Rayman

About

Rayman is a video game series released by Ubisoft in 1995. It consists of a platform game where the eponymous main character, Rayman, fights and moves around thanks to his projectable hands. Its popularity led to many other games being released under the franchise, with half of them being spin-offs focused on the Rabbids, who first appeared as antagonists.

History

Rayman as a character was first created in 1992 by French artist Michel Ancel, programmer and graphic designer for the first game, for a new game to develop for Ludimédia (the former name of Ubisoft Montpellier).^[1] The character was intentionally cartoonish in design, with clothes and hair parodying the style of 1990's fashion trends, and disconnected hands and feet (shown below). The game's universe is similarly cartoonish and influenced by various fairy tales.

Originally planned to be released on the Super Nintendo, the first game was delayed in 1994 in order to be added to the brand new PlayStation library. It was initially released for the Atari Jaguar in 1995, and shortly after, Ubisoft released versions for the PS1, Microsoft Windows and Sega Saturn (seen below).^[2] Other versions appeared on newer consoles throughout the following years.

Gameplay

Rayman is a classic 2D sidescrolling platformer, typical of its contemporary games with its system of points, lives, collectible bonuses and a rescue or "save-the-world" story. It differs by the emphasis put on the playable character's mobility, with permanent upgrades such as telescopic fists, the ability to grab the edge of cliffs and a rotor made of his hair (shown below).

Reception

The first Rayman game was well-received by the gaming community, becoming one of the best-selling video games on the PlayStation console. As of 2020, Rayman on PC has an 8.3/10 user score on Metacritic.^[3]

Following Games

In response to this commercial success, Ubisoft released many other games in the Rayman franchise, the first of them being Rayman 2: The Great Escape, a 3D platform game launched for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, which has a Metacritic^[4] score of 90/100. Other critically acclaimed Rayman games include: Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (2003), the Wii release of Rayman Raving Rabbids (2006), Rayman Origins (2011) and the unanimously acclaimed Rayman Legends (2013). As of 2020, there are 24 Rayman games that were released on various platforms for different target audiences.

In 2017, a turn-based RPG spin-off series called Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was released by Ubisoft exclusively for the Nintendo Switch, featuring a crossover of characters from Super Mario and Raving Rabbids (shown below).

Highlights

Fake Super Smash Bros. 4 Leak

As a prominent figure in the gaming history, and with Nintendo letting video game characters from various companies join the Super Smash Bros. 4 roster, many fans hoped for Rayman to be added as DLC. They were previously disappointed that their beloved character was only introduced as a trophy. As such, the release of allegedly leaked photos and videos showing models of Rayman in-game on February 14th, 2015, by an anonymous 4chan user caused hype in the community.^[5]

That same day, a YouTuber^[6] called Artsy Omni released a video on his channel, Curiomatic, revealing that he was the creator of the photos, which were all elaborate fakes. According to Artsy, he planned this hoax in order to promote his latest YouTube series. The video received more than 1.1 million views, 21,000 likes, 2,900 dislikes and 7,700 comments in roughly five years (seen below). Its dislike ratio reached over 10 percent as many hopeful fans expressed their disappointment.

Fandom

The game series has acquired many fans since its debut in 1995, and several characters became fan-favorites over the years, such as Rayman, the toad Globox and the fairy Betilla. One instance of such infatuation is the Rabbids that were first introduced with Rayman Raving Rabbids as antagonists. The moronic, quirky rabbits gained such a following that, as of 2020, they appeared in 16 official video games, with Rayman being featured in only the first three and the rest of them displaying the Rabbids as the main protagonists instead, such as the official crossover with the Super Mario franchise, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

On Reddit, the /r/Rayman^[7] subreddit is dedicated to the series and was created on May 29th, 2009. Accumulating over 5,300 members in roughly 11 years, users post various fan art, discussion threads, news and memes revolved around the series. On July 12th, 2020, Redditor^[8] k7331 posted a Virgin vs. Chad meme (seen below, left), receiving over 540 upvotes in three months. On July 16th, Redditor^[9] Syyr553 posted another example to the sub using the Jealous Cat meme (seen below, right), receiving over 280 upvotes in three months.

Fan Art

Search Interest

External References