YMMV / Rayman

• Adaptation Displacement: The Atari Jaguar version was the first one made, though not the first one released. Regardless, due to the Jaguar's failure, most people who played the game usually played it through its many ports, with the PlayStation 1 and PC versions being the most common ways to play the game.
• Awesome Music: Starting a series wide tradition, the game features a truly wonderful CD quality soundtrack composed almost entirely by the late Rémi Gazel:
  • The title screen and map screen theme is a very fun song that perfectly sets the tone for the game off the bat.
  • The very upbeat and whimsical theme of Betilla the Fairy. It becomes downright relieving to hear it after you've gone through a brutally hard level, since it almost always guarantees you'll get a new power from her.
  • "First Steps". the incredibly upbeat theme for Pink Plant Woods. When it comes to songs that tell you "The adventure has begun!", they don't get much better than this. The Atari Jaguar version is surprisingly funky despite losing the atmosphere of the CD quality version.
  • "Deep Forest", the other theme for Pink Plant Woods, has a eerily calm feeling to it that perfectly captures the feeling of wading through a dense, swampy forest.
  • "Flight Of The Mosquito", a very whimsical and fun song that captures the magical feeling of flying around on a mosquito and punching enemies.
  • "The Flood", a startlingly dramatic and tense orchestral tune that tends to play in areas heavy with water.
  • "Harmony", the main theme of Allegro Presto, is a soaring orchestral tune and one of the most euphoric songs you will ever hear in any video game. The Atari Jaguar version is surprisingly good too in spite of being MIDI instead of red book audio. The Game Boy Advance arrangement (which is also used for that port's title screen) isn't half-bad either despite the huge downgrade in sound quality.
  • "Blazing Brass", the theme of "Mr. Sax's Hullabaloo", is a very catchy jazz flavored tune.
  • "Rocking Up The Mountains", the epic theme of "The Hard Rocks" (the Atari Jaguar version isn't half bad either). The arrangement for when you might Mr. Stone, "Ruler Of The Mountains", is one of the most rocking tunes in the game.
  • "Space Mama's Overture", a very soaring orchestral tune that starkly contrasts one of the nastiest boss fights in the entire game. The Jaguar version offers a very boppin take on the song as well.
  • "Space Mama's Finale"/"Washing Machine From Space", a truly awesome techno arrangement of the Space Mama Overture.
  • "Cloak Of Darkness", the theme of Mr. Dark, is a very exciting tune that's perfect for a final boss confrontation. The Jaguar and GBA versions aren't too shabby either.
  • The GBA version has "The Musician's Theme", a very pleasant and atmospheric acoustic guitar-based piece which was added to the first section of Mister Stone's Peaks.
• Breather Boss: Skops the Scorpion could very well be easier to defeat than Moskito. It's a little weird, since after Skops comes the final level where Mr. Dark presides. This may actually be a result of What Could Have Been: as a beta screenshot on the PS1 box reveals, he was supposed to be a very early boss fought in the Dream Forest (perhaps even being the first boss in the game) before they moved him up and replaced him with Moskito.
• Breather Level: Blue Mountains can feel like this after some of the superhuman feats you have to pull off in Band Land. However, then in comes the snow-capped mountaintops of Mr. Stone's Peaks...
• Demonic Spiders:
  • The Stone Men in Blue Mountains. They throw lava rocks that split into harmful debris that can be difficult to avoid. You have to punch them several times before they collapse... a moment before they revive themselves like Dry Bones.
  • Literal spiders in The Caves of Skops. If you don't kill them quickly, they'll leap onto the ceiling and shoot spines that home in on you and can be a pain in the neck to dodge, particularly if there's more than one attacking you (which there often will be).
  • Also in The Caves of Skops are the toothy fish in Eat At Joe's. They move very quickly, attack with little to no warning, and appear where they can easily knock you off the tiny platforms. To make matters worse, you can only kill them by punching them when they leap at you, which can be annoying considering how unpredictable they are.
  • Where do we begin with the grasshoppers in Band Land? Not only are they extremely evasive to your attacks, but they are very good at counter attacking as well. For example, if you get close enough to them to try to hit them when they duck from your fist, they will ram you. If you try to attack them while they're airborne, they'll block it and try to kick you. Standing off with them isn’t an option either, as they will eventually bum-rush you and pretty much attack you until either one of you is dead. The only advantage is that they typically only guard extra lives, so the player isn’t really required to tangle with them, but given the game’s sheer difficulty, trying to get any extra lives is pretty strongly encouraged among players.
• Difficulty Spike: The Dream Forest is very generous with its powerups, and not everything is trying to kill you. However, Band Land starts with the Bongo Hills, a six-part level with some freakishly Malevolent Architecture (most notably tons and tons of barbed musical notes). And again when you hit Picture City.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the songs in Candy Chateau is apparently called "The Cake is a Lie".
