I gotta say this will be good, Rayman 3 hoodlem havoc was a really great game, Rayman Ds is like that.
Release Date
US: March 24, 2005
Europe: March 17, 2005
- So after a few months of waiting for the last of the original Nintendo DS launch titles to hit the scene, Ubisoft's finally ready to release Rayman DS a portable conversion of the excellent Rayman 2 created for PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and PC more than five years ago. Ubisoft sent us over a build of the final version of the DS game where we got a chance to play the game for the first time on the handheld.
The game's three month delay gave the development team a bit more time to work with the unique Nintendo DS hardware functions and balance out the conversion in order to feel less "rushed" than some of the third-party games released on the system. Unfortunately it looks like the promised multiplayer support has been yanked out of the game in the additional timeframe, as our version doesn't feature this mode anywhere in the options.
Rayman DS is, quite literally, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, right down to cutscenes and levels created for the five year old 3D platformer. I didn't put nearly as much time into this game when it originally hit the scene, but I do remember many of the editors gushing about how great it was across the board. Matt Casamassina in particular, then on the Nintendo 64 channel, was all up on Rayman 2 back in the day, putting in several hours in to the adventure every time Ubisoft sent over a build. Many editors believed this game to be the best 3D platformer just south of Super Mario 64, so at the very least the Nintendo DS game has quite a legacy right from the start.
The conversion has been handled by DC Studios up in Canada, a team that's best known for some lesser known Game Boy product. The team has taken what was created for the consoles and ported it over to the dual-screen format. Though Nintendo has proven that the 3D capabilities of the Nintendo DS are really quite capable, it's clear that, even with Nintendo's extremely close port of Super Mario 64 on the handheld, the system is not quite a Nintendo 64.
Rayman DS, at least graphically, fits somewhere between the original PlayStation edition and the Nintendo 64 version; the 3D engine runs just below Super Mario 64 DS' framerate, but it fluctuates up or down depending on the complexity of the environment drawn on the screen. The character models and environment textures lack filtering simply because the Nintendo DS' graphic hardware lacks the capabilities internally, so you'll notice a bit more "harshness" to the imagery, especially when running close to items and enemies.
Rayman 2 had a heavy analog focus on the consoles the game was made for, so Rayman DS is affected in similar fashion the way Super Mario 64 DS was: analog control is now down on the touch screen. In fact, the touch screen is really only used for the analog controller; there are a couple of HUD indicators, like score and energy, shifted down to the lower display, but in reality they weren't in the way on the console. Ubisoft's offering up its own way of handling the virtual analog stick for Rayman DS; instead of Super Mario 64 DS' free-floating analog stick that centers wherever the player's thumb lands on the screen, Ubisoft's idea is to position the controller in a fixed position. Players do have the option of positioning the touch analog control anywhere on the screen, as well as choose from two different sensitivity sizes, but the analog "target" will not move with a player's drifting thumb.
Does it work? We've only had the game for a few hours, but it's clear that, like Nintendo's platformer, there's a bit of a learning curve in order to make Rayman move as fluidly as possible in the environments using this method. The D-Pad remains active at all times, so if players simply want to control Rayman digitally they can; they'll just have to put up with the fact that Rayman's in a constant run on the digital control. D-Pad control is also a bit more sloppy than we're used to -- we've noticed a bit of a delay between a direction press and Rayman's on-screen response. Ubisoft says that you can also use the stylus to control Rayman, but since the D-Pad cannot be used for anything other than Rayman's movement, stylus control is really only made for left-handed gamers
