Rayman: Hoodlum's Revenge

"Off on the wrong path... again."

Through the course of gaming history many gamers have witnessed popular franchises depart from their original formula for different, and sometimes innovative styles of gameplay. However, often is the case that these games are not very well made, due to either lack of experience in such a style of game play from the developers, or even the simple fact that the gameplay style just doesn't work outsides of it's original form. Many who may be fans of a series that does this often ask why this happens, well, the answer is simple: It's a way to either keep the series fresh, or attract new fans, which has worked well for some franchise (the Mario kart series is just one example). But as it was sated before, many of these games just don't work, often due to the structure of the game not being properly thought out etc and Rayman Hoodlum's revenge is no exception. So the real question is not why developers make these moves, the question is: Why don't they make a right moves?

Gameplay
The first and most obvious problem with this game is the fact that its genre just doesn't work with the perspective, or the way the game is viewed, in fact, it's what pretty much killed this game even without the rest of the glaring problems this game has in tow. Like any other Rayman game, this is a platformer however the game has taken been given and isometric view, the problem occurs with the actually platforming itself, for often it can be hard to tell whether you are far enough over a platform to land on it, leaving you to pummel into water, which really is your biggest enemy in this game and to add to this the controls are rather stiff, and can be a little frustrating to manipulate when trying to maneuver to another platform and with the rather confusing perspective it becomes much more of and aggravating chore than anything else.

If this wasn't enough of a problem, the combat is greatly flawed as well, Rayman's attacks are very short ranged, so much so you're pretty much required to run up right next to an enemy to hit them, unless your charge your attack, which takes too long to really use properly. There is a lock on to help compensate for this, but to put it simply it doesn't work since it always disengages when you want to move, and movement is of course required… now, thankfully enemies actually do next to no damage to you, which may sound stupid, but with the ridiculous hit range and close range required of you it would be even more frustrating than it already is. But the problems don't end there, the other new addition to the series: being able to play as Globox, Rayman's best friend, is met with flaws too; mainly because the concept of these stages are so elementary it's insulting to the player. The main idea is to sneak past guards and open gates in order to continue, to do so Globox will need plum juice so he'll gather the courage and strength to fight them. This doesn't sound all too horrible but once you play it you'll most likely agree. First off, it is impossible to die on these stages, when you are spotted you would expect to be chased and hunted down until you could find a hiding spot… instead Globox throws his arms in the air and runs about three feet from the guard and all danger is averted, whether you like it or not. This eliminates any real challenge to these stages while making them pretty dull as well, there are some cases where you have to time some runs or get plums to take guards out, but it's so simple and easy that satisfaction from doing so is plainly non existent and when mixed with awkward level design it makes things only that much more worse. Replay also suffers since the terrible level design makes collecting items rather frustrating, plus the only unlockables are a few extra and bad levels on top of it so if you do finish this short game it's not likely you'll want to unlock more dull levels.

Visuals
Although this game had been nearly left to die in every other aspect the graphics have come out rather nice. Sprites are detailed and animate smoothly while surrounded by colorful scenery, although the entire first level is covered in pink grass, which was a little odd and not entirely pleasant to look at since it hurts the eyes a bit. But for what it is though it looks very nice, not amazing, but nice.

Audio
Almost as soon as the tinny and obnoxious main theme to the title screen blares from your system's speakers you'll reach for the sound dial and crank it down as far as it can possibly go. The although not reused a whole lot, often sounds very similar to the others, so it gets old very fast, plus it plainly sounds horrible to begin with. The voice of Rayman was inserted and is a nice touch… providing you can ever hear it over the loud music and annoying sound effects that dominate the sound.
Overall
This game is just an example of many that plainly needed to either have a lot of bugs worked out, or not even be created to begin with; which ever of the two are the case here I'll let you decide but after playing this there is simply no denying that something went askew with title. Overall this is a game to be avoided, whether you are a fan of the series or not it's strongly recommended that this title is avoided, if the option is available to you get Rayman DS instead for you will surely fine much more satisfaction it that than you'll ever find with this game.

Pros
+Good graphics
Cons
- Bad controls
-Poorly designed levels
-Annoying soundtrack

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/05