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The game could easily be one of the poster children for this trope; the game had no playtesters and it shows. There is huge Difficulty Spike around Band Land and the game only gets harder from there, especially at Picture City, with extremely precise platforming, annoying enemies, and an abundance of instant death traps and Trial-and-Error Gameplay. This, combined with limited continues and being forced to 100% the game to access the final level, has understandably made a lot of gamers skip this game in favor of its much fairer sequels.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Anti-toons. They appear in every world, and their small size means you have to be below them to hit them (or duck after throwing your fist while they are coming towards you), and have an annoying habit of coming-and-going on tiny, often slipery platforms just to be sure you fall to your death.
  • Hunters. They appear in every world just like Anti-toons, and shoot slow-moving bullets that swing hammers at you. They are only vulnerable while they're polishing their weapon after shooting it.
  • Short Livingstones could qualify as well. They are more aggressive than their tall brethren, and, like the Grasshoppers in Band Land, can duck to avoid your fist and even block it by entering an attack stance and trying to grab you.
• Good Bad Bugs: In the second part of Mr. Dark's Dare, you can actually avoid having to deal with Dark Rayman if you're skilled enough to jump over the trigger zone that makes him appear. This is a little easier to do on the GBA port since this is actually visible to the player.
• Magnificent Bastard: Mr. Dark is Rayman's first adversary, as well as one of his most cunning. Effortlessly stealing both the Great Protoon and a batch of Electoons, he keeps tabs on Rayman throughout his quest and sends his goons after him, at one point ambushing and capturing the fairy Betilla. When Rayman finds the Electoons and enters Candy Chateau, Mr. Dark repeatedly curses Rayman to make his attempt harder, cumulating in him suddenly stealing Rayman's hands and rendering him unable to attack. Even when Rayman's hands are rescued, he continues to combat him, ending in Dark managing to escape. Eventually returning in Mini, he becomes an polite dealmaker who offers the player increasingly challenging levels in exchange for rewards, always upholding his end of the bargain if they win.
• Most Wonderful Sound: That "YEAH!" when you finish a level. It starts off rather comical, but turns into one of the most gratifying sounds ever when you complete an especially difficult level.
• Nintendo Hard: The game's levels were never tested and they absolutely show it. Levels are often quite long, filled with extremely precise platforming, and enemies are placed in downright sadistic spots. Extra lives, while not rare, are well hidden and often extremely dangerous to reach, which is a problem since running out of lives and continues ends your playthrough. Beating the game requires collecting every Electoon cage, many of which are well hidden and require abilities you don't have yet to get, meaning you will have to replay some levels, even ones you just barely survived.
• Obvious Beta: While technically not one, the Jaguar original certainly feels like one compared to its ports, although it does manage to have some exclusive features not seen in later versions. On top of that game, the game as a whole was never properly playtested, and the absolutely sadistic difficulty shows for it.
• Polished Port:
  • The Sega Saturn port, which had color transparencies, crisper sound and scene transitions unique from the PlayStation and Jaguar ports. However, it's missing the password system and a couple minor music tracks, and the FMVs are more compressed than the PS1 port.
  • Also, all three of the PC re-releases notably have new custom-made bonus levels made by the fans and developers, as well as a level editor. The only downsides are that the soundtrack was cut down and the cut scenes had to be removed from Rayman Forever because there was too much content to fit them in^note Fortunately, these cutbacks are easily remedied through fan-made patches like "Rayman Plus".
  • The DSi port did make some odd changes and has worse audio, but is still considered one of the best versions of the game due to the numerous changes it made to make the game much fairer and easier.
• Porting Disaster:
  • While the Game Boy Advance port did make several beneficial chances to alleviate the games infuriating difficulty (i.e. giving Rayman an extra hit point, removing the first section of Bongo Hills, no Tings are lost upon dying, no knockback when Rayman gets hit, more starting lives, fewer enemies, etc.) and leaves the bulk of the content intact, it suffers from a serious decrease of screen resolution (around one half of the original) that makes some parts of the already tough game even harder than before. The music and sound quality takes a huge nosedive due to the handhelds limits, and many music tracks and the FMVs are omitted. Since the remake is made in 2001, in the very early days of the GBA, back when the console had no backlight, an issue that was only fixed with the newer SP version of the GBA in 2003, the graphics were altered to have higher color contrast as a result, which also reduces the visual quality.
  • The Flash web demo made to promote the GBA release has to be seen to be believed. The graphics are poorly ripped, the music is a 10 second loop, the controls are unresponsive and the physics are so bad that crawling allows Rayman to defy gravity and fly over everything!
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Being forced to save all the Electoons in order to complete the game. Most find it adds unnecessary length to the game, especially because there are levels where you need a specific power-up to reach some of the cages, resulting in lots of backtracking.
  • The Photographers in the DSi version take a literal picture of you using the system's inner camera. The problem is that the DSi has a loud shutter sound, and there's no way to turn it off. Playing this version in public results in not going for any checkpoints unless you don't mind the stares of those around you.
