Apart from that it’s a pretty sloppy port a glaring graphical error in rendering the rotation of the skybox gives a poor first impression, and every cutscene has huge, almost opaque black bars letterboxing it. But, they’re pretty useless and gave me a blister so I wasn’t fussed. I previously played the iOS release which was also the DC version, but on 3DS the end-of-level minigames have been restored. To talk more specifically about the version I played, on 3DS we have a port of the Dreamcast version, which itself was slightly enhanced from the N64 release. The robot pirates are also effective villains with a consistent theme that contrasts well with the natural state of the world and its other characters. The real strength of the game is the world and the tone that mixes moodiness with cartooniness.

His omnipresent helicopter hover slows him down too much, and his core attack being a bouncing projectile is cool but only a few puzzles or combat encounters really make good use of it. Rayman’s abilities are distinct and have potential, but the possibilities aren’t followed through on as much as I’d like. It’s fairly linear with frequent action setpieces but dynamic level design helps it feel varied. Rayman 2 is unlike other platformers of the era.

But first, a brief rundown of the game and my impressions.

Comparing the two was informative, as each has been enhanced in different ways (for some good references for this check out the Rayman PC wiki). As an addendum to my Rayman quest, I picked up two different ports of Rayman 2.

Download rayman 2 ps2