RUclips randomly recommended me this video and I couldn't say no. I'm a sucker for well thought out Rayman retrospectives, and this one did not disappoint! Keep up the great work. ^^
Rayman 2 is one of the greatest platformers ever.. Its incredible. Ubisoft really need to remake Rayman 2, it just makes so much sense too given how remakes are thriving in the industry right now with the crash remakes or the resident evil remakes. Rayman doesnt deserve to be forgotten
During a time where all platformers were becoming combat focused, Rayman 3 is the only one that really hits it perfectly. The level design was built around combat. True, you’re usually fighting in some type of arena, but you’re doing it in a different way each time. I just wish they made it harder so you had to put more thought into how you’re going to approach combat
Man, I loved everything about Rayman 3 as a kid. Gameplay, music, even jokes. Replayed it a few years ago and it still holds up pretty well! I love Rayman 2 as well, but 3 was always the top one for me.
I played it for the first time in my mid-20s, so no nostalgia for me, and it still completely blew my mind how good it was. It was everything I never knew I wanted from a 3D platformer.
@@EuroMIX2 I have the N64 version. I’ve played the 3DS version and it is ass. I find the dark colors and anti-aliasing of the N64 works really well with games that have a grittier atmosphere, like Rayman 2 and Ocarina of Time. But I would love to play the Dreamcast version if I had a Dreamcast, as I’ve heard that’s the definitive version of the game
Calling Rayman 2 an S tier game definitely isn’t a stretch, I’d count it alongside the best 3D platformers of the time like Mario 64, Sonic Adventure 2, LoK: Soul Reaver, and the Jak and Daxter Trilogy.
The thing that blows my mind about Rayman 2 is that is is an N64 game, released only a few years after Super Mario 64. I never played it on original hardware but having such strong art direction and some pretty fast-paces setpieces made it a classic for me, on par with Super Mario 64. I replayed Rayman 3 not too long ago and it holds up too by having fantastic controls and retaining that skewed and dream-like art direction despite having a bit of edge to its jokes.
I basically disagreed with everything you said about Rayman 3 lmao. I don't think it drags at all. If anything I wish the game was longer and had more levels. And I feel like the levels themselves generally have a good pace to them where you are always doing something, mainly due to the combo system which IMO elevates the game a lot. It's so fun to try and get a good run as opposed to just playing casually. Also while Rayman 2 may have better variety, I feel like 2's quality is all over the place. Some of these gimmicks really needed to be fine tuned, because stuff like the missiles are extremely tempremental, and I've had moments where they just end up blowing up on me for seemingly no reason. I've never really had that in 3. And I just find the level design more fun, given the flow I already mentioned, and I just like it's gimmicks more. Especially the funkyboard/Teensie Highway stages. Those completely blow the missile stages in 2 out of the water if you ask me. Also that pirate ship stage in 2 sucks major donkey ass. That controls like garbage I'm sorry. Also you can just sidestep to get the creatures you need to slowly sneak towards. Makes them much more manageable. Also while it may be true that the blue things you have to use first person view to get points for can break the flow if you're thinking about it casually, if you think about the combo system and also the fact that power ups double your score, you are then thinking about if a power up is close to you when you find one, and if you can manage to get one quickly while not killing your combo (which is a lot harder than it sounds), and since those things give like 250 points a piece normally, it can feel really gratifying to get them while maintaining your combo. And the reason I say all this is important, is because unlocking all the minigames requires a pretty hefty high score, and requires you to be pretty decent at the game. And yeah there are 1 or 2 minigames that are kinda eh, most of them are incredibly underrated, and IMO a much better reward for 100% completion than what 1 or 2 did. You get 2 really fun shooter minigames with Razoff, a long gauntlet with the shock rocket power up that really makes sure you know how to maneuvre through obstacles well, a long platforming challenge above a bottomless pit, that throwback to Rayman 1 featured in this very video (though that one is a little weird given the game's physics in that minigame are kinda wack), and the Gamecube version has 2 cool minigames where you get other people to make a track for you on the GBA. I always hear that these minigames are a worthless addition, and as someone who nearly always plays this game to unlock and play all the minigames, I just don't understand it at all. The worst one would probably be the Racket Jump minigame, which is a mediocre game of tennis. Other than that the minigames are all very fun and challenging, especially since you criticized the developers for running out of ideas, where I feel these bonus games show that they still had plenty left in the tank even after the main game was said and done. It should also be worth noting that I just love the general atmosphere of Rayman 3. The music and tone just fits perfectly. And I love how the game does a good job with easing the player into the more tense situations. Your first 2 worlds are typical standard Rayman fare, (it's worth noting that the visuals and music of The Fairy Council are simply magical), but then you get into The Bog of Murk which starts bringing the game into more weird and out there territory with the kinds of characters and environments you see. Afterwards the game puts a break on the madness and puts you in The Land of the Livid Dead, which is a far more peaceful and relaxing environment. Which then leads into the nightmare induced Desert of the Knaaren. And the game knows how much of a jump in intensity that was, so the next world is just a nice platforming gauntlet to calm things down a bit, with a happy little snow level after. Which is finally followed up by the final 2 worlds of the game, where it throws everything at you. To me, Rayman 3 has some of the best pacing of any 3D platformer, and I love how seamlessly each world goes into the next. You aren't going through a world map or something, you are going on one big adventure where one level transitions right into the next. I can't think of many other games that handled things quite like that. (It should also be worth noting that I never minded the heavier emphasis on combat in this game, because it's generally one of, if not my favourite combat system in any platformer ever. Or even most video games tbh.)
Christ almighty man, I really respect your passion for Rayman 3 lol. Honestly it really isn't a terrible game and I can see why people love it, it's just not for me tbh. Sorry if this a rather inadequate response, you're multi-paragraph comment honestly has left me a little speechless.
if anyone wonders what the french inverview at 2:07 means it goes -rayman! you've always wanted to do this job? -yeah -is your hair color natural? -yep -and for the stunts you're doubled, right? -nope -maybe you could show us? *hellish approval from rayman followed by gametrailer*
Me and my little brother got Rayman 3 in Christmas back in 2003. And we played that game on repeat the whole year. Such a awesome game. I also realised this year will be the 20th year in a row for me hoping getting a new Rayman game. What a sad reality! 💀
Why? Just because you love it so much doesn’t mean you have to argue with any critiques of it from others, since by “defend” you mean argue against critics. Fans feeling the need to defend games is exactly what makes toxic positivity a thing.
