Heads Up!
This preview was part of a remote event hosted by Ubisoft. Gameplay was captured by Ubisoft and sent to us after the fact, but the player in all footage and screenshots is the writer of the piece. Ubisoft provided this preview on the caveat certain work in progress parts of the title not be featured as they don’t represent the final product. Ubisoft did not hold any additional editorial oversight or final approval of the piece.
Some games are evergreen, their style aging gracefully. The gorgeous sprite work in classic Sonic titles, the stylish cel shading in Wind Waker, even the cold dilapidated feel of Half-Life 2 has managed to feel timeless. Rayman Legends is one of these titles, its rough cut style paired with its deep vibrant blues and greens meaning it only really needs some quality of life updates to feel like a modern new release. When we got an invite to see an early built of the remake, that’s broadly what i expected to see. Instead, I got fixes to problems I didn’t realize were there.
Legends Retold is still fundamentally Rayman Legends. In preparation of the event I went back and played a bit of the PC release. There I noticed a quirk with the rope swings, one that I was able to recreate in Retold with minimal effort. Level layouts are mostly the same which allowed me to breeze through the first world effortlessly in part because I had done it a day earlier. Just like the original Legends Retold is a bit on the floaty side of platformer physics, but once you get some speed under his legs Rayman flies through levels at a near Super Meat Boy pace, another timeless gem. This probably answers most of your questions about Legends Retold and I suspect most of you reading would be fine sticking to the original, but Ubisoft has done more than swap sprites for polygons.
When Rayman Origins was released in 2011 it was in part to show off the new Ubi Art Framework engine, designed to streamline the process of turning art assets into usable game ones. From its quick turn around to its barebones presentation, Rayman Legends is really little more than an expansion pack, closer to The Lost Levels than Super Mario Bros. 2. Of course, much like The Lost Levels there’s no shortage in content to test your skill. This meant that I didn’t realize how thin some parts of Legends were until I went hands on with Retold. Now the simple hub levels of the original are expanded into flavor appropriate mini levels, full of little side paths and collectibles in their own right. Legends also has a new proper story to match its predecessors, including voice work from Rayman’s most prominent VA, David Gasman. The move to Ubisoft’s Snowdrop engine (used in titles like The Division and Star Wars Outlaws) has also opened up some new gameplay opportunities, namely dragon riding.
Rather than the file tree style world design in the original, Retold gives the world a more rigid structure. Players will access a special Star Fox style flight level, though my first impression was similar to the Gummi Ship segments in early Kingdom Hearts titles. We got to play two of these levels, one of which shifted into a 2D shoot ’em up style, and both seem to put heavy emphasis on the cinematic quality of the levels. In general this seems to be Retold’s biggest selling point, how that content branches the existing levels into a more cohesive world. Before getting hands on we were shown a video where the devs outlined some of their desires for the game, one of which including a map of Rayman’s homeworld that promised a more meaningful progression.
This is of course all flavor text. While these new hubs and levels are expansive and help to add spice to the experience, a purist could look at it as meaningless additions that don’t affect the core experience, but I can remember all too well being in grade school and wishing Mario Sunshine had a more robust plot, even if it was just to give more context to the gorgeous world they built. When you’re young, your curiosity grinds against the confines of the game world, and the additions we’ve seen so far would’ve gone a long way to appeasing my younger self. As an adult I see platformers in a more pragmatic light. I’m chasing the tactile response of blitzing through a level and the rush of success which is why I didn’t notice the story deficiencies in Legends and I suspect why it didn’t hit the game’s Metacritic score too hard, but I did appreciate these additions fairly quickly and I suspect long time fans will as well.
This isn’t to say it’s all lore and world building being added. Along with the dragon levels and hubs, Legends Retold will receive a new additional world with a new light wielding mechanic and a new ending to buff out the experience. We didn’t see much of this content, some surprises are being kept for its launch later this year, but we were promised content wasn’t being sequestered to the end game or segmented off. New levels will be woven throughout the game including the fan favorite musical levels. One screen shot seemed to depict a behind the back view of Rayman, maybe hinting at some more open ended levels as well. This new content is accompanied by additional score from Legends’ original composer Christopher Heral, with Grant Kirkhope assisting in the developing of a new half hour of soundtrack.
Development of Legends Retold is being split between Ubisoft Montpellier (fresh off their resurrection with Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown) and Ubisoft Milan who helmed most of the Nintendo crossover work Ubisoft developed on the Switch. The dual developer approach seems to be part of Ubisoft’s sudden corporate restructuring from earlier this year, with no clear division on lead or support given. It’s an impressive flex to show nearly every Rayman game under the logo for Montpellier, but with the industry churning out devs left and right it’s hard to gauge how many of the modern team members actually worked on the classic series, especially as Montpellier had a long period without any major projects after the 2014 release of Valiant Hearts. If I hadn’t played it myself i’d be a lot more skeptical of the project.
The reality of a remote preview event means there’s going to be some caveats to the experience, a loss of fidelity and some unavoidable input lag. Despite this I found my time with Legends Retold pleasant on both fronts. Characters were expressive and responsive, the world seemed to match its polygonal fidelity with the sprite work fidelity just fine and I rarely felt any meaningful delay. What I did discover initially was the shift from 2D to 3D affected the readability of some obstacles. Vines are a common blockade in Rayman and as they tapered off I found them kind of melting into the shadows. A few times in my demo I found myself shorting a jump not realizing the vine continued and had to restart. Not a major hurdle to overcome two feet from my monitor, but one that may be a lot more upsetting for a little kid playing on the living room TV. That was my initial appraisal, but it was undone when I saw back the recorded footage. The jump in quality from my remote stream to the localized footage of my demo is so staggering I wonder if any of my initial readability complaints will hold water when seen in proper resolution.
If there’s anything else to take away from Rayman Legends Retold, it’s that it feels like the start of a new era for the character. Using Legends not just as a way to reintroduce the character, but also to test new gameplay styles, seems to promise a bright future for the Captain Lazerhawk costar. Ubisoft promised a return of Legends’ extra game modes like Cave of Trials and Kung Footie, though we didn’t get hands on with them to see any changes. And of course, Legends Retold will be entirely playable in four person co-op just like the original. But maybe the most exciting part is Ubisoft’s aggressive price point for the title. Though only given in Euros the game seems to be shooting for a mid price release, a subset of the industry all but abandoned by the major players. Here’s hoping it pays off when Rayman Legends Retold launches later this year.
