You Only Have One Life to Live…Sort of…(Rayman Origins)

Rayman Origins is a brand new Rayman game from Ubisoft.  This isn’t some kind of cash grab repurpose; it’s a whole new game with Rayman and his friends.  The game is incredible fun and surprisingly challenging.  At least it was surprising to me.  The game contains some of the best art and music that I’ve ever experienced in a platformer.

      The strangest thing about Rayman Origins is that with one hit Rayman dies; he can get one heart and only one heart to take a hit for him but then that’s it.  What happens when he dies.  Rayman gets dropped back to load screen and then back;  All most in the same place as he died in some circumstances.  The checkpointing in the game seems to have been done by someone who has actually played the game and know where the hard sections of the game reside.  This isn’t a bad system, it encourages people to be perfect, at least in single player. 

     To me, if the player is simply waiting through a load screen in order to be dropped back just about where they left off.  Why not just have lives, and then a continue screen perhaps.  The player can even earn lives the more points they earn.  I don’t know, I’m not a game designer. 

    By the time I was well and truly into Rayman Origins; I was pretty sick of making one mistake and then having to wait through a load screen just to be dropped back to the area in which I died.  Early in the game, the multiple live thing would have to be tweaked as most of the time in the early game you must actually redo the whole level if you die in any part of it. 

    The game is wonderful, but again it’s pretty difficult.  For the average player, will probably not see the whole game unless they are playing multiplayer, which is only available on the same console.  Having multiple lives would probably create just the right amount of handholding in the single player so that a majority of people would be able to see most of the game.  The way it stands, I think a lot of people will get frustrated and quit by the time they reach the end of the first world or the second world. 

   Which is a shame, because even with some of the more traditional trappings in the game; it is usually well paired with the musical score.  Every aspect of the game seems in complete harmony.  Nothing tacked on or superfluous just to make the game longer or harder.  So, while Rayman may be Immortal.  He really only has one life to give his fans; and for most of them, that is not enough!