Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc
Alright, ladies and gents! Let's roll! - Rayman
Protagonist(s): Rayman Platform(s): Game Boy Advance Nintendo GameCube PlayStation 2 Xbox Microsoft Windows N-Gage Mobile Mac OS X PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Release Date: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube EU: February 21, 2003 NA: March 4, 2003 PlayStation 2, Xbox EU: March 14, 2003 NA: March 18, 2003 Microsoft Windows NA: March 18, 2003 EU: March 21, 2003 N-Gage NA: December 11, 2003 EU: November 26, 2004 Mobile WW: 2004 Mac OS X NA: 2003 EU: February 22, 2004 PlayStation 3 NA: March 20, 2012 PAL: March 21, 2012 Xbox 360 WW: March 21, 2012 Publisher(s): Ubisoft Series: Rayman Predecessor: Rayman 2: The Great Escape Successor: Rayman Origins Rayman: Hoodlum's Revenge (By Release Date)

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is the third major platform game installment in the Rayman series and the sequel to Rayman 2: The Great Escape. A remastered HD port was later released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as Rayman 3 HD.

Note: This focus on the console versions due to the GBA version being completely different from this aside from the story, for the GBA version, click here.

Developement

Rayman had at least 3 designs during the game's development. First, he was to appear in the same appearance as in Rayman 2, then in a design similar to that of Rayman 3 but with a yellow hood and the same shoes as in Rayman 2, until arriving at his final design.

This flag has been replaced with a flag representing the most common enemies in the game : Corporals . The design of the life bars was the same as in Rayman 2, but they were modified during development.

In the second early preview of Rayman 3, several old names of some levels make their appearance: Central Bank Garden, which corresponds to the Fairy Council, the Sour Noodle Swamp, which corresponds to the Crappy Swamp, Abracadabra Shortcut, which corresponds to the Great Shortcut, Black Lumsa, which corresponds to the Hoodlums Headquarters, and finally The Dark Dungeon which corresponds to the Leptys Tower.

In the Rayman 3 Early Preview sound files , there is a dialogue where Globox says: "Oh, shit, I'm flying! That's funny!". This was probably removed from the game due to bad vocabulary. A dialogue from Murfy was censored for using the same word but was not removed from the final version of the game.

Trapped Plums were supposed to appear in the game but for some reasons was cut out the game.

Plot

It follows Rayman in his quest to stop an evil Black Lum named André from taking over the world with his army of hoodlum soldiers, which includes finding a cure for his best friend Globox after he accidentally swallows André.

