Rayman Legends

Rayman Legends built on Origins and, in many ways, surpassed it, taking the proven foundation and adding an even broader range of ideas. It's once again a hand-painted 2D platformer powered by the UbiArt engine, but this time with an even richer palette of settings, from underwater temples through medieval fortresses to snow-capped peaks. The story framework consists of paintings that the heroes enter to free the Teensies trapped inside them. The structure is thus looser than a classic linear progression, and players often choose which of the open paths to try first.

The strongest move is the musical levels that close out each world. The player races forward in precise sync with the track, with jumps, strikes, and destroyed obstacles landing right on the beat, so an ordinary platformer suddenly turns into a dance choreography. Alongside that, the game leans on sections where you control the environment instead of the hero, cutting ropes, rotating platforms, and stunning enemies. On Vita this role is taken over by the touchscreen, one of the most natural uses of the hardware a handheld console ever offered. Also added are daily and weekly challenges with leaderboards, plus a large selection of reworked levels from the previous entry.

The portable version keeps very solid smoothness and crisp drawing and comes close to the big consoles in content. The soundtrack is playful, varied, and in the musical passages even allows itself some cheeky cover versions of famous melodies, which turned these sections into one of the most-quoted moments of the whole generation. Critics received the game exceptionally well, and many still consider it the pinnacle of the modern 2D Rayman. For Vita it was one of the best reasons to pull the console out on a train, since individual levels take only a few minutes and the game can be set aside at any time. The content is also generous enough that finishing absolutely everything takes considerably longer than you'd expect from a platformer. Even years later, Legends feels remarkably fresh and is regularly mentioned among the best 2D platformers of its generation.