I think some of the reasons why we don't really see Rayman on par with other B-grade mascots are: 1) Tonal/gameplay inconsistency. As a kid I never really got what Rayman was about cause going from 1 to 2 to 3 felt like pretty different settings/tones. 1 is whimsical, 2 is a moody adventure, 3 is kinda cartoony/slapstick. It always struck to me like Rayman's setting wasn't too important and that he/his cast were more of actors to facilitate a type of gameplay/game the designers wanted to make at the time. It's not like a seriously damning thing, and to be honest it's not like Mario/Sonic don't get rebooted and reinterpreted often, but Mario/Sonic compensate by just how frequently they release titles and side material to justify it. Sonic is extremely messy from how many different settings he's been in but there's at least enough of each setting that you see people getting attached to it. But those are A-grade mascots who have way more money behind them. Rayman is better compared to Spyro and Crash, and those guys all had whole trilogies on their respective consoles that built up their presence and sense of cohesion, because they stuck with the same base gameplay and art style. 2) Rayman debuted as a 2D platformer in the age of 3D being realized. While in hindsight many of us can appreciate it for what it is, at the time a lot of magazines and gaming coverage did perceive 2D as old hat in comparison and didn't prior consoles, same thing with the high quality music. It's aged way better than most 3D titles from that time. But for the average gamer at the time, I think there was this bias building up against 2D as playing it safe and not pushing the medium forward. That's not even getting into the difficulty which, yeah, as a kid? Prevented my from seeing much of it past the music levels. So I never got that full experience of the game like I did with other mascot platformers. And from what I've heard, was a similar experience as other people. So, while it was/is a solid 2D platformer, it's not making the same kind of impression as Crash 1 and Spyro 1, which I think affected how later games were received, having to stand on their own more despite being sequels. I don't recall hearing any hype/speculation with Rayman 2 as a followup like I did with Crash 2, Spyro 2, etc.
@@raymondtillotson6985 id like to proclaim the first mentally ill pro gamer but they got whole ass leagues of valorant players out there i cant fucking compete in that category
regarding the live/continue system in rayman 1 - it's indeed almost impressive how stupid it is. you could make a save with 1 live and 0 continues left after beating a hard level and basically soft-lock yourself
Great video man, I played all these games as a kid and loved them. I never got past Band Land in Rayman 1 as a kid but played the hell out of Rayman 2 & 3, and was great to look back at them as an adult, warts and all
tbh i love the jokes of rayman 3. yes, some i dont understamd and some are.. really from the bottom (like piss jokes, fart jokes, that type of humor) but i have really bad sense of humor. the game just makes me laugh with its jokes.
I get why you're critical about Rayman 3, but the way you comment on its humor and some of its quirks (like the shoe racing segments and combo mode) make me think you just hate fun.
1:04:37 In the PS1 version, it's revealed that the Teensies communicated with Umber and he agreed to help Rayman, hense why you never actually fight him. He even gives you advice on how to beat the assassin pirates following that moment.
Fun fact: The PlayStation Classic contains the NTSC version of Rayman but because it’s run on an Open-Source emulator via the internal storage of the PSClassic it’s SO MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. I tried playing it and barely got past Moskito then put it down because I didn’t wanna put myself through the stress hahaha.
I never played Rayman 1. But I enjoyed 2 and 3 a lot. They were very scary though, for the longest time I could not get past Rayman 2 Cave of Nightmares and Rayman 3 Desert. I would always play to that point, get scared and start over because I wanted to play the game more. Only a couple years later I finished both. The Netflix show was fun :)
Man I LOVED Rayman 3! It was by far my favorite. A lot of the things you didn't like about 3 I found really awesome. It had such beautiful and atmospheric levels. Even to this day, some of the levels' atmospheres are incredible compared to new games.
I remember being a kid and my grandparents buying Rayman 1 on the sega saturn... my cousins and sister gave up on it shortly after, but i persisted until i finally beat it after many, many long childhood hours. I later picked up the gba port, and even now occasionally revisit it... i find the difficulty comforting for some sadistic reason... probably because it reminds me of having all that time in my childhood. Also picked up rayman 2 on the n64, which came with a video cassette with a couple episodes of the Rayman cartoon on it... with Rayman voiced by Billy West... cursed indeed. EDIT: I posted this when you were talking about Rayman 2, because it brought back memories... never played rayman 3, so had no idea Billy West had anything else to do with the series! Thats so cool!
Fun fact, the OG Rayman Rabbids (Which had it's prototype leaked, and the Rayman community exploded) is actually the SECOND version of Rayman 4 (Which still got cancelled) there was a Rayman 4 in development BEFORE the rabbids version... Rayman 4 got scrapped... Not once... But TWICE!
@@danhalencool Ahhh! Okay! Makes sense! I just find it funny (And ridiculous) that a game literally teased in the previous game, was cancelled... Not once........ But twice! And technically a third time if we count the creator of Rayman promising Rayman 4 then retiring XD
Just started watching this. At 1:40 I should add that Rayman 1 was one of the most successful PS1 games in the UK, staying in the charts for a majority of the system's life cycle. For a time at least until the Rabbids incident he was definitely a household name here.
Rayman 1 was nice.... I recall playing it when I was in primary school. The gameplay and platform was just challenging enough. I really don't know how me and my friend 9 years old then can finish this game.
What did you think of the music in Rayman 3, because i love the soundtrack of the game especially land of the living dead. All of rayman’s games have amazing soundtrack.
Also great probably on par with Rayman 2 honestly. I just didn't talk about it much because I feel like I would've been repeating a lot of what I already said. As for my favorite track apart from the snowboard race, I'd probably say either the hoodstomper or the final boss theme.
My first introduction to rayman 2 was the ps2 version, so when i got the N64 version years later, I was confused as to why there wasn't a hub world and thought I had dreamt it up.
The Rayman „TV-Series“ also had a german dub. It was promoted as a movie and was shown several Times on one of our Kids TV-channel. So sad that it wasn‘t a full series.