• Surprise Difficulty: The game stops pulling punches once you leave The Dream Forest. The rest of the game continues to use cutesy enemies, soothing music, and colorful environments as if to mock you. A beautiful valley, calming music and a casually walking hero. What could go wrong? The first level lulls you into a sense of calm... only for the second level (Band Land) to smash your face into the ground while you're distracted.
• That One Boss:
  • Mister Stone. Some of his attacks are very frustrating to avoid, and you have very narrow windows to attack him - or rather, the pendulum in his arena, which is the only way to damage him. Further, as the fight progresses, it gets harder to hit the pendulum hard enough to damage him. It doesn't help that you have to fight him at the end of a brutally long and hard level. The only saving grace is that you're given a health powerup at the start of the battle, but given the nature of his attacks, it probably won't last you very long.
  • Both encounters with Space Mama in Picture City count, but the rematch at Space Mama's Crater really takes the cake as the hardest boss in the game. First, she's at the end of an already hard and grueling Marathon Level with some particularly nasty Platform Hell at the end, so even if you save, you have to go through it every time you reload the file. The battle itself is quite long, and her attacks, particularly the pressure cookers she summons, are very difficult to avoid. Oh, and you don't get a health powerup for this fight like you did with Mr. Stone by the way. Thus, if you die (which you probably will if you're not careful), you'll have to defeat her with only 3 health. This battle is so frustrating that it makes Skops the Scorpion and even Mister Dark himself look easy by comparison.
• That One Level: The game itself is Nintendo Hard, but several levels stand out in particular:
  • First, you have Bongo Hills, the game's longest level. It has more than a few difficult platforming moments, particularly near the end, tons of enemies and obstacles, including sour notes that instantly kill you on impact, and the dreaded grasshoppers (see Demonic Spiders above), and many of its cages are hard to find. Worst of all, one of those cages requires the Grabbing Fist, so if you haven't beaten Moskito yet, you won't even be able to touch it. And even with the Grabbing Fist, the cage is extremely hard to get to without the ability to glide, which you cannot even get until the next level. Speaking of...
  • Allegro Presto. While there aren't too many enemies out for your blood here, the vast majority of the level's difficulty comes in its platforming, which takes place almost entirely on slippery music staves. If you're not careful, you could end up careening into a bottomless pit or a patch of deadly sour notes. The last section is by far the worst of the lot, as you have to hop across very narrow staves suspended across a bottomless pit. Some of the level's cages can be difficult to reach as well. At least Rayman gets his Helicopter Hair at the end, which makes subsequent playthroughs much easier (albeit still frustrating).
  • Mister Stone's Peaks. The first area has you using the Super Helicopter power-up to traverse a maze full of Spikes of Doom, many parts of which are very narrow and unforgiving. Immediately after that, you have to escape a trap and avoid being drowned by using your hair as blades to cut the ropes pulling the trap downward. This is followed up by an autoscroll section where you have to escape rising floodwaters, and then topped off with a snowy area filled with pretty much every hazard you've encountered in the Blue Mountains up to that point. Oh, and if it's your first time through, you also have to deal with Mister Stone himself. Have fun.
  • Eat At Joe's. Rayman's friend Joe has lost power to his restaurant's sign, and he wants you to help him restore it. Sounds easy, right? Nope. First, you have to trek through a very dark cavern with a firefly, and there are many blind jumps along the way that you cannot even see with the firefly's help. After that, it's a long platforming section above a spike-filled area to the plug for Joe's sign. Once you've plugged it back in, you then have to go back the way you came to return to Joe. But you're STILL not out of the water yet — you then have to cross Joe's lagoon using a series of hard-to-land-on beach balls, while simultaneously avoiding saber-toothed fish that will leap at you with no warning and are frustrating to avoid or kill. Missed a cage during the whole ordeal? Do it all over again.
  • Stage wise, Band Land and Picture City are often seen as points of frustration, since they both consist of time-consuming and very tricky levels with annoying enemies, instant-death hazards like ink and notes that function as Spikes of Doom, and trial-and-error sections with strict platforming challenges that require precise timing to not lose a life.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Rayman's Grimace makes enemies comedically run away to their doom. Unfortunately, it only works on Tall Livingstones, which are only found in the Dream Forest, and the ability is permanently lost once you gain the Dash power.
  • The Magic Seed given by Tarayzan allows you to grow flowers as temporary platforms. Unfortunately, this ability is only available in one level, also in the Dream Forest.
  • The firefly given to Rayman by Joe only appears in the first area of "Eat At Joe's", and is never seen again afterwards.
  • Zig-zagged by the Super Helicopter power-up. While it does appear outside of its debut level unlike the Magic Seed and the Firefly, one aspect of the power-up is only used in that level. Namely, Rayman must use it to escape a trap and avoid being drowned, by cutting the ropes tied to the boulders pulling the trap downward.