Why It Rocks

1. Rayman 3 features a point-based scoring system; a first for the series. The score system offers tons of replay value and tests the player's skills and knowledge of enemy encounters, and because of that system being well though, you might actually want to score the more points you can get, due to how fun it is.
   • The scoring system is also really fun and make the scoring way more fun than it would be if it wasn't for that, since if it was not present, it would probably be useless to score points and you would prefer to rush to the end of the level.
     • Despite that the scoring system is a major part of the game charm, you can still rush to the end and still get a lot of fun because of how amazing the gameplay is.
2. Rayman's friend Globox is given a much bigger role and accompanies Rayman through the entire game, and received character development despite still being a bit scared, and he very funny in this game, especially when he is drunk, also he's still likable and help Rayman especially when he's drunk and do platforms to get though a pit that you can't escape, though he might spawn them accidently due to being drunk.
3. The humor is just excellent and make this game probably one of the funniest game of the 2000s and it isn't a joke, almost, if not all the jokes are funny and the humor is at it's absolute best in this game, even in comparison to the predecessors and the next games such as Raving Rabbids or Legends.
   • The French dub countain even more funny moments because the voices and dialogues are excellent, and feel more alive than the english dub, especially with the hoodlum that Globox eat.
     • One of the best exemple of the funny moments in the French dub is when Globox say to Rayman that he almost didn't feared anything, and the hoodlum say "C'est ça, et t'a presque pooper dans ton froc, gros dégueulasse va!", which mostly sound funny because of André voice.
   • Or the moment where Globox became drunk he either act in a very funny ways or say something that is hilarous, most notably when he craw on the ground or when he say that he's gonna get mad.
4. Amazing graphics that are very advanced for it's time and even goes as far as being almost on par with Super Mario Sunshine, a game of 2002 that also had very beautiful graphics for it's time and this game hold up just as well as that game, since the graphics are very detailled, colorful and the art style of the game is very impressive for it's time, the HD remaster also made the graphics even better since it look even more colorful and look slighly more detailled, it is also obviously a huge step up from the graphics of both Rayman Revolution and Rayman Arena, despite those still looking solid.
5. The gameplay is extremely fun, and varied for a 2003 game, and is faster than the one from Rayman 2, which also had great gameplay but somewhat slow, here it is very fast-paced and focus on combat rather than platforming all the time, which is a first for the series too, and because of the game bigger focus on the combat, it can almost be considered a beat 'em up game, but still had a lot of platforming to keep you entertained, and because of this, it is the most unique gameplay of the series.
6. Cool box arts for every regions and are just as good as the cover art from the second game.
   • The NA box art show Rayman doing an angry face and punching along with the sorcerer and his spires that are present in the background, which look really cool and epic.
   • The Europe cover art is just as epic, if not more iconic. This is because it show Rayman in an epic pose and the background is also amazing to look at, and also it feel epic and possibly even better than the NA cover art for some peoples, although it unfortunately doesn't feature the sorcerer but at least it still feature the hoodlums.
   • The HD remaster is just as epic as the NA cover art, and manage to update the Rayman design, and while it isn't as epic because of that, it still look amazing and overall one of the best art of the whole series.
7. The controls are once again excellent, since they're just as tight and responsive as the previous games despite being slighly less responsive than the two previous main games and Rayman Arena, they also are way faster which mean that if you disliked the speed of Rayman in the second game due to being slighly slow, here he is way faster to control and this make the game even more fun than before.
   • The lock system had also great controls and that system somehow manage to be an improvement over the one of Rayman 2's, because not only it target the enemies or other things extremely well but also it is somehow easier to use it, since in Rayman 2, it mostly target in the front direction, but here it can go to three directions: Right, Left and in front of the enemies, which obviously make it better and for the most parts it doesn't fail to target.
8. The soundtrack is amazing and composed by Fred Leonard, Laurent Parisi and Plume, and the soundtrack is somehow even better than the music in the first two games, since not only it is catchy but also well composed and fit the game tone, such exemples include:
   1. Madder is a very cool intro theme song and is the only vocal song of the game, it is most likely the best theme song of the entire series and sound even better than the theme song of the 1999 cartoon (which also sounded decent)
   2. Hoodoo Sorcerer is a very catchy song and while it doesn't really fit a fight battle with enemies and that it isn't heard a lot, it still sound amazing to the point of being the most well know song of the game and it also sound hilarous, which explain why this music is used in a lot of videos on the internet.
   3. Teensie Highway is mostly based on 80s style musics and is absolutely phenomenal to listen to and is probably one of the greatest song of the entire Rayman franchise, as not only it sound extremely catchy but it doesn't even feel repetitive and you might even want to fall constantly to heard this music, not only that but when you fall in those levels, you heard a very good jingle, which also sound catchy despite being short.
   4. Drunk Globox is probably the most funny song of the game, since much like a moment from a certain Asterix movie, Globox got drunk (often by the way) and the music really fit the situation and make the scenes of Globox being drunk even funnier, and show that back then, they could include almost everything that is mature into a game rated E/3+ (even if the HD remaster corrected the Pegi rating and was instead Pegi 7).