On my way through Rayman 1 and Rayman 2 on PS3. I don't often get energy to actually turn that console on (since it's not handheld, it's kinda hard to find the time or energy), but this vid certainly made me want to play them some more. Love them both so far. Rayman 3 is a part of my childhood, in the sense that Kellogg's (I think) had 3 different Demo discs you could get when buying cereal. Each disc had one level in common, I think, and two levels that were unique for each disc - and I loved these levels to death. I don't think they were full levels, but they were long enough to be fun, and the game really worked in small chunks. It also made the point system make more sense. When I later got Rayman 3 on PS2, though, I agree with you that it dragged. Rayman 3 have some really fun parts, but as a whole, it really isn't that fun. Buying the whole game kind of destroyed the game for me :P Always thought the blue power-up was fun though. Love those beartraps, badass as h*ll.
That's actually super interesting, I never knew that Rayman 3 demo discs came bundled with Kellogg's. I know they did that for Tonic Trouble in Canada and it turned out to be a complete disaster since they accidentally gave out discs for a super early beta version of the game.
IT LOCKS ON TO HIS WHAT NOW? the amount of anger I feel right now with that STUPID scorpion is of astronomical proportions. Also, that one level with the pencils where you have to do nothing at all and that makes the jump, is burned into my old brain as if it was yesterday it was 1999 and i played rayman 1. When I realized that, I damn near had a bloody meltdown for actually figuring it out, because it felt like the game was just mocking me at that point. Like it was saying HA you idiot, you didnt even have to do anything. It was all your own fault for trying to play the game.
The argument that they couldn't make Rayman throw his fists in Rayman 2 while also making it 'look good' immediately flies out the window when you realise that in both Rayman 1 and Rayman 3, his fists never actually leave his body. He basically fires an additional fish from the one "attached" to him. It's something that always bugged me. The character's whole MO isn't even cohesive to the gameplay.
Rayman revolution has wayyy more enemies but also a lot more content. The powers you get are different and you start only able to physically punch whatever is immediately in front of you. You also get to fight the 4th guardian for the mask instead of globox kids finding it in the mines
This retrospective was a fucking banger ! I loved everything from start to finish, especially the honesty you put in your reviews and the somewhat deep emotional messages here and there mix with a well-dosed bunch of «fucks» and «shit» !! Esti que c'était bon. Rayman 4 tabarnak !!!
God I fucking love Rayman. Never touched any of that rabbid shit but 1-3, origins and legends are the fucking shit. Love those little digital pieces of heaven.
I remember getting Rabbids thinking it was the next installment of the Rayman series. Man! Was I wrong, biggest video game regret I ever made. They even phased out Rayman, and made a tv series on Nickelodeon based on the Rabbids.
@@XzyroKyxalain the childhood I also was disappointed, I was hoping after escaping the cell the real game would start, boy was I wrong. Later on however it somewhat became fun. Literally yesterday played it with my friend after grabbing a couple of cocktails lol.
Oh my goodness Rayman 2 was my first in 64 game and I love it to The ends of the world I've replayed that game so many times The music everything about it makes me smile, even the parts that kinda creeped 8yo me out and gave me nightmares as a teen i loved it and as an adult I still replay it and it holds up the test of time
1:25:21 they have. You have two lockjaws, so you can grapple onto a hook even while you're already swinging off another. That's new Another thing: the percentage at the end of each section isn't combo related, but rather it depends on how many collectibles you find. They do give up points, but it's a matter of quantity rather than score, and some hidden areas are REALLY hard to find. I honestly like it a lot, it encourages replayability
Nice breakdown. There's a hidden secret for Rayman 2's final boss fight, making the 2nd half significantly faster when utilised. I also appreciate how one can get the final lum in Rayman 2
@@danhalencool At the 2nd stage, if you fly up to the highest point when you press and hold (I think) the fire and jump buttons, just before hitting the ceiling "Rayman will be transported to a hidden area in which the player must dodge barriers in his way. Upon reaching the end of this area, Rayman will be transported back to the main area with infinite shots, signified by the shots changing color to blue".
Absolutely loved this, great look back at one of my favourite franchises! Im one of those loosers whose managed to get to the point i can mostly clock 1 with relative ease, but as you said in the video its around picture city where the game full on just doesnt want you to live anymore, even to this day being able to complete the game on the continues it gives you ill slowly start to loose lives to the bs in the levels following picture city. You earned a sub! Do you think youll cover anymore lesser known older ps platformer titles like the gex trilogy Or croc 1 and 2 for example? Either way great video bro ill be sure to stick around and see what else you pop out! :)
I'd love to cover older ps platformers especially since I didn't grow up with a lot of them. Sadly unless if they get ported to PC or become abandonware, I can't do much since I only have a PS4 rn. Thankfully I've heard the Gex trilogy is getting a remake and I think I'm safe to play Croc 1 & 2 since they're both abandonware. I've also heard that Tomba is getting remake as well so I'm excited for that!
I had the Ps2 version of Rayman 2 and i love it dearly to this day. It has this ver unique atmosphere like a dark fairytale. I always say its Neverland with robots.
I guess Rayman 1 is hard, but I was 14 when it came out, and we didn't have the Internet to complain to, so I just played it. I beat it without any cheats, but my biggest workaround for the difficulty was just grinding through Allegro Presto a TON. It's not too long, and there are enough tings to get a few extra lives each time. I always saved near that level, and played it at least once every time I sat down and loaded the game. It's still one of my favorite games of all time, and I replay it at least once every couple of years. (BTW, you can also duck under those jumping fish in Eat at Joe's, and speedrun videos always amaze me at how easy they make it look.) I hadn't heard about the Redemption version so I'll check it out.
I knew you could duck underneath the fish but it didn't really work out for me. I prefer just spam punching through them. Also yeah I could see how the absence of the internet made Rayman 1's difficulty something that was just brushed aside. Along with the fact that difficult games were sort of a standard back then.
Hell yeah man, I plan on covering mostly everything Rayman related. Except for the TV show since I wanna strictly stick to doing video game content. And most of the Rabbids games because I just don't really wanna waste my time with them. Also your name looks really familiar, I feel like I've seen you on twitter, reddit, or maybe even the pirate community.
tbh as of rabbids games, the most worth ones are the first one, the whole leaked prototype and the mario+rabbids games. while i do enjoy the rabbids whole lot, i have to agree, most of those are just minigame collections
@@sollumi3014 I've also heard good things about Rabbids Go Home, I wouldn't really know however since I've never played it. Also I do really want to cover the Rayman Raving Rabbids prototype because it's just way too cool to ignore even if it's incredibly janky.
