Rayman DS arrived seven months ago in the UK, one of the many launch games available, but just how did it fare up against the ‘might’ of Super Mario 64 and Warioware Touched? Was it one of the ignored classics or was it as poor as the timing of this review?
I was always interested in buying Rayman despite the poor public reviews. Just how could a game with it’s lead character having an extendable, non-attached fist be bad?
Simple. Through a mixture of sound issues, poor graphics, annoyingly spread out save points and not-that-great a story line. In ways, it’s a shame a game like this turned out that way. Although when I first switched Rayman on, I enjoyed it to an extent and felt it was well worth owning, as the levels increased in difficulty you realised just how badly the save points were set out, and that alone was enough to make me bin this game.
Even though it’s not that great, the story line definitely was an improvement on other areas. Even so, it’s clichéd and follows the common pattern that platformers (namely Mario) posess storylines barely passing for basic. Rayman and his friends have been locked up in cages. Fortunately enough, Rayman’s friend, Murfy, has somehow escaped a pirate named Razorbeards’ locking-spree and unlocks the lead character. As you’d expect, Rayman’s not dwelling on his luck escaping - being the noble man that he is, he's going out to save his friends.
After the opening scene, there’s not many cut-scenes, and basically the story stops. As you save more and more of Rayman’s friends, there are conversations with them, but the truth of the matter is, if you are an RPG fan loving story lines such as Fire Emblem and the Final Fantasy series, don’t expect much of this game.
Just how do you control Rayman in his adventure? Well, there are two options - one, the d-pad, which at times overreacts and isn’t great when you are jumping from small platform to small platform, requiring almost perfect control. The second is the touch-screen controls - Ubisoft obviously felt the need to include the use of the bottom screen to ‘keep up with the times’ and make the DS game somewhat different to the N64’s version. It’s just a d-pad shaped cross on the touch screen which, can... be used like a touch screen. Innovative or what? In truth, they shouldn’t have even wasted their time. Pinpoint accuracy is required and it simply does not deliver. At all.
The graphics are one of the main areas where Rayman DS fails. Rayman 2, as it was known in the Nintendo 64 days when this game was first released - yes, this game is a port - had decent enough graphics for it’s time, but since then, expectations have risen.
The main problem with the graphics is the frame-rate. It’s inconsistent to say the least, and believe it or not, some players have complained about headaches from playing the game. Not exactly ideal stuff for gamers.
While the frame-rate can jump from actually not bad to jumpy, one thing that remains the same is nice environments. There are nice surroundings where Rayman explores and the trees, caves etc. where Rayman travels during his adventure are all well done. The character animation is good enough in cut-scenes, though the in-game Rayman leaves allot to be desired.
One area that isn’t inconsistent is the camera - consistently bad. Rayman is placed on the top screen when in-game and although you are supposed to follow him around, you may find yourself following other things as it jumps from place to place. Reviewers are supposed to explain just why it is so bad, but trust me on this - it’s bad. Controlling it is virtually impossible, and requires almost permanent user control. Not ideal.
There are no voice actors as we’ve almost come to expect of the DS (has voice acting even been used yet), but it doesn’t deter the game in any way. History with talking platform characters hasn’t been good - Sonic, I’m looking at you. There is however a few neat tunes which react to the local environment and the stereotypes you have which each - e.g., creepy cave music, exotic tropical music when in a rain forest of sorts.
Overall though, although there is some neat aspects of the game, and the addictive game play is there at times, this game was not worth the money I paid for one reason - the afore mentioned save points. Rayman is a pretty lengthy game of sorts, each level can last you around twenty minutes to even half an hour. When you consider that you have limited lives in this time and when you die you are transported to the end of a the current area your in (areas aren’t small, they could take five or ten minutes to pass in parts), it’s a frustrating experience. Had Ubisoft installed some save points slap bang in the middle of some levels, I would have given this game a seven. Seriously. They didn’t however, and for there sheer laziness and lack of appreciation for the gamer, I’ll stick a 5 at the end of this game.
Game play 6/10: It actually can be quite fun in areas, with some addictive game play, but the poor camera (camera mentioned in both graphics and game play, due to you having to control the camera allot of the time!) and the overreactive controls again put this game in it’s place.
Graphics 7/10: Hey, there not too bad - some nice environments, but the camera and the frame rate let it down, real bad.
Sound 6/10: It’s OK, nothing special though.
Life span 4/10: It’s a decent game length, but who in this world is willing to be frustrated and frustrated by the idiotic save system?
Overall (not an average) 5/10: To be honest, I don’t know who this game will appeal to. I could say Rayman fans, but they have already played a likely better version on the N64, with less darkness and a bigger screen. For platform or adventure fans, there’s a lot of games in the same genre which they likely haven’t played and are far superior to Rayman DS. Your average gamer? Ignore it.
In truth, if you are having an extremely boring weekend and all that lies in your local gamestore is Rayman, it does some have enjoyable parts. If, like me, you are struggling to keep up with the amount of truly quality games the DS has, don't even bother looking at this game.