Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition review – Define “definitive”
After its start on the Wii U and making its way around to every other major platform, Rayman Legends returns to Nintendo for a comprehensive Switch edition.
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Release Date: September 12, 2017
Nintendo may be the untitled masters of platforming due to the sheer volume released on their systems, but Ubisoft showed them up incredibly when they first released Rayman Legends. Over time, it has collected a myriad of DLC in the form of various costumes and other modes, followed by a visual update as it moved to the current generation of consoles. That leaves Definitive Edition in a great spot as Rayman returns to a Nintendo platform in the most polished form he’s ever been.
Your adventures across over 120 levels (about a third of which are remastered from Rayman Origins) take place in an open, freewheeling format that doesn’t lock you into a linear progression. The more of the game’s collectible Teensies you rescue, the more avenues open up to you to rescue even more. Some of the levels, especially in the early going, offer a relaxing, slower pace for you to get a feel for how the game hides its secrets. Later, you’ll be sprinting from dragons, chasing after Teensies in magic bubbles, and bopping along to the beat of popular songs sung in glorious nonsense by the game’s cast.
Ubisoft stuffed every possible corner of Rayman Legends with personality. The way the characters move, the goofy little sound cues the Teensies offer when you’re nearby, their celebrations when you rescue them, the vibe of the game’s excellent musical levels…I could go on. Rayman Legends’ loose overlying plot involves capture and rescue, as games often do, but the actual vibe of everything is more of a party with all of your weird friends invited where everyone is happy to see you.
The meat of Rayman Legends is glorious fun, particularly the levels requiring your frog friend Murfy, who will cut ropes, poke creatures in the eye, and eat down cake walls to help you progress. Unfortunately, the touch control of your froggy friend has been left behind, despite the Switch having the capabilities in handheld mode. In practice, it’s probably more efficient in play to push buttons, but I could tell that touch controls were intended and missed them as a result.
How often really am I going to take this to those rooftop wine parties for some platforming soccer?
Though I found the overworld “gallery” rather disorganized and overwhelming at first, there’s no denying that Rayman Legends offers plenty to do, from a variety of worlds unlocked at once, to hidden characters, to Kung Foot (a simple, platforming version of soccer) to a gallery of weird creatures unlocked by scratch tickets you earn from sufficiently completing a level. With all this and the game’s 800+ Teensies to collect, Rayman Legends can keep you busy for a long time.
That’s in addition to the game’s daily and weekly challenges, which feature diverse options such as collecting as many things as possible in a short time, getting a certain distance on a map as quickly as possible, or simply getting as far as you can through a treacherous obstacle course. You’re rewarded for your endeavors with more Lums and a record of how well you did that you can try to beat, or use to compare to others in the world.
Of course, the question that all this goodness leads to is: will we get another Rayman game? For me, a newcomer to Rayman Legends, visiting these levels for the first time was a refreshing take on platforming, distinct from the general Nintendo flavor. But the truth is that Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition offers nothing on the Nintendo Switch that it hasn’t offered already on basically every other platform. The only new addition here is the ability to create and play in Kung Foot tournaments with up to eight others and, frankly, how often really am I going to take this to those rooftop wine parties for some platforming soccer?
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Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition falls into the same category as a good many other titles at the moment, for as my co-editor put it for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, “It’s on the Nintendo Switch now.” Pick it up if you haven’t yet and know that you’re getting the most complete and put together version of Rayman Legends, but you’re missing nothing if you’ve already partied with the Teensies elsewhere.
8.5. Nothing has changed about Rayman Legends in its Definitive Edition, but as good as the game was to begin with, arguably nothing needed to. Bursting with personality and fun everywhere from the menu to the game’s 120+ levels, Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition oozes with the spirit of fun, competition, and cooperation that the Nintendo Switch wants to put front and center on its console. Perhaps it could have done with something new to freshen things up for returning players, but even on its own, Rayman Legends is one of the must-play platformers of the past two console generations.. Ubisoft. . Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition
A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.