Ah so that's where the costumes from the Rayman DLC in Mario and Rabbids: Sparks of Hope came in. It would be kind of nifty if Rayman got all of those costumes rather than just 2 of them, but I guess Rabbid Mario is the power house and the game naturally lets him swing on purple lums and the sparks give the ability to shock enemies so only the Tornado and Rocket offer unique combat abilities anyway. Plus it kind of reinforces that Rayman himself is more about movement and repositioning enemies so Rabbid Mario can do his damage and Peach keeps you alive.
I loved Rayman 3 so much as a kid, when I was around 11 it was just about the only game I would play every day after getting home from school. Then one day I beat the game and didn't touch it for years after that. Then I played the game again when I was about 17 and beat it once again. I think I tried to play it again some time after that, but my old disk was scratched up and the game was unplayable. Thought about getting a PS2 emulator just so I can play it again,after watching this video.
1:26:09 That was actually funny, it breaks the 4th wall because, well, the new power ups aren't that great and the developers are aware of it, so the make fun of themselves.
Having watched a dozen reviews of Rayman, I come to the conclusion that people have different criticism when it comes to the second part (which is very overrated) and whining mode turns on in the third. Hey God, just say that you played the second part for the first time and that's why you don't like the third part. On the contrary, I think that the third part is the pinnacle of Rayman. This is what Rayman can and should be. Even the reboot in the form of Origins and Legends will agree with me.
I have fond memories of Rayman 1. But to be fair I played it on the DSi, where you have infinite continues and 5 hitpoints instead of 3. Oddly enough, it also had achievements for beating the game without continues
I wish I could go tell myself as a young kid to enjoy rayman 3 more. Because that would be the last 3D rayman for nearly 20 years. For the record I prefer rayman 2 but 3 improved the combat and game feel immensely. The comedy just really didn’t land with me and I missed stuff like the sliding sections from 2
Came for this video (but saw some of your other videos first.) Your french on "Michel Ancel" is really good (compared to you Monpellier. The "l" souds more to "r" the way you said it) btw. My only direct contact with the series as a kid was playing some of Rayman 2 on my DS (Via R4 cartridge) as a kid. I never completed it because the R4 it was on stopped working. I really digged the aesthetic as a kid.
Yeah lol like I said I'm not french, I literally looked up how to pronounce Montpellier and tried to replicate it as best as I could. Michel Ancel is a lot easier for me to say because I've heard it so many times in other videos. Had to look up what an R4 cartridge is, honestly I've never seen or heard of those things before. Though it brings me back to days when I had an Action Replay card. I remember I slapped so many cheats onto NSMB with that thing that the game straight up crashed every time on startup. It made me really sad, I really liked that game.
Ugh, Rayman 3's animation to voice-acting desync caused me to never play the game. When the game came out I was young and had no money, so I decided to pirate the game, and when I noticed that desync issue, I thought it was the fault of the pirate download that I had, so I tried again to the same results. "The game can't actually be like that", I thought, so I decided to save-up and buy the game legitimately. Took me a few months, but I finally achieved it, and... there was still desync. At that point I reasoned that the problem lies is my potato pc that I had at the time, and I just knew I couldn't play the game like that so I left it. Years later, once I did start having my own money, I got into gaming pc's and built myself one. At some point I got nostalgia for the Rayman series and played them again, and when I got to the 3rd entry with my beefed-up pc... THERE WAS STILL DESYNC! I thought I was doing something wrong, so I took to the internet to find some installation guide, but found non. As a last resort, I went to RUclips to watch let's-plays of the game, that finally confirmed that my much younger self's assertion that Ubisoft wouldn't really release a game in such a state, was wrong! So yeah, in all my life I've only ever played the first level of Rayman 3. I could play it despite the desync, of course, but I find it too distracting, and I just don't care for that game anymore. The relatively newer Origins and Legends are better games anyway (Rayman 2 is still the best). As for Rayman 1's difficulty I don't know. I first played that game when I was 7, I think, and I found it really hard indeed, but I did manage to beat it. When I was in highschool I tried playing it again, and found it wasn't that hard. Sure there were some hard parts, but nothing that I really got stuck at. It was just a charming game that offered some difficulty. I've since played the game many more times and I still feel the same. (The game forcing you to 100% complete it was and is still bs though). I've played Redemption, and it is indeed a superior game in every aspect, but there is still some charm in the ps1's original.
the music throughout rayman 3 is so incredible... one of the best soundtracks of all time imo
RUclips randomly recommended me this video and I couldn't say no. I'm a sucker for well thought out Rayman retrospectives, and this one did not disappoint! Keep up the great work. ^^
YOOOOOO thanks for the kind words man, I appreciate it!
Rayman 2 is one of the greatest platformers ever.. Its incredible. Ubisoft really need to remake Rayman 2, it just makes so much sense too given how remakes are thriving in the industry right now with the crash remakes or the resident evil remakes. Rayman doesnt deserve to be forgotten
Rayman 3 is one of my favorite games of all time
Tell me about it, dreamed that there sequel to it.
Try going for 700K. You will love it even more
I hear you, Rayman 3 was one of my favorite Childhood Games
During a time where all platformers were becoming combat focused, Rayman 3 is the only one that really hits it perfectly. The level design was built around combat. True, you’re usually fighting in some type of arena, but you’re doing it in a different way each time. I just wish they made it harder so you had to put more thought into how you’re going to approach combat
Rayman 3 gameplay with Rayman 2 storybuilding would probably just be the greatest platformer ever
Man, I loved everything about Rayman 3 as a kid. Gameplay, music, even jokes. Replayed it a few years ago and it still holds up pretty well! I love Rayman 2 as well, but 3 was always the top one for me.
Rayman 2 is absolutely S tier. I picked that game up on a whim as a kid for $6 at a pawn shop and it sticks in my mind as one of my all-time favorites
I played it for the first time in my mid-20s, so no nostalgia for me, and it still completely blew my mind how good it was. It was everything I never knew I wanted from a 3D platformer.
@@turntsnaco824 It holds up pretty damn well
I'm curious which platform you guys played them on. There are some differences between them.
