Recent reviews by RayCarrot

Rayman 1 is one of the first games I ever played and it means so much to me on a personal level. I've always wished for it to be re-released in a more accessible form, especially the PS1 version which is often considered the definitive one. So when I saw this collection announced, featuring not 1 but 5 games, I got really excited!

Having now played it on both my PS5 and PC, as well as with the recent 1.1 patch, I have had time to gather my thoughts on how I feel about this. In short - this is a great way to experience these classic games and it feels like a love-letter to the game and its history. However there are issues, and those need to be addressed too.

Starting off with the positive:
- This collection features the definitive PS1 version, the MS-DOS version with its modified level design, the GBA port with its changes to make the game easier, the Jaguar version with its completely different physics and the GBC version which was remade for the handheld. Having 5 games all in one package, and for a rather low price too, is great.
- And if those 5 games wasn't enough we also got the MS-DOS expansions re-released, which in my opinion is incredible! Especially Rayman 60 Levels has been really hard to find, particularly the English release, so having it so easily accessible now is great. The SNES prototype which was dumped a while back is also included, which is neat as this is the first official release for it. Reminds me how Michel Ancel joked about wanting to release it on the Switch back when it was first found!
- Various enhancements are available, such as infinite lives, making the games more accessible for a first-time playthrough. There is also a rewind feature, which is honestly way more useful than the enhancements, and makes it a bit odd that the enhancements disable achievements but the rewind doesn't...
- For the first time ever the PS1 version is now playable in 16:9 widescreen. A lot of work was put into making this possible and it's really cool to see!
- The history section, acting as an interactive documentary for the game's history is probably what sells the collection the most for me. Seeing high quality scans of all this concept art and the original design bible is incredible. And the video interviews are really well made and honestly made me really emotional at times. Seeing the people behind my childhood game reminisce on how it all started those 30 years ago hit me really hard, in a good way!
- Also at the end of the day this is also Rayman 1, and that by itself is an incredible game. The art, animations and just general creativity all shines through so well, especially for such an old game!

But now we get to the negatives, and sadly we have a few to get through here. I don't think they detract too much from the overall experience, but they certainly shouldn't be ignored:
- Let's start with the elephant in the room - the new music. Is it bad? No. Does it fit Rayman 1? Debatable. For those unaware what happened is that the music was completely remade for this collection. The tracks that were originally composed by Remi Gazel have been remixed, while the rest have been completely recomposed. For the GBC version all tracks were recomposed and uses the same versions that were included in the ModRetro re-release. For the other versions there are 3 variants of the new music: the original one for PS1/MS-DOS and then two separate, more chip-tune like versions, for the Jaguar and GBA versions. Now there is a lot I could say about the new music, but I won't go into it too much. It's all very subjective after all, but what matters the most for me is that we lost the original score, which means so much for so many people, including me, and that's a shame. Does it ruin this collection though? No, absolutely not. And I think the complaints have been overblown here. You still have the original games with the old soundtrack and they can easily be listened to on YouTube. The new music also isn't that bad, with the new Jaguar music actually being really good in my opinion. However I still have to list this as a negative as it is actively removing something important from the games, even though I don't think this is enough to say the collection is bad or not worth playing.
- Besides the new music there are sadly also numerous bugs. The most important ones were fixed in the 1.1 patch, but others still remains. They don't ruin the games in any way, but it's a shame that they made it into the final release and I hope they get fixed soon! There are also some slight emulation issues, such as the Jaguar version not showing the level screen transitions and the MS-DOS version having slowdown in some sections.
- As this is a modern release we also got achievements which is great. However they seem a bit lacking, with the majority being for the MS-DOS and PS1 versions, and even those being mostly standard progression-based ones. There are no achievements at all for the Jaguar version, nor anything related to the other new features like the history section. There is also no cloud sync in the Steam version which I would have expected.
- Oddly enough the PS1 and MS-DOS versions are forced to only be playable in English, even though they originally released with support for more languages. Personally this doesn't bother me as I've only ever played the game in English, but I know it's an issue for some, and seems a bit odd when the mobile release, Rayman Classic, included all original languages and even translated it into additional ones for the first time.

There's more I could say, but I feel this review is already long enough! In short, I would highly recommend it. For the low price its available for, especially at a time when the price of games just keeps rising, and the amount of content you get I think this is an amazing deal! There are some issues, and they're important to keep in mind, but I don't think they detract from the overall experience too much.

This is truly one of the most unique platformers (should it even be called that though?) that I've ever played. The game may start out a bit slow and feel like any 3D platformer from the era, though once you start entering other peoples minds and exploring their mental worlds you'll start to notice just how different and unique this game is. Through great storytelling and voice-acting it manages to build up a great big world for you to explore with a huge variety between worlds.
The music and graphics are also great and helps build up the atmosphere, though it feels a bit outdated.

Out of all the Rayman games I've played I got to say I enjoyed this one the most. I still think Rayman 2 is generally a better overall game due to it's nice story and atmosphere, but this game is just so satisfying to play. Everything from the gameplay, tight controls, co-op, music, stage-variety, bosses, design, daily/weekly challenges and even the Origins levels are just amazing. The music stages are specifically cool as they implement the music into how you play the level. This is as far away from an uninspired boring platformer you can ever get in my opinion!
The only negative I have to say about this game is probably its lack of story. Not that the story has ever been the highlight of the Rayman games, but it feels really lacking as it's even more basic than the first Rayman game!