If you haven’t been feeling old enough already these days, knowing that Rayman turned 30 last year will probably throw you for a loop. I know it certainly has for me, as someone who’s been following videogames for about as long as I’ve been alive, probably. Rayman has been a mainstay in my life ever since its first release on PlayStation, so it was quite a joy to relive some of those memories in the recently announced – and released! – Rayman 30th Anniversary compilation by Atari, developed by Digital Eclipse.
As with previous collections by that dev, this one plays in the game doc format, where you get to browse a timeline where the story of the character’s inception and eventual jump to retail shelves is told via videos, documents, still images, and, most importantly, through playable versions of said game. Here, you get to play the PC, PlayStation, and Jaguar ports of the first title, alongside a playable prototype of the never-released Super Nintendo one, recently discovered by Frédéric Houde, Rayman’s co-creator and original programmer!
Alongside those oldies but goldies, a few notable inclusions, like the GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance ports which did a lot to provide a nice Rayman experience regardless of the hardware limitations, but perhaps the most interesting additions are the fanmade level pack and editor for the PC version of Rayman, which are fully available with yet another bonus feature, Rayman 60 Levels, some of the most challenging creations coming in from the same team that made the full game. It’s neat to see how much of a dent the game made especially in Europe at the time, so much so that it went on to get re-releases like those, much in the vein of Doom and Doom II elsewhere.
The documentary portion of Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition is up to par with other similar releases by Digital Eclipse. Granted, there’s only one timeline to explore and the video content is much shorter this time around, but from what there is to be watched, it’s all well worth sifting through. Rayman creators Michel Ansel and Frédéric Houde got to sit down and chat about every part of their creation, speaking very candidly, for instance, about the failed 32X port in favor of the more powerful Sega Saturn, and how the leaps in technology had them jump to the PC in its 3D-powered infancy right away when opportunity came knocking at their door.
Ubisoft folks like Yves and Michel Gillemount popping in, as well as other parts of the creative team such as animator Alexandra Steible (now Alexandra Ansel) and even Christophe Héral, who worked on the music for this re-release while paying homage to the original game’s composer, Rémi Gazel, who passed away in 2019. The team members shown all seemed to fondly recall their time working with Rayman, although it’s clear that there was plenty of crunch time put in in order to meet Sony’s approval deadline, for instance, but that was 30 years ago, so they probably look back to those times with 20-20 hindsight, I suppose.
All of the content in this feels very lovingly put together, and to my surprise, they’ve even gone ahead to talk a bit about the original version of the sequel, Rayman 2, which was going to be a 2D/3D hybrid, in the vein of Donkey Kong Country, before juggernauts like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot forced Ubisoft’s hand, shifting the game into what we know today, the excellent Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Sadly, no playable demo for that one, but at least there’s some footage of it shown in the doc, so it’s not a full loss on our part.
Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition is definitely a nice way to commemorate the neck, arm, leg-less hero’s birthday. It’s a simple package by Digital Eclipse standards, but what there is to be seen here is quite enjoyable to spend a few hours with. I know I appreciated seeing behind the curtain as someone with both a keen interest in the product itself and development/animation-wise. Ubisoft should most definitely look into doing more of these with their old franchises, that’s for sure.
