Rayman 2: The Great Escape
29 Feb 2000
All releases
01 Jan 1970 - Dreamcast
29 Feb 2000 - Dreamcast
23 Mar 2000 - Dreamcast
23 Mar 2000 - Dreamcast
Tags
Time to beat
Main story
Main story + extras
100% completion
The Sega Dreamcast version of Rayman 2 retains the high quality textures from the PC version, while slightly improving some. A new area has been added in the Woods of Light called Globox Village, where the player can access new minigames by collecting Globox Crystals. This is the first version of Rayman 2 to allow for widescreen and the only version where the aspect ratio can manually be changed. The Hall of Doors has been replaced by the Isle of Doors. Several more Robo-Pirates have been added as well as a new type which shoots bombs. This is also the first version to have the cutscene in the Prison Ship where Rayman frees the prisoners, which was cut from the original versions due to time constraints.
Updated versions
Visually, it's still a good-looking experience; sprites are with good, distinct personalities, with the environment being quite nice to look at, with good level theme variety. The Dreamcast port is clearly the best place to play Rayman 2, running at a smooth 60 fps with good texture quality.
Story-wise, it's nothing special, but a platformer doesn't need a well-written story. What does shine are the characters and how lovable they are. Rayman is such a nice and lighthearted character to play as, as well as his friends, well-designed and brimming with personality. The overall story is surprisingly sad and grim, with children enslaved and friends of Rayman being clearly depressed and lonely, which does enhance the positive moments quite a bit.
Gameplay-wise, it's a platformer with third-person shooter elements, both being as basic as they can be, but they are pretty responsive and enjoyable. The game tries often to bring a lot of variety with each level, some new gimmick that doesn't last longer than one level. Here is where the game suffers the most—such levels more often than not are quite difficult on their own, but they are also often not as well polished or just frustrating instead. For example, the swamp section was filled with trial and error gameplay, as well as that chase level, although being quite spectacular, has a major difficulty spike that just keeps you inches away from landing your jumps. There are more examples like this, but overall the game is surprisingly difficult and, sadly, at times quite frustrating. Also to note, the last boss fight was rather weak and annoying, but at least the ending cutscene was rather sweet.
To sum up, Rayman 2 is a good platformer I enjoyed going through, a hidden gem in a way; although it can be frustrating and annoying at times, it is still a worthwhile platformer to experience. I wish Ubisoft was still making creative games like this.