Yuffie's too young to remember

The internet is full of memes about things that the kids of the 21st century are too young to remember. Like the C-casette. Commodore 64. CRT TVs. I often hear Valentine and his friend talk about the old school console games, which didn't have any memory card and were hard as hell to complete. I don't know myself, since we didn't have a console before PS1, but even games for that were a bit harder than the games nowadays. Not really complaining, since I'm not that good of a gamer :D Especially if the controls are so-and-so and the save points are a mile away. But I love a little nostalgia now and then.



Now Rayman is a series that began in the 90s. A friend of mine had the original game for Windows and I loved it. It was a nice platforming game, but I loved trying to find those hidden chests lying around. Too bad my friend wasn't as much of a completinist gamer as I was even then :)

I forgot about the series after that. Actually Crash Bandicoot was my platforming game of the PS1 era. Then for PS2 I spent my time with Final Fantasies and Singstar. When we got our PS3, I refound Rayman, getting the Rayman 2 from the PSN. It was awful. The series had been switched to 3D, which wasn't that good. The controls were shit, the graphics made the character blend in with the background, your typical PS1 generation 3D platforming.

Then Rayman Origins was released. Valentine got it for me for X-mas couple of years ago. It made a return for the 2D platforming and the game was magnificent! I enjoyed every minute of hunting for that Platinum Trophy. The levels were varying, full of colour and with music that didn't make me grimace never mind how many redos it took to beat the golden time limit.

So when I heard about Rayman Legends, I had to get it. And after playing for less than a week, it's already proven to be an excellent purchase. There is some of the old, and plenty of new. I loved the spy-game styled water levels, honestly dodging lasers has never been that fun. I enjoyed figuring out how to beat the time limits of the Invasion levels. I laughed out loud when I realised that the final levels of each 'world' were made to fit seamlessly with some very legendary music pieces.

But what topped the cake, was the very last world. It actually has remakes of each of the last levels of the previous worlds, the '8-bit versions'. The music, of course, is done in 8-bit. But they also redid the graphics. In the first remake I frowned a bit at the warped looked until I realised they were trying to emulate CRT. And then the next, well, it was like this:

http://youtu.be/1saGczFoGVA

Now I was pretty glad I had already done this in the regular version. even managed to beat in one run. I was going to need it, since the damn thing snowstormed on me on every jump and I practically had to go by ear alone to get it right. And of course for the true old school feel, it didn't have save points along the way, like the original had. No, you had to do it in one run. It took me a while, but finally I got it!

By the way, the Mariachi version of Eye of the tiger is still my favourite ending level. Only the 8-bit version wasn't near as enticing as the Orchestral Chaos.

If you have time on your hands and like platforming games, I definitely can recommend Rayman. Both Origins and Legends. Only I can't borrow them out, since I'm still playing them myself.