I loved Rayman Origins, why do I not particularly care for Legends?
Rayman Origins in my mind is one of the best platformers that has ever been made. The level design was humorous, ominous, funny, and beautiful all at once. The game was just the right level of difficulty and when I say that i mean that parts of it were hard, but none of it was so difficult that you just stop playing the game.
The bosses were perfect, the character unlocks were great and also funny and while I didn't play much of the co-op, the little that I did was a lot of fun. I recently purchased Legends on a flash sale in the PS Store and this is actually my second go at this title (I stole it on a torrent previously) and I was hoping that perhaps I would appreciate the game on my big screen more than I did on my rather large, but not TV sized computer monitor. Yet I do not and I can't really understand why.
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The good news is that no matter what platform you are using to game on, you can get these games for next to nothing right now. On PC you can get both of them in a bundle for around $15 and I think I paid around $8 for Legends on my PS4 (Origins is not available for some reason). More good news is that Legends is still a pretty great game and I do not understand why I don't particularly care for it but I'mma try to nail down a few suspicions why I think that is.
Don't like the "Murfy" levels
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In several stages you get a little friend that comes along with you that opens stuff and and tickles enemies, making them defenseless and then you can eliminate them.
I realize that games need to innovate or they would be criticized for simply releasing the same product with new levels rather than making an entirely new game. Therefore, developers are almost required to introduce new aspects to the game that didn't exist before. There was nothing like this in Origins so they must have felt it was necessary. I find it to be just another button that you have to press that doesn't actually add very much to the gameplay.
Too many "run for your life" levels
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First, let me explain what I mean by this. In some of the levels in Origins and a LOT of the levels in Legends the pace of the levels is that you are outrunning something that is chasing you constantly. Sometimes this is fire that is approaching constantly from behind, and other levels it is rising sand or constantly falling buildings.
This is fun when it is done sparingly but in Legends it seems as though 1/3 of the levels are like this. Some of them combine the "run for your life" with Murfy and to me this isn't as much fun as I think Ubisoft would like it to be.
I simply don't like the Gallery interface
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Maybe it is just because I am a sucker for nostalgia, but I thought the original interface in Origins was perfect. It was a "map" of sorts that you had to complete certain parts of it in order to move on to the next portion but in Legends you can actually skip entire sections if you so choose by collecting enough of the "help me" prisoners in each level.
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In my mind the map progression interface was perfect and I don't see any particularly good reason to change it. My love for this style of level select probably dates all the way back to SNES Mario, so perhaps I am biased.
This "Gallery" is clearly designed for completionists but i am not, nor will I ever be autistic enough to 100% any game so a lot of this is stuff that I am never going to use.
In the end Legends is still a great game but for me Origins still remains the best Rayman game that is available and if I had a choice to swap them out and just have Origins on my PS4 instead of Legends, I would do so.
What do you think?