One of the best platforming games available to date
The story revolves around a bunch of pirates lead by the mechanical menace, Razorbeard, enslaving all the inhabitants of the world. Among them is Rayman. With assistance from Globox , he escapes to learn that the only way to restore harmony is to find and return the four masks of Polokus.
The game play of Rayman is very straight forward. Get to the end of a level. Rayman can run, jump, use his hair like a helicopter to glide and shoot energy spheres from his fists. Simple moves which are very well executed. There are many levels in the game. Most of which have a unique theme. You have a forest, a lava reef, an aquatic level, a mountainous level a cave of bad dreams etc.
Throughout the levels, as well as the usual jumping gaps and finding hidden switches and smashing cages to release some Yellow Lums, the levels have gimmicks which help them feel unique and keep the game entertaining. For example you can go water ski-ing across marshes with the help and a water snake, riding a zooming rocket with legs like a horse, catching wind turbulance to fly instead of glide and even ride on a plum accross lava. The game is very imaginitive and is overall great to play.
If you ever played the original Rayman 1, one thing that probably stood out was the insane difficulty. While Rayaman 2 is still a hard designed game (not compared to the extent of the original game though) it is very forgiving. Whenever you fall off a cliff to your death or exploded you only loose part of your health bar and respawn at the last checkpoint. That health bar also seems to take forever to drain and if you do die, you appear to have infinite continues, so the game will not punish you if you find it too hard.
Graphically the game is pure eye candy. Colours are bright and vivid, textures are nice and the effects are nice too. Infact, believe it or not, this DC version actually rivals the PS2 remake (but more on that a little later)
The game does also have a very good soundtrack, with the music changing at several places throughout the level. The music ranges from the catchy stuff to the stuff that adds to the vibe of the game.
It controls perfectly. All the mechanics and moves click perfectly and the camera never poses as a problem.
The game was also available for PC and N64. Never played those versions. But there was a PS1 version released which was slightly different. Which begs the question, were the other two different as well. Anyway the PS1 version has some levels noticeably shorter and some even cut all together. However despite this, it is still a great game and worth playing, but if you have the choice, get this version. There is also a PS2 remake called Rayman Revolution. The biggest addition was a hub world to try and break the game up and stop you finishing it too quickly. But the levels are largely the same as the ones found in this DC version. It's interesting to play the game in a slightly different way though. But the general mechanics don't feel as strong in that version and it doesn't handle as well.
Anyway. Rayman 2 is an absolute classic platformer and should be checked out by everyone. It is tons of fun and is still great to play today. One of the best games the DreamCast had to offer. A must have.
Milesprower2k9 - original reveiws