Rayman Origins Will Kick Your Ass Kindly

In a fall season that is almost insultingly packed with massively marketed triple-A titles, Ubisoft is hoping you'll take a few hours away from murdering assassins, shooting soldiers and throwing batarangs to jump around some paintings as a cartoon character with no arms or legs.

Still with us? Congrats! You're one of the good ones.

After years of Raving Rabbids, Michel Ancel triumphantly returns to his beloved franchise with Rayman Origins, and the world he created has never looked prettier. But it's easy to take Rayman's visual aesthetic at surface level and confuse it with a kid's game, and based on the first few stages, you'd probably be right. Rayman and friends hop and bop through lush jungles, blustery geysers and mossy caverns and if your only focus is ricocheting from start to finish without a care in the world, your commencement romp in Origins can be sort of a breeze. But dig a little deeper and you'll find meta challenges tucked away in droves, and that's where Ubisoft's modern fealty to the classic platformers of yesteryear really begins to shine as something far more flourished than its predecessors ever dreamed to become.



Rayman won't be donning capes, gobbling mushrooms or affixing a raccoon tail to his derriere (what? this game is French) to reach Origins' hidden nooks and crannies as you flush out Lums to max out your end score. Rather, Rayman ditches power-ups in the traditional sense in favor of perma-power-ups; character enhancing abilities that are earned incrementally but stick with you forever. You'll start wondering why your enemies are floating away after you hop on them, only to later earn a slap attack that answers your question, never ceases to be hilarious, especially when you're dealing it out to your friends.



You'll dash past a glimmer of a secret tucked behind the brush and remember to return to it stages later when you've gained the power to flutter like a toy helicopter, and so on. It's a smart design decision that will keep you pressing forward in single player and keep you from battling over item boxes in multiplayer. Because of this, you won't start any particular stage with some scrap you saved from stages before it and jump in with a clear advantage. Instead, you'll work with what Origins gives you and learn to ramp your skill accordingly as the challenges become more and more intense. And if you're anything like me, you'll love that. Rayman Origins will be available November 15th so please be sure to clear some room on your plate as it's already looking far too delightful to pass up on.

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