FAKE RONJAN!!Great Video Game Levels: Rayman Legends
It's time to step up our game. I've been playing video games my entire life, and I want to include more from that world on this site. As such, I'm kicking off a new feature: Great Video Game Levels.
Super Mario Maker was my 2015 game of the year, and it kicked my butt in showing just how difficult game design can be. I've created a handful of courses, a few of which I think have some interesting ideas in them, but the real degree of difficulty is in the execution.
For example, I built a level based on Aladdin's Cave of Wonders. The basic beats are there: an adult wearing purple goes inside a lion's head cave opening, a monkey touches the forbidden treasure, and there is an escape out of fiery lava. But it's missing the sense of refinement and polish that the best video game levels have.
That got me thinking about great side-scrolling levels that I've played in the past, and my mind immediately focused on 2013's Rayman Legends, a gorgeous platformer that was among my favorites that year. It was a bit of an unfocused package that had an over-reliance on gimmicky touchscreen levels, but it overcame that with some of the most fun, memorable, and replay-able music-themed levels in history.
Orchestral Chaos is an absolutely gorgeous marriage of visuals and music:
Mariachi Madness is a creative remix of the #1 song the day I was born:
And Gloo Gloo is absurdly frantic:
The brilliant hook of these levels lies in the tightness of the sync between the music and the player's actions. It creates the same rush as one might get in Guitar Hero, but with more varied and creative visual stimulation.
These six levels vary in difficulty and theme - some are beautiful, some are epic, others are quirky - but they represent some of the most fun experiences I've ever had in a platformer. I've probably played each of them a hundred times to date (that's me in the recordings above), and I'm sure I'll go back to them in the future.
They're great.
-rj