Review: Rayman Legends (PS Vita)

I rarely review games that I can't (or won't) finish, but I'll make an exception for Rayman Legends. Rayman Legends is a platformer, which is my least favorite genre. But the reviews were all rated so highly that I picked it up on a sale, and I have to say that the reviews are mostly right.

The game doesn't have any story to speak of. Or if it does, the story's lost on me. As with every platformer, the goal of the game is to move from left to right, jumping, flying, punching, or running as needs be. There are 5 worlds, each of which has their own gimmicks, and each level is different. What you do have to do, however, is to rescue certain characters and pick up lums (basically mario coins) in order to unlock further levels or special bonus items (some of which are levels from a previous game, Rayman Origins).

What's interesting about the levels is that they're actually very well designed. The gimmicks are fun to figure out, and at least one world in each level is a musical level. In a musical level, you run and jump according to the beats in the soundtrack (though you must use your eyes as well, since sometimes you have to punch) in order to complete the level. One of the tracks is eye of the tiger, and it's a lot of fun. On the vita, you even get special "murphy" levels, which introduces a character you guide through a level using the touch screen. It's a nice change of pace, and some of those levels are quite creative as well.

What I disliked is that you have to rescue a lot of characters in order to unlock the whole game. While I could unlock all 5 worlds as a casual player, the 6th, musical-only level would need me to go through and play all the levels repeatedly until I got a perfect score and rescued every character in order to unlock. Not only would that result in very sore thumbs, I just don't have the time to do it. For any other game this would cause me to be unhappy and not recommend it, but Rayman Legends is packed full of content that I'll forgive this.

This game is worth picking up on a sale, and while you're unlikely to finish it all the way, you'll get enough out of it that it would be money well spent. Recommended.