Rayman Origins was originally announced back at E3 2010 as an episodic downloadable title. Since then the game increased in scope and has been converted into a full retail release. With 60 levels, 4 player local coop, hand drawn art and an original soundtrack is it really worth the £40 asking price?
Origins starts out how it plans to continue throughout - lightheartedly. The story begins with Rayman and his friends waking the livid dead with a noisy bit of snoring, kicking off a war in the 'Glade of Dreams'. This puts them on an adventure across a huge variety of different environments including forests, ice-capped mountains, underwater caverns and even vast lava filled kitchens. It's safe to say Origins doesn't have any issues with environment variety.
The game is easy to control - X jumps, square attacks and any of the back buttons make Rayman sprint. It's really that simple. As you progress through the game you'll gain a myriad of powers including Rayman's trademark ability to hover using his hair, shrink, swim underwater, sprint up walls and punch. These are regularly introduced as you move to each different area - usually followed by a series of levels focused on using that ability. It's good pacing and keeps you anticipating the next area just to see which power you'll be allowed to play with next.
Levels are split into areas. You'll navigate between areas using the world map. Each standard level offers up to 5 'electoons' as a reward, with some special levels awarding a potential 3. Electoons unlock new skins and characters for you to play as. You gain these by completing a level, completing 2 hidden challenge rooms per stage and by reaching a certain threshold of 'lums' - these are collected throughout levels and basically act as points. It's a good system which strongly encourages levels to be replayed. To top it off levels completed under a certain time will reward you with a speed trophy, and collecting the vast majority of lums in a level will grant you with a gold medallion award. Of course there are achievements for both of these, further incentivising earning them. Each area also offers a level where you'll be tasked with chasing after a pesky treasure chest, the reward for this is a red skull-tooth - collect all 10 and you'll unlock a secret 'Land of the Livid Dead' extra-difficult level. These treasure-run levels have to be unlocked by reaching a certain threshold of electoons.
Ubisoft have managed to keep the gameplay in Origins reasonably fresh throughout. Most areas follow a similar structure with a few standard levels broken up by a side-scrolling shooter stage at the end of each. These are great fun, but towards the end of the game can get incredibly tough. It almost felt like I was playing a bullet-hell shooter at times! Half way through the game you'll start to encounter boss stages at the end of each area. These simply boil down to learning the patterns and exploiting them. It's the methodical introduction of new abilities which really keep things interesting, and allow for the developers to come up with some creative level designs.
Where Origins begins to show its weakness is in its difficulty curve. Although the introduction of new powers, environments and levels are fantastically well paced, the difficult curve is not so smooth. Towards the latter end of the game things really start to spike, leading to some incredibly frustrating stages. Unlike Super Meat Boy's near perfect sense of control, Origins' physics are slightly floaty, leading to some imprecise failures which I often felt was more to the games fault than my own. That said thankfully the game never gets particularly cheap, like we've seen in recent platformers such as Ms. Splosion Man - yes there are some tough moments, but the failure is never unavoidable. It's also worth noting that a large amount of this may have been down to my playstyle. I love trying to reach every secret possible, and collect every last lum in the levels. Combine this with some levels which force you to move forward at a quick pace and you get some tough moments. If you're the kind of player who just likes to play through without trying to reach every little secret area then things will be significantly less frustrating. Also after completing the game I promptly picked up the pad once again to attempt the truly tasking Land of the Livid Dead secret level - a real testament to how fun Origins is.
Sadly I did encounter one bug during my time with the game, and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was pretty game breaking. In the "Pirate's Treasure" level at the very end you're forced to make a few side to side jumps up 2 ship masts, and then drop down onto a platform. However when jumping onto the platform the game's camera would shoot off to the right causing Rayman to go off the screen and die, forcing me to start the level from the start. At first I thought it was due to my own failure, however after about 20 tries I was struggling to find how else I could approach the situation. I took to my trusty strategy guide, the internet, and found forum threads and Youtube comments with people suffering from the exact same issue. After watching a playthrough video it was obvious what was happening on their screen simply wasn't the same as on my own. In the end I managed to narrowly avoid death and 'beat' the glitch, despite my character still going off the screen. A level which should have taken around 1 minute 40, instead took me an incredibly frustrating-filled few hours. I have no idea what's causing this bug for some and not for others, however I can only hope Ubisoft address it in a patch.
As I'm sure many of you are already well aware - Rayman Origins looks absolutely gorgeous. The hand drawn artwork and animations are downright stunning in HD. An astonishing amount of care and painstaking attention to detail has been given for every single area, character and visual effect. Many of the game's backdrops are also equally as amazing. Put simply, the visuals in Origins are unmatched. However what many of you probably aren't aware of is just how good the game sounds. The same amount of care has been given to the audio in Origins. Every tune fits the world perfectly. Characters even speak in an amusing gibberish, complimenting their visual style perfectly. The soundtrack is often interwoven into the game itself too, with many levels playing around with sound; bouncy drum pads populate one of the worlds, along with various other objects and interactions providing sound samples which fit to the background music spot on.
The game can be played cooperatively, with up to 4 players, from start to finish. The levels however are all designed in such a way that you're never hindered if you decide to play through the game alone. Sure, many of the game's frustrating moments may be made easier with a coop buddy, and various other tasks could benefit from having a partner, but it's never a necessity. Simply plug in a controller, hit start, and you're in. It's old school couch coop at its best. Sadly Ubisoft decided not to include any kind of online coop. It's a real shame.
Rayman Origins is a superb platformer. I'd be lying if I said it matched the perfect sense of control seen in Super Meat Boy, and it certainly would have been great to see some online coop. But the combination of downright beautiful artwork, fantastic sound and fun gameplay manage to create a brilliant experience suitable for all ages. Recently we've seen an increase in the scope of many downloadable titles, some offering hours upon hours of gameplay with impressive visuals. It's fair to say if Origins had been a fully downloadable title many wouldn't have been particularly surprised. Therefore, is it actually worth the retail price of £40? It's a tough call for me to make. Personally, yes. The main story took me around 13-15 hours to complete alone; with cooperative play and many reasons to replay levels, Origins offers a ton of bang for your buck. If you're a fan of the series or the genre, you owe it to yourself to play Rayman Origins.
Rayman Origins Gets An Official Game-Pad: 9.0/10