Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Rayman 2: The Great Escape

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Rayman is back in another awesome game.

Protagonist(s):	Rayman
Genre(s):	Platform Action Adventure
Platform(s):	Microsoft Windows Dreamcast PlayStation PlayStation 2 Game Boy Color Nintendo DS iOS Nintendo 3DS
Release:	October 29, 1999 Nintendo 64 EU: October 29, 1999 NA: November 6, 1999 Microsoft Windows NA: November 5, 1999 EU: July 24, 2000 Dreamcast NA: March 21, 2000 EU: July 26, 2000 PlayStation NA: August 31, 2000 EU: September 8, 2000 AU: 2000 PlayStation 2 EU: December 22, 2000 NA: January 30, 2001 Game Boy Color EU: December 14, 2001 NA: January 1, 2002 Nintendo DS EU: March 11, 2005 NA: March 28, 2005 AU: March 2005 iOS WW: March 1, 2010 Nintendo 3DS EU: March 25, 2011 NA: March 27, 2011 AU: March 31, 2011
Engine:	RenderWare (PS2) OpenSpace
Developer(s):	Ubi Soft Shanghai (PS1) Ubi Soft Annecy (PS2) Ubi Soft Milan (Forever)
Publisher(s):	Ubisoft
Country:	France China Italy
Series:	Rayman
Predecessor:	Rayman (1995)
Successor:	Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

Rayman 2: The Great Escape is a 1999 platform game developed by Ubi Pictures and published by Ubi Soft for the Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color, Nintendo DS, iOS, and Nintendo 3DS.

Note: This page only focus on the console versions (with the exception of the PS1 version), to see the page about the Game Boy Color and PS1 ports, click here

Development[edit]

Rayman 2 was originally conceptualised as a sidescrolling 2D platformer, like the first game. Development on the prototype began in early 1996 with a team of six people and a budget of 10 million francs. It was slated to be released on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Windows in the fourth quarter of that year. The prototype of Rayman 2 featured some usage of prerendered bitmaps of 3D computer models, differing from the hand-drawn presentation of its predecessor. The PC was the original lead platform, but it was switched to the Nintendo 64 mid-development, necessitating reducing the quality of the textures. The Dreamcast version uses the original high-quality textures. The art design was inspired by the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Tex Avery, and was made to give the game's world a sense of mythology.

Plot[edit]

In Rayman 2: The Great Escape, the player takes on the role of Rayman, a whimsical and limbless hero from the Glade of Dreams. The game begins with an invasion of Rayman's world by the nefarious Robo-Pirates, led by the sinister Admiral Razorbeard. These robotic pirates have enslaved the peaceful inhabitants of the Glade and imprisoned Rayman's friends, the Teensies.

Why It's A Great Escape[edit]