@@EuroMIX2 I have the N64 version. I’ve played the 3DS version and it is ass. I find the dark colors and anti-aliasing of the N64 works really well with games that have a grittier atmosphere, like Rayman 2 and Ocarina of Time. But I would love to play the Dreamcast version if I had a Dreamcast, as I’ve heard that’s the definitive version of the game
Calling Rayman 2 an S tier game definitely isn’t a stretch, I’d count it alongside the best 3D platformers of the time like Mario 64, Sonic Adventure 2, LoK: Soul Reaver, and the Jak and Daxter Trilogy.
Rayman 3 has a place in my heart forever
The thing that blows my mind about Rayman 2 is that is is an N64 game, released only a few years after Super Mario 64. I never played it on original hardware but having such strong art direction and some pretty fast-paces setpieces made it a classic for me, on par with Super Mario 64. I replayed Rayman 3 not too long ago and it holds up too by having fantastic controls and retaining that skewed and dream-like art direction despite having a bit of edge to its jokes.
Rayman 3 is definetly the best one in the series, its ridiculously good.
Rayman 3 is just 👌
Correct opinion
It's the one I grew up with.
Rayman 3 is the best
Rayman 1 is the best
@@KingQuattouh no
In the wise words of Murphy: "SEE YOU IN RAYMAN 4!"
Rayman 4 is the atlantis of platform gaming.
Crazy we actually have playable prototype now. Beating up Rabbids hack N slash style is amazing
It sit in the void along with lost city of Half Life 3
I basically disagreed with everything you said about Rayman 3 lmao. I don't think it drags at all. If anything I wish the game was longer and had more levels. And I feel like the levels themselves generally have a good pace to them where you are always doing something, mainly due to the combo system which IMO elevates the game a lot. It's so fun to try and get a good run as opposed to just playing casually.
Also while Rayman 2 may have better variety, I feel like 2's quality is all over the place. Some of these gimmicks really needed to be fine tuned, because stuff like the missiles are extremely tempremental, and I've had moments where they just end up blowing up on me for seemingly no reason. I've never really had that in 3. And I just find the level design more fun, given the flow I already mentioned, and I just like it's gimmicks more. Especially the funkyboard/Teensie Highway stages. Those completely blow the missile stages in 2 out of the water if you ask me. Also that pirate ship stage in 2 sucks major donkey ass. That controls like garbage I'm sorry.
Also you can just sidestep to get the creatures you need to slowly sneak towards. Makes them much more manageable. Also while it may be true that the blue things you have to use first person view to get points for can break the flow if you're thinking about it casually, if you think about the combo system and also the fact that power ups double your score, you are then thinking about if a power up is close to you when you find one, and if you can manage to get one quickly while not killing your combo (which is a lot harder than it sounds), and since those things give like 250 points a piece normally, it can feel really gratifying to get them while maintaining your combo.
And the reason I say all this is important, is because unlocking all the minigames requires a pretty hefty high score, and requires you to be pretty decent at the game. And yeah there are 1 or 2 minigames that are kinda eh, most of them are incredibly underrated, and IMO a much better reward for 100% completion than what 1 or 2 did. You get 2 really fun shooter minigames with Razoff, a long gauntlet with the shock rocket power up that really makes sure you know how to maneuvre through obstacles well, a long platforming challenge above a bottomless pit, that throwback to Rayman 1 featured in this very video (though that one is a little weird given the game's physics in that minigame are kinda wack), and the Gamecube version has 2 cool minigames where you get other people to make a track for you on the GBA. I always hear that these minigames are a worthless addition, and as someone who nearly always plays this game to unlock and play all the minigames, I just don't understand it at all. The worst one would probably be the Racket Jump minigame, which is a mediocre game of tennis. Other than that the minigames are all very fun and challenging, especially since you criticized the developers for running out of ideas, where I feel these bonus games show that they still had plenty left in the tank even after the main game was said and done.
It should also be worth noting that I just love the general atmosphere of Rayman 3. The music and tone just fits perfectly. And I love how the game does a good job with easing the player into the more tense situations. Your first 2 worlds are typical standard Rayman fare, (it's worth noting that the visuals and music of The Fairy Council are simply magical), but then you get into The Bog of Murk which starts bringing the game into more weird and out there territory with the kinds of characters and environments you see. Afterwards the game puts a break on the madness and puts you in The Land of the Livid Dead, which is a far more peaceful and relaxing environment. Which then leads into the nightmare induced Desert of the Knaaren. And the game knows how much of a jump in intensity that was, so the next world is just a nice platforming gauntlet to calm things down a bit, with a happy little snow level after. Which is finally followed up by the final 2 worlds of the game, where it throws everything at you. To me, Rayman 3 has some of the best pacing of any 3D platformer, and I love how seamlessly each world goes into the next. You aren't going through a world map or something, you are going on one big adventure where one level transitions right into the next. I can't think of many other games that handled things quite like that.
(It should also be worth noting that I never minded the heavier emphasis on combat in this game, because it's generally one of, if not my favourite combat system in any platformer ever. Or even most video games tbh.)
Christ almighty man, I really respect your passion for Rayman 3 lol. Honestly it really isn't a terrible game and I can see why people love it, it's just not for me tbh. Sorry if this a rather inadequate response, you're multi-paragraph comment honestly has left me a little speechless.
Loool no worries dude@@danhalencool
Rayman 3 is the best for me, that desert level, the snow level, the shoe races, its like it had both 1 and 2's head and cracked em together
"The power to hang!"
That'll be kinda difficult without a neck..
My favorite Teensy line from Rayman 3: I need to go walk my flowers and water my dog~
if anyone wonders what the french inverview at 2:07 means it goes
-rayman! you've always wanted to do this job?
-yeah
-is your hair color natural?
-yep
-and for the stunts you're doubled, right?
-nope
-maybe you could show us?
*hellish approval from rayman followed by gametrailer*
"I tried my best but I'm not French" - totally taking that and using it out of context!
Me and my little brother got Rayman 3 in Christmas back in 2003. And we played that game on repeat the whole year. Such a awesome game.
I also realised this year will be the 20th year in a row for me hoping getting a new Rayman game. What a sad reality! 💀
I wanna fucking die looking at rayman with arms
Rayman 3 is one of my favorite games of all time and I will defend it no matter what.
Why? Just because you love it so much doesn’t mean you have to argue with any critiques of it from others, since by “defend” you mean argue against critics.
Fans feeling the need to defend games is exactly what makes toxic positivity a thing.
The music SLAPS, in all the games.
Rayman as a series peaked at the Hoodoo sorcerer theme and you can't convince me otherwise
That Rayman 2 rating is BASED
Be blessed by the algorithm, good man.
