What's immediately off-putting about Rayman Legends is its structure. You're given an initial premise and that's essentially all of the story you're going to get. Origins was also light on these elements, but there was still more going on than this. It's like Super Mario Galaxy 2 in that respect, Legends is a gameplay focused follow up that strips out its world map for a tiny milquetoast gallery. Rayman Legends wants you to play it daily, with additional challenges and collectible lums refreshing each day. The final character milestone, which you unlock at 1,000,000 lums, is a ludicrous number that you won't get anywhere close to in an initial playthrough. It's all rather video game-y and I find myself lamenting the loss of the worlds and villains of the trilogy. Despite all of that, and just like Galaxy 2, Rayman Legends is a title brimming with creativity in its levels.
I'd argue that Legends is even prettier than its predecessor. Opting for 3D models instead of the hand drawn sprites of Origins, the developers were able to fill every ounce of these levels with detail, especially in the background environments. This also allowed them to create some legitimately insane setpieces, the highlight for me being the fourth world's boss. The music is just as good as Origins too, with a myriad of tracks building impeccable atmosphere in every level. This is all without mentioning the music levels; epic visual wonders scored with frantic tracks which parody popular songs such as Eye of the Tiger and Woo Hoo.
Uniquely themed levels are a strong suit of the entire series and Legends is not only no exception, it sometimes spits in the face of what came before it, showing off some of the greatest levels in the genre. My all-time favourite world in a platformer is 20,000 Lums Under the Sea, an Ocean's parody bred with a water level to create a captivating spy thriller with superb aesthetics, music and gimmicks. All of the worlds are great, though. It rarely settles for generic, with even the most standard level layouts being spruced up with clever mechanics that require distinct approaches.
Breaking up the standard levels are Murphy levels. Murphy is a product of the time; a gimmick intended to get more use out of the Wii U gamepad that has ended up tacked onto all subsequent ports. There are some solid uses of the character nonetheless, but losing the tactile aspect where you physically manipulate parts of the game world, I can't help but feel as if they'd have been better off reworking his levels to remove him. That's probably a tad too drastic but I couldn't shake the feeling that the game would have been better with his absence.
All in all, I'll certainly return to Legends over Origins any day. The pace is more brisk and they even alleviated the friendly fire issues I had with its predecessor; now, if there's something that you need to attack while running, you will be unable to hit your teammate. I believe it's even disabled entirely in most of the levels where you sprint constantly. If you really did prefer Origins' levels, most of them are playable in Legends as unlockables, lending credence to this being the definitive experiece featuring this version of Rayman. I'll take any new games at this point, but I'd much prefer the next one revisit his roots and develop his world into something a little more lived in, but this isn't to say they didn't create something brilliant within this framework.
I'd argue that Legends is even prettier than its predecessor. Opting for 3D models instead of the hand drawn sprites of Origins, the developers were able to fill every ounce of these levels with detail, especially in the background environments. This also allowed them to create some legitimately insane setpieces, the highlight for me being the fourth world's boss. The music is just as good as Origins too, with a myriad of tracks building impeccable atmosphere in every level. This is all without mentioning the music levels; epic visual wonders scored with frantic tracks which parody popular songs such as Eye of the Tiger and Woo Hoo.
Uniquely themed levels are a strong suit of the entire series and Legends is not only no exception, it sometimes spits in the face of what came before it, showing off some of the greatest levels in the genre. My all-time favourite world in a platformer is 20,000 Lums Under the Sea, an Ocean's parody bred with a water level to create a captivating spy thriller with superb aesthetics, music and gimmicks. All of the worlds are great, though. It rarely settles for generic, with even the most standard level layouts being spruced up with clever mechanics that require distinct approaches.
Breaking up the standard levels are Murphy levels. Murphy is a product of the time; a gimmick intended to get more use out of the Wii U gamepad that has ended up tacked onto all subsequent ports. There are some solid uses of the character nonetheless, but losing the tactile aspect where you physically manipulate parts of the game world, I can't help but feel as if they'd have been better off reworking his levels to remove him. That's probably a tad too drastic but I couldn't shake the feeling that the game would have been better with his absence.
All in all, I'll certainly return to Legends over Origins any day. The pace is more brisk and they even alleviated the friendly fire issues I had with its predecessor; now, if there's something that you need to attack while running, you will be unable to hit your teammate. I believe it's even disabled entirely in most of the levels where you sprint constantly. If you really did prefer Origins' levels, most of them are playable in Legends as unlockables, lending credence to this being the definitive experiece featuring this version of Rayman. I'll take any new games at this point, but I'd much prefer the next one revisit his roots and develop his world into something a little more lived in, but this isn't to say they didn't create something brilliant within this framework.