It was an awesome way to bring Rayman to the 3D platformer genre, since due to how well executed this game was, it ended up not only being one of the best, if not the best game of the series (along with Legends), but also one of the best 3D platformer of the 5th and 6th generation.
Varied gameplay mechanics in many levels without straying too far away from the core platform gameplay so they don't become tedious.
Amazing graphics for it's time that still hold up well and are iconic, as it is detailed and had great color palette (that isn't as colorful than the first game due to being darker), and they are designed around the dark tone of the game, which mean that they can sometime be dark when in other areas, they can be colorful to look at, also they are so iconic that when you see one character model, you can definitely tell that it's this game, in fact it look better than a lot of games released back in 1999.
- In fact, Rayman Revolution had even better graphics than the original ports, because it had better lightning and also, the graphics are even more detailled than in the 5th gen consoles versions, and would even being one of the best looking 2000 PS2 game due to how beautiful the graphics are.
- The Dreamcast port also had extremely well done graphics that are even better than the other ports (with the exception of Revolution), and they are now way more detailled and colorful than even the PC version, also if you upscale the resolution, the graphics look even better and show how well they aged.
- The N64 version also look impressive for a N64 game since not many of it had graphics this detailled for this time, and because of how good it look, it can possibly be counted as one of the best looking N64 game aoong with Banjo-Kazooie, Shadow Man, Doraemon 3: Nobita no Machi SOS! and Star Fox 64.
Tight and responsive controls that are always responsive (except in the sliding parts) and never are clunky to use, also they aged surprisingly well because most 3D platformer back then had clunky controls, here they are very simple in a good way, and is designed for everyone.
- Even the swiming controls are great and this is one of the few games to had good swiming controls since most games of the time had terrible controls in the water levels, even some of the 2000s games had poor controls for these sections but here there's nothing that is like that.
The difficulty here is way more balanced than in the first game, since here instead of doing horribly hard levels that are very frustrating, the difficulty is well balanced and is neither too hard nor too easy, and even if you had unlimited lives, there's still challenge since the checkpoints aren't that present for the most parts, and it force you to be careful, also some of the later levels can be surprisingly challenging.
- In fact, the game at time can had some challenging levels, such as "The Precipice" being the best exemple, and the game isn't that easy because you can still die a lot (not directly having a game over though).
- The game is also more challenging if you're going to the 100% completion, since finding all the lums and cages isn't easy at all, especially the cages, and it show in the later levels.
Excellent level design that despite being mostly linear, contain some explorations to make it up, and the levels are very fun in their own right, especially because the levels for their time were unique and fun to explore, and the very good environnements help too.
Cool box art for every versions, especially the original box art and Rayman Revolution NA cover, the other are also great to look at and overall it is cool to look at and even tell what would happen in the game, it's also contain darker colors than in the first game box art, most likely to reflect the game dark tone.
Like with the first game, Rayman can immediately jump after grabbing from a ledge, showing how tight the controls are, and it would continue to be this good with the next games, even if in Rayman 3 it is slighly slower.
The story is well made and an improvement over the first game story, since it involve darker themes and the story is quite deep for a kid game, and is even the darkest story out of any Rayman games (if we doesn't count Rayman 4 prototype or Raving Rabbids for the GBA), mostly due to how the characters got kidnapped and some of the later levels that almost feel like they're from a horror game, such as "Tomb of the Ancient", and also the darker colors.
- The story also had a fair amount of funny moments that are vague while still keeping the dark tone of the game consistent, such as the moment where the Teensies all wanted to be the king and that they get into a fight, which is very funny, and after that Rayman yell a big stop, that moment is even funnier in the gibberish languages.
Obtaining all Lums and breaking all cages in each level unlocks a bonus minigame to recover heath, even though unfortunately those bonus stages are terrible due to poor controls.
Solid one on one combat style that is very fun and while it didn't aged too well, at least it did inspirated other games to do the same thing such as Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 or the infamous Frogger: The Great Quest, and almost all of the bosses had to use the combat system.
After clearing the level "Cave of Bad Dreams", Jano (he was not named Jano until GBA Rayman 2) offers the player his treasure, and in most versions of the game the player can actually say yes. If they do, they get a comical non-canon ending with a fat lazy Rayman resting at a deserted island surrounded by the treasure.
In the PlayStation version of the game, defeating the final boss unlocks a demo of the 2D prototype of the game, which is great for those who wanted to get the 2D game instead and show what it could have been.
Great soundtrack that contain lot of variaty and are overall a joy to listen to, as they range from catchy, to relaxing and sometime downright epic.
- Such exemples include the Overworld theme, "Entering the Pirate Ship", or "Meanwhile, In The Pirate Ship", some of those are iconic musics that are still know to this day.
- In fact, some of the musics make some levels even more epic, most notably in "The Precipice" where the music is fitting for such an escape.
Lot of new characters are introduced to this game, most notably Murphy and Globox, which are some of the most important characters of the franchise now, and those characters also got characters developments though the series and are likable, much like Rayman himself.
- Globox is a very likable friend to Rayman since he help him with the adventure, and had lot of fears from the pirates, which is relatable considering how dangerous they are.
- Murfy, while not really a character as good as in Rayman 3, is still a pretty likable character who give tips to Rayman and is overall very likable.
- Rayman himself is still likable as usual, saving all the prisoners and is very friendly, and also he fully speak unlike in Rayman 1, and now had more characters development.
- Ly the Fairy is a great character that help Rayman with doing the most that she do for helping him, such as giving him his powers, and also encourage him, even though she is being more weaker due to the energy of the world being lost with all the lums.
- The Teensies are very funny new characters that help Rayman too, and had ton of iconic scenes, most notably where they all want to be king, and their voices in the Raymanian languages is also quite fun to listen to.
- Clark is also very likable and also help Rayman in some of the levels, and also his mention of when he want to beat up pirates is funny and could be a reference to Obelix in the Asterix franchise due to Obelix also liking to defeat soldiers.
- Razorbeard (see WIAGE#17 for more infos)
Instead of having lives, Rayman has a large life-bar which is relatively easy to refill, and falling into bottomless pits only takes away a small amount of life. Breaking cages permanently increases Rayman's life bar.
Razorbeard is an amazing villain and is possibly the best one of the entire Rayman franchise as he almost stopped Rayman and had destroyed half of the world, not even Mr. Dark or Reflux did this much damages in both the first and third game respectively.
- His voice in the Raymanian language also show how scary and dangerous he is too, since when you listen to his gibberish voice, you can already know that he's incredibly dangerous and even his dialogues show it.
- In fact he was the only villain that did almost kill Rayman as seen in the end since he could have done this two times, the first is when he accidently destroyed the ground part of his first phase arena where Rayman would have fallen in the lava if it wasn't for Ly that saved him, and second was when the ship did blow up and it show that he did though everything before the final battle, and Rayman did almost get killed, but he fortunately still survived, this show that he's not playing around and that he is truly evil.
Epic final boss that may be the best final boss of the entire franchise, especially on the N64/Dreamcast/PC/PS2 version since considering that Razorbeard is really intimidating and pretty much the best villain of the Rayman franchise, it make everything better and the battle is also challenging, the PS1 version had a different version of the final boss where the gameplay is more like a Space Harrier clone in the phase when you defeat the boss.
The PlayStation 2 version titled "Rayman Revolution" is regarded as the best version of the game due to lots of new content added, actual voiced dialogues and updated graphics thanks to its new engine RenderWare (the engine used for Burnout series and many other good looking games).
- The Dreamcast version is also great as it has slightly better graphics and exclusive minigames in the new world "Globox Village", along with the slighly improved framerate and the different intro narration.
The commercial for the N64 version is very funny since it involve a comparison to both Rayman and a man named Ray, and it is very hilarous.
The ending is amazing since first, you might though that Rayman had dying for saving the world, but later on, we found out that he was actually alive and everyone was there, after he come, the Baby Globox du hug him and it end in a very emotional and somewhat funny way.

