Rayman Redemption (2020)

I really liked Rayman Redemption and the work and love that has been put in it. In the core, it is just the original Rayman, but with many tweaks, new mechanics, changed level design and a whole new world to explore and complete.

When someone on Grouvee tipped me about the existence of Rayman Redemption, I could not wait to play it. It is a free game, so I downloaded it and started playing.

In Rayman Redemption, every level has been redesigned. They can be larger, have more obstacles or enemies, or feature entire new foes and bosses. The story remains unchanged, although some elements and mini bosses have been added.

It was so much fun to see all the new features, levels, enemies and creativity that this game offered, especially when comparing it to the original game, which I played and loved so much.

You now got a shop in which you can spend your earned blue Lums, to buy new outfits, extra lives and powerups (red P). I thought this was really cool. There is also an increase in the movement speed on the map. Normally, this was at a snail pace, but here, you just race straight to the map you want to play.

Graphicly, nothing changed that much, although there are some new enemy models and mini bosses that are animated in the exact style of the original game. I am really impressed how they pulled that off.

The sound and music effects are just as glorious as the original game. I have to say that I did not like the new Toy World that much. I cannot explain why exactly, maybe it is just that I am not used to see different things in a game that I am so familiar with.

The final levels before Mr. dark were epic. They were completely new and featured a lot of hard challenges. And speaking of challenges, somehow, the creator of the game thought this game was not hard enough. The difficulty is legendary. Some levels were completely insane, especially the last three worlds. To top it off, the hardest battle in the original Rayman, was of course Mr. Dark, but here, they tweaked his fight to be the hardest boss battle I have ever played in my life. A million different forms and mini bosses, a thousand different patterns and attacks to dodge, this was some brutal sh!t. I wasted three game overs on this fight.

Overall, I thought Rayman Redemption was amazing. It is the good old same game, but with a ton of content added. I loved every second of it and would surely recommend it.

I've tried to like the original Rayman game multiple times.

As a kid, I loved Rayman 2 for the Dreamcast, so I tried its predecessor on PlayStation.

As an adult, I loved Rayman Origins and Legends, so I tried Rayman Forever on PC.

In either case, I found the game basically impenetrable. The controls felt unresponsive, the platforming was finicky, there was barely any field of view, and the Game Over screens arrived way too quickly. It's a beautiful game, but way too frustrating for me to enjoy.

This fan-game fixes all of that.

The controls are responsive. I can actually see what's going on around Rayman. The level layouts are a bit more fair. And the new "casual" difficulty option removes the threat of "game over" screens entirely (with upgrades and cheat codes available if you're still struggling a bit).

That alone would have been enough for a four-star review. What pushes this to five is how astonishingly complete the game feels. There are brand-new bonus stages that never feel out of place, fun new shops and collectibles, some pretty funny secrets to stumble upon, even achievements to unlock. This all makes it feel a bit like the Sonic Mania of classic Rayman.

Rayman isn't a perfect game: The art style makes it difficult to identify platform edges and enemy hit boxes, the moveset has a learning curve, and the mechanic of elements popping in when you touch certain pixels still feels so arbitrary to me. But as a fan of the series, I'm really grateful to finally experience its true "origins."

(Played on Steam Deck)