   5. Rayman Take Control is a very funny song (despite not being as funny as Drunk Globox), and somewhat fit the situation he is in that moment of the game, and when you heard this kind of musics in a game you know that it's a game that is very entertainning in both the humor and gameplay and show how much passions it went into the game.
   6. Know Where to Jump/Fly are both very identical but they still sound absolutely great and catchy, as well as managing to make the last parts stressful, also it make you know that you're in for the end of your adventure before fighting the final boss.
      1. The Know Where to Jump song is especially the best of them all because of the bass that is satistying to listen to.
   7. Hard Landing is a very catchy song and make it one of the best intro song of a first level, and it even appear to be the title screen theme, which is even better and the song is overall very memorable, much like the rest of the game.
9. Rayman 3's levels are more straightforward and oriented towards action and combat rather than platform and exploration. And unlike many combat oriented platformers, the game is still enjoyable and still feels like a platformer thanks to the combat mechanics being well designed.
   • The levels are also shorter than the previous games since while it had 8 big levels, it had many sub levels that last 5 to 10 minutes in a similar vein to Pac-Man World 2, which work very well for a Rayman game, and while most Rayman 2 levels we're short too, they we're not designed to be completely straightforward and had lot of explorations, and although Rayman 3's now lack explorations (for the most parts), it still feel enjoyable and is just as good as Rayman 2, thank to being well designed.
10. Rather than shooting projectile orbs like in the previous game, Rayman returns to shooting his fists to attack enemies like in the first game, which is much more iconic to the character.
11. The voice acting is great and a major step up from Rayman 2, since the voices are even better and fit the characters, the French dub in particular is even better than the previous game which already had an amazing dub and sounded impressive, here they are even more fitting but let's talk about both the english and french dub with more details in the sub pointers.
    • The english dub is once again very good and had voices that fit the characters as stated before, and while they sound calmer in this dub than the french version, they can still sound funny and fit the characters, by the way Murfy was voiced by Billy West in this game, in which he still do a good job at voicing Murfy, much like his voice for Rayman in the CGI cartoon.
    • The French dub howewer is excellent and much like Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 or even the Crash Bandicoot games, they sound very funny and fit every single characters, such as Rayman, Globox, Murphy and especially the Dark Lums inside Globox, which sound very funny and his lines never fail to make us laugh, also it is probably (though this depend on your opinion) the best French dub of the 2000s in video games history.
12. It had lot of references to other medias, which wasn't present in the previous games, such moments include references from the previous games, Spider-Man 2 and The Legend of Zelda, those are also very funny.
13. The game features sarcastic self-referential undertones and pokes fun at the platform video game genre, which differs from the light-hearted nature of its predecessors, this is also part of this game funny humor since while it pokes fun at the platforming genre, it still manage to never feel offensive and come of as hilarous, thank to being well though.
14. The gag where Globox need to drink alcools is very hilarous and never fail to make us laugh, if slighly innapropriate for a kid game. And it once again show that this game don't fear of being a kid game.
15. The bosses are pretty decent despite most of them being a downgrade from Rayman 2, since not only they are challenging but also some of them are epic and the bosses overall had balanced difficulty, not too hard nor too easy.
    • The final boss of the game, Reflux is a very badass final boss and is extremely epic due to how challenging he is and because of the backgrounds and musics, and here it just as perfect as the final boss from Rayman 2, which also had a very epic final boss, especially in the PS1 version where Razorbeard was challenging and epic, but now back to the final boss of Rayman 3, he had four phases and they all are challenging in their own ways, and they all are fun to fight.
      • First phase involve him doing a lot of attacks that are rather hard to dodge, and the way you fight him is quite great and epic, to the point of feeling like one of the best boss ever.
      • The second involve him being even taller and had a massively big hand attack, and you hide in the lower ground platforms to avoid his attacks, until you got the red power, which is very fun, and it is very epic.
      • Third phase is the weakest phase of his fight but still epic because you had to get up on the platforms before they disappears, and it is quite challenging and also it was done in a unique way here, not like some of those bosses from the Mario franchise.
      • The fourth and final phase of his fight is different, yet still amazing and epic because you know that you're near the end of the final battle and that Reflux doesn't play around, here it is the rail shooter gameplay that return from the previous level before the boss, and it's once again challenging
16. Instead of permanent upgrades to his abilities, Rayman can now find special "Laser Washing Powder" cans containing one of five temporary power-ups. When Rayman uses this power ups his outfit temporarily changes, and those are pretty fun to use and the game is designed with this in mind, and also make this game stand out from the other Rayman games.
17. Lots of secrets and unlockables including cameos from the previous game and beta content from this game, which is still pleasant to discover.
18. The rail levels are quite decent and a nice break from the platforming levels (which are still better). Those levels mostly appear when you finished a level and these are actually for teleporting you in the next levels, which is a nice and unique idea. The levels themself are also very fun because you can do 100% in them and jumping frop a platform to another is satistying.
    • You can even find the USS Enterprise from Star Trek in one of them, which is nice.
19. Rayman can now shoot two fists at once, which makes combat much more fluent. It also makes swinging through rings a lot easier.