Bad Qualities[edit]

The PS1 port, while not too bad and actually decent, is a noticeable downgrade from the other versions due to lacking lot of levels and having downgraded graphics (though they are still good).
- The game also suffered from two bad handheld ports, including both the Nintendo DS and 3DS versions as Rayman DS and Rayman 3D, respectively.
  - The real problem with those ports is that they had plenty of new glitchs that are not even in the original versions, and the fact that even the controls suffered make this worst.
- The Game Boy Color port named Rayman 2 Forever also suffer from being a huge downgrade from the first game on GBC, because of poor level design and the fact that the game overall is just not fun to play.
- While the N64 version is an amazing, spectacular and fun version to play, there's still a handful amount of flaws not found in the other versions due to being the very first one that came out, such as:
  - A bit worse graphics than most versions (with the exception of the PS1, GBC and DS versions of the game), due to slightly less polished textures, although the graphics are still amazing for a 1999 N64 game.
  - Lot of glitchs are present, such as one part of "Tom of the Ancient" where with the barrel that slide and with the interruptors, then if you not landing on the good parts, then the barrel will go to the background texture and you will fall and die, though this can be avoided but still... It's a horrible glitch that is somehow easy to trigger, especially on emulator.
    - There's also much more textures glitchs than in the other versions, though hardly executable.
  - Because of the N64 having technical limitation, the musics was translated in MIDI, which will give the problem of BQ#6.
Sliding sections have very stiff controls that make grabbing Lums very frustrating because Rayman contiously refuses to take simple turns.
- "Top of the World" first phase also had slippery controls and because of that, you can end up getting cheap deaths for frustrating reasons, which is annoying, considering that the first phase is an annoying mess.
There's a few frustrating levels despite not really being a hard game, such as:
- "The Top of the World" is extremely annoying for the first phase because if you hit a wall, then you will restart from the last checkpoints and not just taking damages like simple shots from enemies, not helping the fact that the level don't had lot of checkpoints too.
  - In the same level, finding the way for the Teensies to come out can be a chore for the first time that you play the game, especially that it isn't really well indicated that you need to do something so that he come.
- "The Precipice", while not really a difficult level, had lot of rockets appearing and can hit you very easily, also the last pirate at the end of the level had attacks that are very hard to dodge before that you know how to actually dodge his attacks.
While the combat system is great, it didn't aged well because of the fact that next Rayman games such as Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc had better combats that this but still it is fun to use and it still aged better than some other games of it's time such as Super Mario 64 combat (who didn't aged well but for another thing).
The game is still short, as if you know what you are doing, you can complete it in only 5 hours, the PS1 port is even shorter, clocking around 3h30 to 4 hours.
While Rayman Revolution is an amazing port, there's a few flaws with it too.
- The hub world, while not a bad concept, is flawed and was what make that version underrated in the first place, since it is a pace breaker for a lot of peoples, especially in comparison to the level select of the original Rayman 2, also it is somewhat confusing to navigate though the hub world.
- The Japanese version does not have the option to switch from English as only the gibberish from the pre PS1 era ports is used.
While still great, the soundtrack is rather washed out on the N64 version, due to being composed by midi instruments rather than orchestral due to N64 limitation.
- The ost in the Rayman DS port is even worst and is way more washed out, especially the PAL version which is laughably bad and sometime sound unfinished, such as the Overworld theme, or even The Precipice part 2, which just sound atrocious and feel like they released the game before completion, and it show.
The final boss (outside the PS1 version), while amazingly well done and incredibly epic, still had some flaws.
- First off, if you die, then you need to restart the procedure to beat Razorbeard, which is artificial difficulty, and it can be extremely frustrating, especially for those who doesn't play very well.
- If you get a game over (even in the PS1 version), you need to start from the very first phase, which is a bit of a pace breaker, even though the first phase is easier than the second one and can be done without taking damages easily.
- Razorbeard do attacks that are incredibly hard to dodge and thus it can kill your run, also the worst part is that as stated in the first sub pointer, then you had to restart all over again.
- It is difficult to get both the weapon and still get out without getting in the lava, howewer this is not that bad in the first half and offer challenges but in the second half it is a bigger pain.
The race bonus stages are terrible, mostly because you need to press the button as fast as possible and if you fail one or two seconds, then it's screwed.
- Even worse, the controls in these are incredibly terrible since you need to mash the button every seconds to win the race, which is just terrible to play and after that, you can had problems with your hands as they will being hurt.

