Rayman Legends is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Rayman Origins, with Legends taking what worked from Origins and refining it.

• You no longer have to unlock powers separately, meaning those who’ve already played through Origins can experience the entire moveset from the start.
  
• A fantastic artstyle that’s a lot more shinier and polished than Rayman Origins.
  
• A large pools of fun and great levels, backed by good level design.
  
• Additional modes like Challenges and Kung Foot help make the experience more replayable for both local co-op and singleplayer gamers!
  
• Surprisingly well optimised for lower-end computers!

• The bonus “Creatures” element of the game is completely unnecessary
  
• Being locked out of certain levels in the challenges mode by a leveling system is frustrating
  
• Online Multiplayer would had really made modes like Kung Foot more popular.
  
• The levels containing Murphy feel a lot more repetitive than normal, although at least they aren’t auto-scrollers.

• For a mostly local cooperative game, there’s no excuse for this to require Uplay., even if it has a lot of somewhat unnecessary online activities.

As someone who grew up playing Rayman, I adored the return-to-form that was Rayman Origins, and Legends continue the trend with new levels, shinier graphics, and a ton of additional packed goodies.

Rayman Legends is a mostly 2D platformer with a lot of collectathon elements, but it’s great to know that collecting all of the teensies is much a major requirement, which allows for speedrunning. There’s a huge amount of levels to play, and since you aren’t restricted in playing all of the worlds in order, you are given a lot more freedom to tackle levels! The return of 4-player co-op is good fun, although it quickly devolves the game into a chaotic mess, so completionists are better off playing alone (Which is still fun!).

Gameplay for the most part, is as refined as Rayman Origins. The controls are responsive, and your moveset is versatile but simplistic enough that you are given a lot more control. It’s actually really difficult to talk about this game because of how perfect controlling the characters is. The physics, the button layouts, it just feels so natural. However, for keyboard players, I highly recommend picking up a controller to play this game, as with other platformers.

The newest mechanic in Legends is of course, Murphy. By the press of a button, you can have him slap switches, tickle enemies, and cut ropes. For the most part, however, Murphy’s only included in some of the levels, which I’m perfectly fine with because Murphy feels heavily gimped from the Wii U version.

As someone who’s 100% complete the game on Wii U, I’ve noticed huge differences between this version and the Wii U one as well. For one, there’s no 5 player co-op, or the ability to have complete control over Murphy. Both versions seem to trade one thing for another; The Wii U version allows complete control at the cost of not having direct control over your player in single-player mode, and the PC version lets you control your character, but have more limited control when it comes to Murphy. A good middle between the two would had fixed the problems, but both versions are stuck with the levels containing Murphy being either a slog or being quite the unintentional challenge when speedrunning/completing comes to play.

The reason why Murphy levels feel weird in the PC version is because they were designed to be slow-paced, which makes them unintentionally more difficult now that you have full control over your character and can freely run.

The game includes a wealth of side-modes to play, and while they aren’t anything to write home about, they are nice additions. Challenges make for a unique set of leaderboard challenges that’s constantly reset weekly (although a lot of the challenges are the same things from past rotations and can get repetitive), and Kung Foot is an insane blast to play. However, the addition of a XP bar to lock challenges and the “Creatures” addition seem to be completely unnecessary, and only serve to make 100%ing this game feel more like a chore. Also, Online Multiplayer would had really helped when it came to modes like Kung Foot, because I can’t really get my friends together all the time to play it.

Presentation-Wise, Rayman Legends nails it. While I like the more zany look of Rayman Origins, Legends polishes up the artstyle to look completely unique and beautiful. When certain enemies or objects are shown as a 3D model, it doesn’t look odd or unusual, making it a solid blend of 2D and 3D visuals. It’s music is a joy to listen to, despite being dangerously close to being generic medieval fare. The UI mostly doesn’t distract the player, although the constant in-game notifications definitely are annoying.

So how’s the PC version of the game? Surprisingly good! I managed to get it running 60fps on my laptop (which seems to like running games at terrible framerates), and it’s been doing superb for me on my main PC (to no surprise). If you have a low-end computer, you should give it a shot, it isn’t as intensive as it looks.

Unfortunately, the game requires uPlay (which is weird because Rayman Origins didn’t!), and it’s as big of a mess as always.

