Rayman Origins

Rayman Origins was one of the titles that accompanied PlayStation Vita's launch in Europe, and it immediately showed how well the new display could handle hand-painted graphics. Ubisoft's handless mascot's return to 2D platforming was built on the UbiArt engine, which let artists' own drawings be animated directly, so every bush, enemy, and background looks like an illustration from a children's book brought to life. The story is just a pretext: Rayman and his friends wake dark forces with their snoring and must journey through worlds full of musical instruments, deserts, sinking wrecks, and living kitchens.

The gameplay relies on purity. At first the hero can only run and jump, and gliding, swimming, wall-running, and strikes are added over time, with each new move getting its own set of levels that thoroughly put it through its paces. Collecting small Lums and freeing trapped Electoons opens up further areas while also giving a reason to return to already-completed levels. The real test comes in the timed sections, where the game speeds the pace into a race against the screen and demands absolutely precise timing. The controls are supple and forgiving enough that death never feels unfair.

The Vita version focuses on solo play and adds small touch interactions, but otherwise offers virtually the complete content of the big consoles in your pocket. Smooth performance and rich color on the small screen were, in 2012, among the best demonstrations of the device's capabilities. The music is playful, funny, and often becomes part of the level design itself, especially in rhythm-driven passages. Critics received the game enthusiastically and ranked it among the best 2D platformers of its time, even though sales never matched the acclaim. Origins made a major contribution to reviving interest in hand-drawn platformers and showed that a major publisher can still build a solid 2D game even in the age of 3D blockbusters. Today it plays just as well as it did on release day, and for Vita owners it remains one of the best ways to recall what the console promised at the start of its journey.