Bad Qualities

1. Globox, the Teensies, and Murfy are the only characters from Rayman 2 that appear in person.
   • Not helping the fact that Murfy isn't seen in the entirety of the game since he abandon early in the game and even say "See you in Rayman 4", which didn't aged well due to that game being cancelled, (unless if you thinking about the GBA version of Raving Rabbids..)
2. The animation in the in-game cutscenes is terrible, with the characters moving in a jagged, robotic way, and it also didn't aged well, even Rayman 2 animation in game was slighly better, though the animated cutscenes are still decently animated.
3. The lip-syncing in the game is inconsistent in most cases in the English version, in most cases the lips stop moving but the characters keep talking, however this problem does not occur in the French, Spanish, German, and Italian version of the game as the lip-syncing is much better in those versions.
4. In some cases, the game can be very difficult and confusing in some of it's levels, and while it isn't as hard as the first game, it can still be very intense in difficulty, in a similar vein to Garfield: Saving Arlene.
   • Sometime there's way too much enemies that can kill you and some of them are poorly placed, which doesn't help and can become tedious.
   • Not to mention that the levels don't really had any checkpoints since when you die, you restart all over the beginning of the sub level where you did die, which can be very annoying and can be frustrating, it doesn't help that you had only one life, much like the previous game.
5. The Desert of Knaarens is an extremely disturbing level and is absolutely out of place for a Rayman game and feel more like that it come from a horror game, in which it make you wonder how the game even got rated E in the first place, though the remaster will fix this with a E+10/Pegi 7 instead, which fit it more.
   • In other cases, the lines from the knaarens are very scary for a kid game since they say creepy things that will probably make childrens having nightmare, and it show by the fact that it scared an entire generation of young kids.
   • The level itself is incredibly dark and edgy in a bad way to the point of being even darker than Rayman 2, which was know for being a very dark game but even that game doesn't go as far as this level, and it doesn't help that the colors themself are very dark in this level (obviously).
   • In addition, when the knaarens hit you, they make a very scary effect when you approach them, which obviously can scare a lot of young childrens, and it doesn't help that their designs will scare young kids and in some cases, adults as well.
6. Some of this game departure from the previous games can be a turn off for some fans, and is mostly one of the reason why for one period this game got a biased hatebase.
   • The stronger focus on combat gameplay can be alienating to fans of the previous two games, because if they liked the adventures focus in Rayman 2 and that they wanted this format back, then they will probably be dissapointed.
   • The fact that the game is more linear can be even more of a turn off, even if Rayman 2 for the most parts was very linear.
7. For some reasons, the HD remaster revomed the theme song.

Reception

Ratings

Aggregate score	Score
Metacritic	77/100 (GameCube)
Metacritic	76/100 (PS2)
Metacritic	75/100 (Xbox)
Metacritic	74/100 (PC)
Metacritic	72/100 (PS3)
Metacritic	69/100 (Xbox 360)
Aggregate score	Score
Gameranking	80% (PS2)
Gameranking	78% (PC/GameCube)
Gameranking	77% (Xbox)

Critical Reception

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows versions of the game received aggregated scores of 77, 76, 75 and 74 respectively. On GameRankings, the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows versions received scores of 78.08%, 80.19%, 76.91% and 78.31% respectively, making it the lowest rated main series Rayman game.

The game's impressive visuals and artistic style received universal praise. Its dialogue, voice acting and humour polarised reviewers, with some praising their wit. The gameplay was generally regarded as solid, but some criticized the game for focusing on combat and timer-based puzzles rather than platform.

Rayman's creator Michel Ancel wasn't directly involved in the game's development and said that while he liked the game, it was "a bit too concrete for [his] tastes", and that he "would have made the game differently".

Trivia

• A sound effect from the Rayman Dictations educational game collection was reused in Rayman 3. It can be heard in the game's menus when scrolling the cursor.
• The Fairy Council was mentioned in the first pages of the Rayman 2 manual. The Heart of the World was mentioned in Rayman 2, but did not appear in it.
• Rayman 3 makes several references to the first Rayman game: Murfy 's Manual shows a reproduction of Rayman 's head when he was in 2D. An image of Livingstone is hung on the stakes where a plum must be planted . The mini-games 2D Madness and 2D Nightmare use 2D settings. Finally, one of Count Razoff's ancestors has chased Space Mama out of the City of Images.
• Rayman 3 also makes many references to Rayman 2: in the Crawdad Swamps, we again come across giant brambles. In Razoff 's Mansion, we can see sculptures representing the snake Sssssam. In the Knaaren Desert, we again face zombie chickens. In the Great Shortcut, a secret room contains a statue of the fairy Ly. Finally, in Hoodlums Headquarters, a secret room contains statues of Razorbeard and some Pirate Robots.
• John Leguizamo who voiced Globox in this game, also voiced Sid from the Ice Age series.

Game Tips

1. Every five times you score points within the same combo chain, the combo points you get are doubled. Take advantage of this to score large amounts of points; for example grab five coins before killing an enemy.
2. The first time you score points doesn't count towards combos so it's best to start a combo chain by scoring the lowest points available, usually grabbing a common coin.
3. Combo chains last three seconds after grabbing a coin and six seconds after killing an enemy.
4. Plan your attack strategy carefully when going into a combat section to maximize combo chains.
5. Reading the game manual is highly recommended, as it contains information that is not given by Murfy or the tutorial (including the method of approaching the Tribelles , the presence of the Matuvus and the fact that the points collected are doubled if you use a laser detergent).

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