- 1439Rayman Origins is an experience of pure joy, beautiful, silly, and with finely tuned gameplay reminiscent of smooth playing modern platformers like Donkey Kong Country Returns. The style of the first world actually reminds me a lot of DKCR, with its lush tropical island landscape and waterfalls. Rayman Origins is its own thing, though, with a crazyness of design that is very unique; in the game, Rayman is trying to restore the sanity of The Bubble Dreamer, a mysterious man, who is flapping his arms like a chicken and pulling his own eye out of its socket (the eye rapidly pops back in, though - cartoony logic), all the while levitating naked.
- 1440The music is uplifting and great, with a relaxed organic groove and instrumentation that reminds me of the great Spyro the Dragon soundtrack by Stewart Copeland.
- 1441Completed Jibberish Jungle (world 1/11). Loved the music for the Moskito level, an epic track, with silly mosquito buzzing as the lead instrument.
- 1447Completed Desert of Dijiridoos (world 2/11).
- 1849Completed Gourmand Land (world 3/11) in a fun and extremely confusing session with Jauert and Jonas.
- 1850Completed Sea of Serendipity (world 4/11). The underwater song is one of the best of those I ever heard. It's right up there with 'The Great Bath' from Turrican II.
- 1854Completed Mystical Pique (world 5/11).
- 1866Completed Ticklish Temples (world 6/11). Epic boss chase and battle with Daisy, a humonguous (Ray) man-eating plant.
- 2313Put Rayman back in the old 360... Things are getting more difficult now, and I'm starting to learn how the jump, hover, wall jump, and air dash work together to enable Rayman to climb a sheer vertical surface. Pretty cool, but I still find time to admire the details of this wonderful game, such as the camera subtly avoiding panning towards secret areas until you enter them.
- 2314Completed Luscious Lakes (world 7/11). The lead-up to the Top Chef Dragon boss fight in the previous levels was really cool, seeing this dragon dude eat an entire city, and the boss fight has a great premise, but after having died *a million* times, it felt a bit too abusive.
- 2316There is a cool mechanic where Rayman can activate shrinking discs of light, either stationary or moving, outside which he is eaten by horrible claws or swarms of flies. An interesting way of constraining the player, and it is used to great effect.
- 2317Completed Angsty Abyss (world 8/11).
- 2318Using snake enemies as reflection angles for your shots in the mosquito sequences is positively inspired.
- 2322OK, Rayman Origins, I'm finishing you today.
- 2323OK, almost done with Grumbling Grottos, and ... Whoa! Bug ugly bird!
- 2324Completed Grumbling Grottos (world 9/11).
- 2328Argh, those beam robots are SO ANNOYING!
- 2329It get's hard and kind of frustrating in a Super Meat Boy-esque way, with rotating slicers and razor sharp jump timing..
- 2330OK, this chase sequence at the end is one of the most frustrating things I have experienced for a long time...
- 2331Holy shizzle! I did it .... must have tried 100 times or so.
- 2332Completed the game. I did it! Super hard at the end, but otherwise an awesome platformer, right up there with Donkey Kong Country Returns.
2012-01-08
2012-07-08
2012-07-14
2012-07-15
2012-07-19
2013-01-01
2013-01-02
2013-01-03
2013-01-05
2013-01-06