The least you can receive for such piece of work you made.
I think some of the reasons why we don't really see Rayman on par with other B-grade mascots are:
1) Tonal/gameplay inconsistency. As a kid I never really got what Rayman was about cause going from 1 to 2 to 3 felt like pretty different settings/tones. 1 is whimsical, 2 is a moody adventure, 3 is kinda cartoony/slapstick. It always struck to me like Rayman's setting wasn't too important and that he/his cast were more of actors to facilitate a type of gameplay/game the designers wanted to make at the time.
It's not like a seriously damning thing, and to be honest it's not like Mario/Sonic don't get rebooted and reinterpreted often, but Mario/Sonic compensate by just how frequently they release titles and side material to justify it. Sonic is extremely messy from how many different settings he's been in but there's at least enough of each setting that you see people getting attached to it. But those are A-grade mascots who have way more money behind them. Rayman is better compared to Spyro and Crash, and those guys all had whole trilogies on their respective consoles that built up their presence and sense of cohesion, because they stuck with the same base gameplay and art style.
2) Rayman debuted as a 2D platformer in the age of 3D being realized. While in hindsight many of us can appreciate it for what it is, at the time a lot of magazines and gaming coverage did perceive 2D as old hat in comparison and didn't prior consoles, same thing with the high quality music. It's aged way better than most 3D titles from that time. But for the average gamer at the time, I think there was this bias building up against 2D as playing it safe and not pushing the medium forward.
That's not even getting into the difficulty which, yeah, as a kid? Prevented my from seeing much of it past the music levels. So I never got that full experience of the game like I did with other mascot platformers. And from what I've heard, was a similar experience as other people.
So, while it was/is a solid 2D platformer, it's not making the same kind of impression as Crash 1 and Spyro 1, which I think affected how later games were received, having to stand on their own more despite being sequels. I don't recall hearing any hype/speculation with Rayman 2 as a followup like I did with Crash 2, Spyro 2, etc.
beat rayman 1 on my first playthrough without cheats, not because im a gamer pro but because im mentally ill
If you weren't before you will be now...
@@raymondtillotson6985 id like to proclaim the first mentally ill pro gamer but they got whole ass leagues of valorant players out there i cant fucking compete in that category
@@cutetrapchicken The first mentally ill pro gamer played some sweet Pong, we're all following in his footsteps.
Wow, super quality video on a truly magical and whimsical series!
I always thought "Man named Ray" was only used for full-page advertisements. Seeing the whole TV commercial was traumatic.
regarding the live/continue system in rayman 1 - it's indeed almost impressive how stupid it is. you could make a save with 1 live and 0 continues left after beating a hard level and basically soft-lock yourself
Great video man, I played all these games as a kid and loved them. I never got past Band Land in Rayman 1 as a kid but played the hell out of Rayman 2 & 3, and was great to look back at them as an adult, warts and all
You know? Maybe they should release a collection of all three games.
Which comes with infinite lives/continues for the first game, of course.
You want the first game to include a dumb bitch mode?
@@XXXXX8no a pussified- err i mean a modernized version
tbh i love the jokes of rayman 3. yes, some i dont understamd and some are.. really from the bottom (like piss jokes, fart jokes, that type of humor) but i have really bad sense of humor. the game just makes me laugh with its jokes.
I get why you're critical about Rayman 3, but the way you comment on its humor and some of its quirks (like the shoe racing segments and combo mode) make me think you just hate fun.
you can punch the fishes in Joes level
Crazy how were getting gta 6 before rayman 4
petuh the horse is here
1:04:37
In the PS1 version, it's revealed that the Teensies communicated with Umber and he agreed to help Rayman, hense why you never actually fight him. He even gives you advice on how to beat the assassin pirates following that moment.
Fun fact:
The PlayStation Classic contains the NTSC version of Rayman but because it’s run on an Open-Source emulator via the internal storage of the PSClassic it’s SO MUCH MORE DIFFICULT. I tried playing it and barely got past Moskito then put it down because I didn’t wanna put myself through the stress hahaha.
You can just duck and the piranhas will jump over you, actually. Not very obvious, but it makes it way easier.
I never played Rayman 1. But I enjoyed 2 and 3 a lot. They were very scary though, for the longest time I could not get past Rayman 2 Cave of Nightmares and Rayman 3 Desert. I would always play to that point, get scared and start over because I wanted to play the game more.
Only a couple years later I finished both.
The Netflix show was fun :)
Man I LOVED Rayman 3! It was by far my favorite.
A lot of the things you didn't like about 3 I found really awesome. It had such beautiful and atmospheric levels. Even to this day, some of the levels' atmospheres are incredible compared to new games.
I remember being a kid and my grandparents buying Rayman 1 on the sega saturn... my cousins and sister gave up on it shortly after, but i persisted until i finally beat it after many, many long childhood hours. I later picked up the gba port, and even now occasionally revisit it... i find the difficulty comforting for some sadistic reason... probably because it reminds me of having all that time in my childhood.
Also picked up rayman 2 on the n64, which came with a video cassette with a couple episodes of the Rayman cartoon on it... with Rayman voiced by Billy West... cursed indeed.
EDIT: I posted this when you were talking about Rayman 2, because it brought back memories... never played rayman 3, so had no idea Billy West had anything else to do with the series! Thats so cool!
Fun fact, the OG Rayman Rabbids (Which had it's prototype leaked, and the Rayman community exploded) is actually the SECOND version of Rayman 4 (Which still got cancelled) there was a Rayman 4 in development BEFORE the rabbids version... Rayman 4 got scrapped... Not once... But TWICE!
I am aware of the other Rayman 4 that was being developed by Phoenix Studio, saving that topic for when I got around to covering the RRR prototype.
@@danhalencool Ahhh! Okay! Makes sense! I just find it funny (And ridiculous) that a game literally teased in the previous game, was cancelled... Not once........ But twice! And technically a third time if we count the creator of Rayman promising Rayman 4 then retiring XD
16:25 Ah yes, the bane of my childhood... That part is one of the only things I actually remember from playing it as a kid (And the section before)
The Marshes of Awakening and Cave of Bad Dreams tracks are also stellar...honestly just the whole Rayman 2 soundtrack is criminally underrated.
the first rayman ost hits me so hard
I love your content bro due to I watched your Lucius one and two review
Thanks man! I hope you stick around I've got some really interesting stuff that I plan on doing soon.
