Rayman 3 HD

I’ve never been a huge fan of the Rayman series. Along with Sonic, Rayman has not had an altogether successful conversion into the third dimension. Camera issues were consistent throughout the games and as a result hampered the gameplay.

Unfortunately the HD remake has not addressed this issue. The game certainly looks good and the environments and varied and colourful but the camera hasn’t been fixed and a few new issues have become apparent.

The game does have a certain charm to it, expressed through the creative level design and quirky characters. The dialogue is often childish but hilarious nonetheless and the music and voice acting works well to bring the strange worlds to life. As you progress, the levels vary in their nature from lush jungle to dark and murky swamp lands. Every level is filled with an assortment of different enemies, each of which has unique abilities and require you to use certain power-ups. Rayman only has the use of his disembodied fists however finding power-ups throughout levels allows him to unlock new abilities for a limited amount of time. This ranges from spiked gloves, chains he can use to swing on branches to a rocket launcher. From the offset then, the game seems like good value, offering a neat little adventure for a reasonable price.

However, even after a short stint with Rayman, the problems arose all too quickly. I’d like to say the story was good, but for the life of me I could not hear the dialogue between the characters. I was missing out on plot information as well as some funny chatter simply because the HD transition had neglected to update the sound. Even turning it up manually doesn’t solve the problem. The camera, as I said, is simply a pain, and always aims the opposite way you want it to. Nothing is completely game breaking but it can be frustrating, especially when trying to complete the level in as fast a time as possible.

If you’re looking for a trip down memory lane and are prepared to look past the issues, then Rayman 3 HD might be worth your dollar (it is at a reasnoble price: 800 MS points ). Otherwise, this might be one to forget especially with recent strong releases on the Arcade and Playstation store.