and the PS2 remake received a score of 90/100, indicating universal acclaim.[1][2]
Trivia
- This is the game in the Rayman series with the most ports. To put this into perspective, this was a launch title for both the Nintendo DS and its successor the Nintendo 3DS. Not to mention an an iPhone version (before its removal), a Game Boy Color version, and even a PS2 remake. And that's not even counting the two Play Station Network versions (one being a port of the PS1 version, the other being a port of the PS2 remake)
- In France, editions of the PC version of Rayman 2 were sold with the Rayman cartoon. Editions of the PlayStation version were sold with a digital watch in Europe and with a beach ball in the United States.
- In the Japanese version of Rayman 2 , some characters changed color. Rayman 's shirt became blue, Sssssam and Jano became green, Jano and Polokus ' hat became red, and Ly 's clothes became white. These changes were also applied to the Japanese version of Rayman Revolution .
- German magazine PC Player in January 2000 named Rayman 2 "Best Platform Game 1999".
- Another Ubisoft game released in 2000, Donald Duck: Quack Attack reuses several sound effects from Rayman 2. It was also developed with Ubisoft OpenSpace .
- In 2015, video game designer Tim Schafer revealed that Rayman 2 was a major influence on his game Psychonauts.[3]
- Rayman 2 was going to have "Tank Controls" but it was changed to free-roaming controls when playtesters found the controls unplayable. An example of what that would have been like can be seen with the Tonic Trouble: Special Edition game released for PC which is the early alpha version of that game.
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