@@danhalencool don’t worry bro I will for sure
Just started watching this. At 1:40 I should add that Rayman 1 was one of the most successful PS1 games in the UK, staying in the charts for a majority of the system's life cycle. For a time at least until the Rabbids incident he was definitely a household name here.
Rayman 1 was nice.... I recall playing it when I was in primary school. The gameplay and platform was just challenging enough.
I really don't know how me and my friend 9 years old then can finish this game.
I remember watching my sister play this when I was a kid. Some of our first bounding experiences
I appreciate your sense of humour dude :) Made me crack up a few times throughout the video!
What did you think of the music in Rayman 3, because i love the soundtrack of the game especially land of the living dead. All of rayman’s games have amazing soundtrack.
Also great probably on par with Rayman 2 honestly. I just didn't talk about it much because I feel like I would've been repeating a lot of what I already said. As for my favorite track apart from the snowboard race, I'd probably say either the hoodstomper or the final boss theme.
The snowboard sequence can be played as long as you like if you just go slow during the narrow part and let globox reach the ice first
My first introduction to rayman 2 was the ps2 version, so when i got the N64 version years later, I was confused as to why there wasn't a hub world and thought I had dreamt it up.
honestly my fav rayman was rayman arena!
Same! But only when my cousin was around since it was more fun that way. Rayman 3 also slapped.
The Rayman „TV-Series“ also had a german dub. It was promoted as a movie and was shown several Times on one of our Kids TV-channel. So sad that it wasn‘t a full series.
On my way through Rayman 1 and Rayman 2 on PS3. I don't often get energy to actually turn that console on (since it's not handheld, it's kinda hard to find the time or energy), but this vid certainly made me want to play them some more. Love them both so far.
Rayman 3 is a part of my childhood, in the sense that Kellogg's (I think) had 3 different Demo discs you could get when buying cereal. Each disc had one level in common, I think, and two levels that were unique for each disc - and I loved these levels to death. I don't think they were full levels, but they were long enough to be fun, and the game really worked in small chunks. It also made the point system make more sense. When I later got Rayman 3 on PS2, though, I agree with you that it dragged. Rayman 3 have some really fun parts, but as a whole, it really isn't that fun. Buying the whole game kind of destroyed the game for me :P
Always thought the blue power-up was fun though. Love those beartraps, badass as h*ll.
That's actually super interesting, I never knew that Rayman 3 demo discs came bundled with Kellogg's. I know they did that for Tonic Trouble in Canada and it turned out to be a complete disaster since they accidentally gave out discs for a super early beta version of the game.
Rayman Origins and Legends duology retrospective when
One could say Ubisoft went just a little overport on Rayman 2
IT LOCKS ON TO HIS WHAT NOW? the amount of anger I feel right now with that STUPID scorpion is of astronomical proportions. Also, that one level with the pencils where you have to do nothing at all and that makes the jump, is burned into my old brain as if it was yesterday it was 1999 and i played rayman 1. When I realized that, I damn near had a bloody meltdown for actually figuring it out, because it felt like the game was just mocking me at that point. Like it was saying HA you idiot, you didnt even have to do anything. It was all your own fault for trying to play the game.
Great vid! Hope your get blessed by the algorithm more 🙏
The argument that they couldn't make Rayman throw his fists in Rayman 2 while also making it 'look good' immediately flies out the window when you realise that in both Rayman 1 and Rayman 3, his fists never actually leave his body. He basically fires an additional fish from the one "attached" to him. It's something that always bugged me. The character's whole MO isn't even cohesive to the gameplay.
Rayman revolution has wayyy more enemies but also a lot more content. The powers you get are different and you start only able to physically punch whatever is immediately in front of you. You also get to fight the 4th guardian for the mask instead of globox kids finding it in the mines
This retrospective was a fucking banger ! I loved everything from start to finish, especially the honesty you put in your reviews and the somewhat deep emotional messages here and there mix with a well-dosed bunch of «fucks» and «shit» !! Esti que c'était bon. Rayman 4 tabarnak !!!
So glad i found rayman 3 on GOG Galaxy to play on pc ^^
God I fucking love Rayman. Never touched any of that rabbid shit but 1-3, origins and legends are the fucking shit. Love those little digital pieces of heaven.
I remember getting Rabbids thinking it was the next installment of the Rayman series. Man! Was I wrong, biggest video game regret I ever made. They even phased out Rayman, and made a tv series on Nickelodeon based on the Rabbids.
@@XzyroKyxalain the childhood I also was disappointed, I was hoping after escaping the cell the real game would start, boy was I wrong. Later on however it somewhat became fun. Literally yesterday played it with my friend after grabbing a couple of cocktails lol.
You might enjoy the ds version, more of a platformer with power up costumes, like the original concept.
Oh my goodness Rayman 2 was my first in 64 game and I love it to The ends of the world I've replayed that game so many times The music everything about it makes me smile, even the parts that kinda creeped 8yo me out and gave me nightmares as a teen i loved it and as an adult I still replay it and it holds up the test of time
I Love Rayman 3
1:25:21 they have. You have two lockjaws, so you can grapple onto a hook even while you're already swinging off another. That's new
Another thing: the percentage at the end of each section isn't combo related, but rather it depends on how many collectibles you find. They do give up points, but it's a matter of quantity rather than score, and some hidden areas are REALLY hard to find. I honestly like it a lot, it encourages replayability
Nice breakdown. There's a hidden secret for Rayman 2's final boss fight, making the 2nd half significantly faster when utilised. I also appreciate how one can get the final lum in Rayman 2
I know about the hidden final lum but whats the secret for the final boss?
@@danhalencool At the 2nd stage, if you fly up to the highest point when you press and hold (I think) the fire and jump buttons, just before hitting the ceiling "Rayman will be transported to a hidden area in which the player must dodge barriers in his way. Upon reaching the end of this area, Rayman will be transported back to the main area with infinite shots, signified by the shots changing color to blue".
@@AlwaysPim Holy shit that's actually really cool! Next time I'm playing Rayman 2 I'll keep that in mind.
Rayman was big in Norway as well.. I wasn't a huge fan but I remember seeing the pc boxes everywhere
Dreamcast Rayman2 is the best game ever made
Because of this video I may buy the Ps3 version of 3
Absolutely loved this, great look back at one of my favourite franchises!
