Nintendo DS - Rayman DS

Format
Nintendo DS
Publisher
Ubisoft
Developer
Ubisoft
Country of origin
Europe
Genre
Platform

Rayman DS

By David Rasmussen
26th Feb 06

If you are not completely familiar with this series don’t feel too badly… this isn’t one of the well known series. All I know is that it’s had a few games, including a recent one on the Playstation 2, and it’s ads often had you comparing your desire to play with Ray (the man) and Rayman… which I don’t want to remember ever again.

But back in 2004, when the Nintendo DS was still young, Nintendo put out a little known and little embraced platformer that was a port of an original platformer from the SNES called Rayman DS. This game, originally entitled Rayman : The Great Escape for the SNES, was a underwhelming game that people seemed to ignore… and yet proved to be some fun for the Nintendo DS!

I don’t know what happened before, but as this game opens Rayman’s world is in dire peril! Robotic pirates have taken over the planet, enslaved it’s population, and locked away the rebel Rayman. Worst, they have taken the “heart” of the world, the world’s “lum” (not to be confused with the tiger stripe bathing suit wearing cutie of Rumiko Takahashi fame) and shattered it into a thousand angel winged pieces scattered throughout the lands. But fear not, it seems your old friend Globox has come to hand you your “Get Out Of Jail Free” card, which starts you off on your platforming adventure.

Separated from your pal Globox you find yourself facing insurmountable odds with only a taste of your old power in hand. Your old friend (and probably old flame) can’t help you now, but she can point you towards an entity that might have the power to help you. It’s named Polokus, but in order to get this Polokus to stop being a palooka and pitch in? You’ll have to… wait for it… find FOUR MASKS (while going on another quest to retrieve the 1000... Uh… 999 pieces of lum spread across the land while freeing prisoners) and revive Polokus to his full power… eh. Ok, ok, you did the whole mask finding thing in Legend of Zelda : Masks of Majora (and you probably did the gathering and freeing of prisoners too) but trust me it’s not going to be as hard here as it was there, though that doesn’t mean the game won’t have challenge (which it does). Also despite the fact this is a Nintendo DS game that doesn’t mean the game doesn’t have some punch to it. It’s 3D platforming that plays fine, though the graphics sometimes looks it’s age which kind of sucks. Also I heard this is just a plain old port of the original Great Escape which is proven by the fact that the DS is not used to it’s maximum ability, which I’ll go into now.

Unlike other Nintendo DS games this one you can play without the stylus. Being a port of the original SNES version (which didn’t have a stylus) the game has a “minimal” function for the stylus which is a waste. When they ported this to the Nintendo DS they should have done something to make the game really shine on the DS, however it looks like they just put out a passable clone and barely tried to do anything to make the best use of the stylus (forget using the mike built into the game, or the wireless link)!
However that is probably my only real complaint about the game. The game is easy to understand, easy to master, and once you get going you’ll be banging away at enemy robots with zeal and zest. I guess the only real flaw is the game is simply a SNES port with no bells and whistles (a shame).

Rayman DS does have some nice gameplay action and the story is interesting, but it should have been more than a simple port and took more opportunity to utilize the Nintendo DS‘s abilities. The graphics kind of (bleep) out considering it could be better (because the game is rendered on the top screen while everyone who owns a DS knows the better graphics is on the lower screen), and the DS is just a delivery system for the game with it’s bells and whistles not touched by the game. Still, consider for a moment that there is a real lack of quality platformers on the DS right now. It’s not like they’re putting out a large fistful of great platformers, worst they are putting out inferior platformers recently with games like Spryo : Shadow Legacy which should be avoided like a taste of the plague… or certain Danish newspaper cartoonists.
Basically you could do worst than this game, but you can rarely do better since there is few choices to pick from (with only games like Castlevania : Dawn of Sorrow doing better).

Ok. Let’s break it down, but right off the bat I’ll say this is worth checking, and you don’t even need to be a Rayman fan in order to have a curious streak about this game… you just need to be a platforming fan and have a taste for something the DS hasn’t been doing much of lately (let alone doing well in some cases).

Rayman DS BVD… uh, I mean Breakdown… sorry.
What’s Hot?
Considering I can’t think of many platformers on the DS that are worth talking about with the exception of a few… and also are not Mario anything games… you could do worst than giving Rayman DS a chance in your collection. It is actually fun, and once you get into the game you’ll see how good it is and how much fun busting robot pirates with all the different action you can experience while plying the strange polygons of the entity known as Rayman (not Ray). And heck, if you can find the game for a nice discount price somewhere? That is only a better incentive to check it out in my opinion.

What’s Not?
The graphics sometimes sputter out, yes. It is, after all, basically a SNES port and they haven’t done much to redress the game for the advanced Nintendo DS system which is capable of better looks (especially on the bottom screen). So the game is good, yes, but another thing to worry about is that you’ll eventually play it to the end (whether you play it again or not depends on how much you liked it the first time).
I haven’t finished it yet, but somehow it seems to me that this won’t go over 20 hours… though I could be wrong, we’ll see. Finally we have the lack of bells and whistles which is a disappointment of the game. The game just should have done the Nintendo DS justice, which it didn’t. Yet, and yet, the game is still recommendable for being one of the few platformers that excel on the Nintendo DS (hooray)!

Moments to Remember?
The gameplay is the moment. That and the occasional quirky moment, like with the strange “five kings” of the game… yes, this game has “multiple royalty”… or something like that.

What to Ignore?
Just ignore the fact that you are staring at a game that basically is a total cut and paste of a SNES game, right down to it’s graphics which seemingly was not even touched up very much on this version! I like good ports of games, but to have made a total port of a game without even trying to redress it and give it a snazzy coat of new gameplay for it’s Nintendo DS premiere is just plain wrong. The game should have had a good adjusting, and should have been made to better suit it’s new home on the DS.
It’s good, but it could have been better all the same.

Overall?
Long story short (too late)? The game is worth checking. Yes the game does not do the Nintendo DS justice, and yes there is better (the aforementioned Castlevania : Dawn of Sorrow sidescroller platforming action game) but if you can find this for a nice solid low price then snatch it up, you should find a fairly decent game here once you get your normal non-lum firing hands on it.
Try it, play it, experience it. Then post on the forum boards and let me know what you thought of it.
Now get out there and start busting robot heads!

-- David Rasmussen 26th Feb 06

Nintendo DS Rayman DS Images