I played this game as a child and remembered it being awesome. Now getting back to it at older age, I fully expected the great game from childhood being just a product of nostalgia, but it just rocked as much as it did back then, maybe even better since I went for the Dreamcast version over Playstation this time.

Rayman 2 is one of those early 3D platformers starring an iconic character from a beloved 2D platformer, now with just another dimension added. I would say Rayman did just as well with the transition as Mario. Of course, there is some jankiness to the controls, especially camera since you control it with the shoulder buttons, but thankfully it never becomes a hindrance. Only in the last level did I feel like I had to fight against stiff controls while flying with the rocket, but I got used to it pretty quickly since the hitboxes themselves were actually quite forgiving and turning surprisingly quick. Rayman 2 also suffers from that unintended creepiness some of the early 3D games had, with dead stares and some jarring environments.

The story is pretty straightforward and simplistic, only there to give you some goals to achieve. That paired with an easy difficulty clearly shows this game was designed for children to play and it serves it purpose wonderfully. Only thing I found annoying was the fact that you could skip any other cutscene in the game with a press of a button except the teensy cutscene that tells if you're allowed to progress or not every once in a while. I don't know why the only repeating cutscene in the game isn't skippable, but it's not a long one so I could stomach sitting through it every time.

Overall, it's a good game that in my opinion, deserves every bit of nostalgia you can muster up for a game from your childhood.