Genre: 2d platformer
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft

Rayman makes quite the first impression: it starts with a well-drawn, cartoon, barely-compressed-looking FMV intro, then follows into the actual gameplay which features a huge, almost unfathomably well-animated sprite plus baddies, against painted backdrop jungles and various more abstract locations. But unlike the newer cheap Flash-game 2D Rayman releases, this one also is clearly pixel art. The character designs have tons of charm; this reviewer particularly liked the mosquito boss, whose eyes fall away from each other when he's defeated.

The original Jaguar soundtrack is remixed into digital audio, and as rearranged music goes it's above average. It's much more orchestral sounding overall, but still retains a sampled quality via its instrumentation. The game's sound effects are pretty basic, such as the weird "hiccup" sound the protagonist makes when hit.

While Rayman's character moveset is interesting, and his in-air and otherwise control feels pixel-precision perfect, the game's level design is absolutely atrocious. It wasn't good in the Jaguar original, but at least the game's difficulty felt inline with the cheap shots and blind falls. This rendition takes those stages but makes them fifty percent more difficulty by removing various platforms, making entire stages slippery, and so on. This might be ok if the player could easily grind for extra lives, or if they were doled out generously ala "Super Mario Bros. 3" or "Gex"-- but, no.

When one fires up Rayman, sees the cool world map, and plays the first couple of levels, the impression is that this is going to be one of the all-time classic platformers, of all ages. But where the opening levels are well-designed, the catastrophic second world hits, with every single "no no" of level design present. It would be one thing if the game was compelling enough to make the player want to become better, which is what the best-designed challenge-oriented games do-- but instead, Rayman is simply aggravating.