Rayman Origins Review

               If you have played video games for a while you may have heard of Rayman. No, not those annoying Rabbids! The real Rayman, who was an action platformer who debuted in 1995 on the Atari Jaguar and Sony PlayStation. The series has had many games and even created the previously mentioned Raving Rabbids video game series.

                Rayman origins is a 2D side-scrolling adventure like his classic games. The game is meant to explain the origins of Rayman, but it doesn’t. To find that information out you have to watch a cutscene on YouTube to find this out. That’s bad!

                The story opens with Rayman and friends sleeping in a tree. The tree happens to be connected to a witch’s home underground and she is fed up with their noisy snoring. To end this she sends an army of dark, evil, creatures to kill you and capture the very busty and curvy Nymphs. Rayman must rescue all the Nymphs, save all the Electoon inhabitants, and stop all the evil in the world.

                As I said before, the game is strictly 2D. It has a very cartoonish style that is amazing to see in motion. The game is fast, fluid, and hard. As you save the Nymphs, they will grant you new powers such as gliding, wall running, and swimming.

                The game is split into 9 worlds with about 7 levels inside them. There are collection and time challenges in each stage. There is even a quick run stage that you must unlock in each stage to unlock the hidden level and true ending to the game. These quick run stages are brutal. You must beat them in one try.

                All the stages are fun and have wonderful music. Every time I entered a new stage I couldn’t help but smile and be reminded of the more simple times of gaming. I really felt like I was playing an old game on the Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo.

                The bosses in this game suck! They are not fun at all. When the rest of the game is so fluid and just feels good, the bosses are really under whelming and unfair. You cannot just sit back and learn their pattern of attack. You have to die about 10 times till you learn how to beat them. I hated all the bosses except the extra boss, he/she/thing/it was easy to predict.

                Rayman Origins is the first Rayman game that I really enjoyed and even completed 100%. For those who have friends, you can play it with 4 player co-op as well.

I give Rayman Origins for the Xbox 360 a 9.5 out of 10. Rayman Origins is also available for PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and PC via Steam. A sequel will be released later this year titled Rayman Legends for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii U.