Reception[edit]

The game was critically acclaimed by critics, often called one of the best 3D platformers ever made. The Dreamcast version is usually said to be the best port of the game. The PlayStation version on the other hand is considered the worst as it lacks a large amount of content with some levels being completely removed.

In fact, the game was even considered to be the best game of the series, though nowadays there's a debate of what is the best game of the franchise, this game or Rayman Legends.

On Metacritic, both the N64 version and the PS2 remake received a score of 90/100, indicating universal acclaim.^[1]^[2]

Trivia[edit]

This is the game in the Rayman series with the most ports. To put this into perspective, this was a launch title for both the Nintendo DS and its successor the Nintendo 3DS. Not to mention an an iPhone version (before its removal), a Game Boy Color version, and even a PS2 remake. And that's not even counting the two Play Station Network versions (one being a port of the PS1 version, the other being a port of the PS2 remake)
In France, editions of the PC version of Rayman 2 were sold with the Rayman cartoon. Editions of the PlayStation version were sold with a digital watch in Europe and with a beach ball in the United States.
In the Japanese version of Rayman 2 , some characters changed color. Rayman 's shirt became blue, Sssssam and Jano became green, Jano and Polokus ' hat became red, and Ly 's clothes became white. These changes were also applied to the Japanese version of Rayman Revolution.
The plot of Rayman 2 has had some changes over time. Originally, Rayman 2 took place after the original game, in which Mr. Dark has been defeated. Evil robotic invaders from space arrive and imprison many of Rayman's friends, one of whom is Betilla the Fairy. The robots, led by a character named Chief, were set on converting Rayman's planet into a cold ball of metal. It's speculated that Chief was the original villain, eventually to be replaced by Razorbeard. Like in the original Rayman, all of the characters would have been limbless, and old friends, along with new ones, would have made appearances and helped Rayman.
German magazine PC Player in January 2000 named Rayman 2 "Best Platform Game 1999".
Another Ubisoft game released in 2000, Donald Duck: Quack Attack reuses several sound effects from Rayman 2. It was also developed with Ubisoft OpenSpace .
In 2015, video game designer Tim Schafer revealed that Rayman 2 was a major influence on his game Psychonauts.^[3]
Rayman 2 was going to have "Tank Controls" but it was changed to free-roaming controls when playtesters found the controls unplayable. An example of what that would have been like can be seen with the Tonic Trouble: Special Edition game released for PC which is the early alpha version of that game.
There's a French Disney magazine with a synopsis of Rayman 2 saying that Globox is the game's antagonist. Globox is actually Rayman's friend and the antagonist is Razorbeard.
According to some early artwork, Ly was originally a Cat Girl rather than a fairy, which explains why she has a tail and that she sometimes runs on all fours during the Walk of Life and Walk of Power racing levels.

Videos[edit]

References[edit]

Comments[edit]

[1] ttps://www.metacritic.com/game/rayman-2-the-great-escape/critic-reviews/?platform=nintendo-64

[2] ttps://www.metacritic.com/game/rayman-2-the-great-escape/critic-reviews/?platform=playstation-2

[3] ttps://youtu.be/9WWSsw-16vw?t=1m25s

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