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[h1]Make your life legendary[/h1] Rayman Legends is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Rayman Origins, with Legends taking what worked from Origins and refining it. [h1]Pros:[/h1] [list] [*]You no longer have to unlock powers separately, meaning those who’ve already played through Origins can experience the entire moveset from the start. [*]A fantastic artstyle that’s a lot more shinier and polished than Rayman Origins. [*]A large pools of fun and great levels, backed by good level design. [*]Additional modes like Challenges and Kung Foot help make the experience more replayable for both local co-op and singleplayer gamers! [*]Surprisingly well optimised for lower-end computers! [/list] [h1]Nitpicks:[/h1] [list] [*]The bonus “Creatures” element of the game is completely unnecessary [*]Being locked out of certain levels in the challenges mode by a leveling system is frustrating [*]Online Multiplayer would had really made modes like Kung Foot more popular. [*]The levels containing Murphy feel a lot more repetitive than normal, although at least they aren’t auto-scrollers. [/list] [h1]Cons:[/h1] [list] [*]For a mostly local cooperative game, there’s no excuse for this to require Uplay., even if it has a lot of somewhat unnecessary online activities. [/list] [h1]The Review[/h1] As someone who grew up playing Rayman, I adored the return-to-form that was Rayman Origins, and Legends continue the trend with new levels, shinier graphics, and a ton of additional packed goodies. Rayman Legends is a mostly 2D platformer with a lot of collectathon elements, but it’s great to know that collecting all of the teensies is much a major requirement, which allows for speedrunning. There’s a huge amount of levels to play, and since you aren’t restricted in playing all of the worlds in order, you are given a lot more freedom to tackle levels! The return of 4-player co-op is good fun, although it quickly devolves the game into a chaotic mess, so completionists are better off playing alone (Which is still fun!). Gameplay for the most part, is as refined as Rayman Origins. The controls are responsive, and your moveset is versatile but simplistic enough that you are given a lot more control. It’s actually really difficult to talk about this game because of how perfect controlling the characters is. The physics, the button layouts, it just feels so natural. However, for keyboard players, I highly recommend picking up a controller to play this game, as with other platformers. The newest mechanic in Legends is of course, Murphy. By the press of a button, you can have him slap switches, tickle enemies, and cut ropes. For the most part, however, Murphy’s only included in some of the levels, which I’m perfectly fine with because Murphy feels heavily gimped from the Wii U version. As someone who’s 100% complete the game on Wii U, I’ve noticed huge differences between this version and the Wii U one as well. For one, there’s no 5 player co-op, or the ability to have complete control over Murphy. Both versions seem to trade one thing for another; The Wii U version allows complete control at the cost of not having direct control over your player in single-player mode, and the PC version lets you control your character, but have more limited control when it comes to Murphy. A good middle between the two would had fixed the problems, but both versions are stuck with the levels containing Murphy being either a slog or being quite the unintentional challenge when speedrunning/completing comes to play. The reason why Murphy levels feel weird in the PC version is because they were designed to be slow-paced, which makes them unintentionally more difficult now that you have full control over your character and can freely run. The game includes a wealth of side-modes to play, and while they aren’t anything to write home about, they are nice additions. Challenges make for a unique set of leaderboard challenges that’s constantly reset weekly (although a lot of the challenges are the same things from past rotations and can get repetitive), and Kung Foot is an insane blast to play. However, the addition of a XP bar to lock challenges and the “Creatures” addition seem to be completely unnecessary, and only serve to make 100%ing this game feel more like a chore. Also, Online Multiplayer would had really helped when it came to modes like Kung Foot, because I can’t really get my friends together all the time to play it. Presentation-Wise, Rayman Legends nails it. While I like the more zany look of Rayman Origins, Legends polishes up the artstyle to look completely unique and beautiful. When certain enemies or objects are shown as a 3D model, it doesn’t look odd or unusual, making it a solid blend of 2D and 3D visuals. It’s music is a joy to listen to, despite being dangerously close to being generic medieval fare. The UI mostly doesn’t distract the player, although the constant in-game notifications definitely are annoying. So how’s the PC version of the game? Surprisingly good! I managed to get it running 60fps on my laptop (which seems to like running games at terrible framerates), and it’s been doing superb for me on my main PC (to no surprise). If you have a low-end computer, you should give it a shot, it isn’t as intensive as it looks. Unfortunately, the game requires uPlay (which is weird because Rayman Origins didn’t!), and it’s as big of a mess as always. [h1]TL;DR - Rayman Legends is a fantastic platformer with splendid controls, tons of bonuses, and a stellar presentation. It’s still my GOTY of 2014! [/h1] [quote]For more reviews on all sorts of games, follow [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/LotsOGiveaways#] Lots' o Giveaway's[/url] group curations and reviews [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/LotsOGiveaways#curation] here[/url]![/quote] [quote]Be sure to check out the rest of my reviews for LOG on OpenCritic @ http://opencritic.com/outlet/380/lots-o-giveaways[/quote]