Rayman Legends

Rayman Legends is the pinnacle of the series' modern era and one of the best-looking 2D platformers ever made. It follows on from Rayman Origins, inheriting its hand-painted visuals powered by the UbiArt engine and expanding them into worlds inspired by fairy tales, medieval castles, ocean depths, or Mexican festivals. The player once again frees the Teensies, collects Lums, and glides through levels that combine precise jumps, timed runs, and battles against giant bosses — always with an emphasis on rhythm and fluid movement.

On Wii U, an extra role was added for the GamePad: a second player controls the fly Murfy on its screen, cutting ropes with a touch, rotating platforms, distracting enemies, and literally clearing the path for the others running on the TV. This creates an asymmetric co-op where one player plays a platformer and the other plays a timing-based puzzle game — an ideal way to get even a non-gamer to pick up a controller. Unforgettable are the musical levels closing each world, where the entire level is edited to the beat of a well-known song and every jump lands exactly on the beat. As a bonus there's the football minigame Kung Foot, daily and weekly time-trial challenges, and over a hundred unlockable levels — including reworked pieces from the previous installment — so there's an unusually large amount of content here.

Technically, the game runs smoothly, the colors are vivid, and the animation of Rayman and his companions ranks among the best ever achieved in 2D. The music alternates rowdy brass, orchestral pieces, and parody covers, and together with the art direction creates an infectiously good mood. Critics received the game very warmly, and it still shows up in rankings of the decade's best platformers; the only blemish was the delay of its Wii U exclusivity and the subsequent release on other platforms, which raised the blood pressure of console owners at the time. Today, Legends is simply a safe recommendation for anyone, and on Wii U it comes in a form no other platform offers.