Rayman

Rayman is the first game I owned for the PC. I got it on my fifth birthday. I'm talking about the original game. I say this because there were some updated versions released years after the original version, like Rayman Gold, Rayman Forever, Rayman Collector etc. Rayman is designed and published by Ubisoft. The game was released in September 1995 for the Atari Jaguar and MS-Dos and in November 1995 for the Playstation and Sega Saturn. Rayman is a side-scrolling platformer in which you collect bubbles, called 'Tings'. When you've collected 100 of these Tings you'll receive an extra life.

Rayman is a special guy, he has no arms, legs and neck and he has a big nose. He usually wears a purple shirt, a red scarf, white gloves and yellow sneakers. The white ring on his shirt has magical powers. Each time when you're granted a new power from Betilla The Fairy the ring sparkles. During the game Rayman will learn multiple powers, such as throwing his fist at enemies, the power to hang, the grappling hook power, the power to fly, the power to run and some other powers which are temporarily.

Rayman's story: In Rayman's world, nature and people live together in peace. The Great Protoon maintains the harmony and balance of the world. One fateful day, the evil Mr. Dark defeats Betilla The Fairy and steals the great Protoon. The Electoons, who used to gravitate to it, lose their natural stability and scatter all over the world. In the now unbalanced world, strange phenomena begin to occur: hostile characters appear capturing every Electoon they can find! The disappearance of the Great Protoon also neutralized all of Betilla The Fairy's powers, and she needs time to regenerate before she can help in any way. Rayman to the rescue! He must free the Electoons, defeat Mr. Dark, save the Great Protoon from its mysterious kidnapper, and restore harmony to the world.

During the game there are a couple of things you can find. The most important things are the Electoons trapped in cages. Other objects you can find are a golden glove (which instantly kills a normal enemy), a shiny glove (you can shoot further and faster), extra life statues, a red P (you'll get more HP) and the earlier mentioned Tings, which you can use for bonus levels to get an extra life, or you can collect 100 of them to get an extra life.

The graphics of this game are timeless, they can even match todays Gameboy Advance games. That's why the game was released for the GBA in 2005, but the quality of the game music isn't as great as on the original version due to the GBA's limitations. And that's a shame, because the game's music is great, it really fits in the game as you can hear in the video below.

This game is a classic, I think it's the best one in the series of Rayman, because of the great music composing and the addictive gameplay. The game also received some awards in EGM's 1995 video game awards: Best music in a CD-ROM game and best animation. You can play this game for hours without getting bored, so maybe you should check it out too.