Im one of those loosers whose managed to get to the point i can mostly clock 1 with relative ease, but as you said in the video its around picture city where the game full on just doesnt want you to live anymore, even to this day being able to complete the game on the continues it gives you ill slowly start to loose lives to the bs in the levels following picture city.
You earned a sub! Do you think youll cover anymore lesser known older ps platformer titles like the gex trilogy Or croc 1 and 2 for example?
Either way great video bro ill be sure to stick around and see what else you pop out! :)
I'd love to cover older ps platformers especially since I didn't grow up with a lot of them. Sadly unless if they get ported to PC or become abandonware, I can't do much since I only have a PS4 rn. Thankfully I've heard the Gex trilogy is getting a remake and I think I'm safe to play Croc 1 & 2 since they're both abandonware. I've also heard that Tomba is getting remake as well so I'm excited for that!
Rayman 3 is the best one🎉
Rayman 1 was fucking insane. Baffles me how the developers let it's difficulty get through lol
I don't know if it was ever confirmed, but people suspect it was playtested by the developers. That would explain the punishing difficulty.
My first rayman game was 2, i hope rayman 4 has a combat system like 3 but feels more like 2
I had the Ps2 version of Rayman 2 and i love it dearly to this day. It has this ver unique atmosphere like a dark fairytale. I always say its Neverland with robots.
I guess Rayman 1 is hard, but I was 14 when it came out, and we didn't have the Internet to complain to, so I just played it. I beat it without any cheats, but my biggest workaround for the difficulty was just grinding through Allegro Presto a TON. It's not too long, and there are enough tings to get a few extra lives each time. I always saved near that level, and played it at least once every time I sat down and loaded the game. It's still one of my favorite games of all time, and I replay it at least once every couple of years. (BTW, you can also duck under those jumping fish in Eat at Joe's, and speedrun videos always amaze me at how easy they make it look.) I hadn't heard about the Redemption version so I'll check it out.
I knew you could duck underneath the fish but it didn't really work out for me. I prefer just spam punching through them. Also yeah I could see how the absence of the internet made Rayman 1's difficulty something that was just brushed aside. Along with the fact that difficult games were sort of a standard back then.
Nice thoughts boneydude. Hope to see you do more Rayman videos.
Hell yeah man, I plan on covering mostly everything Rayman related. Except for the TV show since I wanna strictly stick to doing video game content. And most of the Rabbids games because I just don't really wanna waste my time with them.
Also your name looks really familiar, I feel like I've seen you on twitter, reddit, or maybe even the pirate community.
tbh as of rabbids games, the most worth ones are the first one, the whole leaked prototype and the mario+rabbids games. while i do enjoy the rabbids whole lot, i have to agree, most of those are just minigame collections
@@sollumi3014 I've also heard good things about Rabbids Go Home, I wouldn't really know however since I've never played it. Also I do really want to cover the Rayman Raving Rabbids prototype because it's just way too cool to ignore even if it's incredibly janky.
Ah so that's where the costumes from the Rayman DLC in Mario and Rabbids: Sparks of Hope came in. It would be kind of nifty if Rayman got all of those costumes rather than just 2 of them, but I guess Rabbid Mario is the power house and the game naturally lets him swing on purple lums and the sparks give the ability to shock enemies so only the Tornado and Rocket offer unique combat abilities anyway. Plus it kind of reinforces that Rayman himself is more about movement and repositioning enemies so Rabbid Mario can do his damage and Peach keeps you alive.
I loved Rayman 3 so much as a kid, when I was around 11 it was just about the only game I would play every day after getting home from school. Then one day I beat the game and didn't touch it for years after that. Then I played the game again when I was about 17 and beat it once again. I think I tried to play it again some time after that, but my old disk was scratched up and the game was unplayable. Thought about getting a PS2 emulator just so I can play it again,after watching this video.
You can also easily play it on any PC pretty much
51:10 FUN FACT, there IS a 1000° lum hidden in the catacombs level.
youtu.be/ LNxhfsHgNIA?si=hlPVFq4WoxMreej0 here is a video showing it, RUclips deletes the comment for some reasons
7:27 Reminds me of why Mario was designed with a mustache: the rendering made it hard to differentiate the nose and the mouth.
really enjoyed this video, really enjoy rayman, too bad my name is jonathan, guess i have your rayman 3d
You can keep it now lol. I don't even have a 3DS anymore.
@@danhalencool i took that too sorry
@@jondensk hey not cool man.
1:26:09 That was actually funny, it breaks the 4th wall because, well, the new power ups aren't that great and the developers are aware of it, so the make fun of themselves.
I spent years wondering what came after bandland
that honhonhon was such a beautiful, marvelous honhonhon... It brought a tear in my eye. Well done sir, or should I say... "merveilleux monsieur" :3
Merci beaucoup !
Rayman 3 is the game of my childhood 😂 I would give ANYTHING just to play it again 😂
Its only like 30$ on xbox or Playstation
5 euro used xbox controller, free emulator
About one dollar on GOG (PC).
With the Better Rayman3 and Rayman HD mods the game runs fantastic. :)
Having watched a dozen reviews of Rayman, I come to the conclusion that people have different criticism when it comes to the second part (which is very overrated) and whining mode turns on in the third. Hey God, just say that you played the second part for the first time and that's why you don't like the third part. On the contrary, I think that the third part is the pinnacle of Rayman. This is what Rayman can and should be. Even the reboot in the form of Origins and Legends will agree with me.
I respect your opinion on Rayman 3.
I have fond memories of Rayman 1. But to be fair I played it on the DSi, where you have infinite continues and 5 hitpoints instead of 3. Oddly enough, it also had achievements for beating the game without continues
He was quite popular in the UK and Europe
I wish I could go tell myself as a young kid to enjoy rayman 3 more. Because that would be the last 3D rayman for nearly 20 years. For the record I prefer rayman 2 but 3 improved the combat and game feel immensely. The comedy just really didn’t land with me and I missed stuff like the sliding sections from 2
Came for this video (but saw some of your other videos first.)
Your french on "Michel Ancel" is really good (compared to you Monpellier. The "l" souds more to "r" the way you said it) btw.
My only direct contact with the series as a kid was playing some of Rayman 2 on my DS (Via R4 cartridge) as a kid. I never completed it because the R4 it was on stopped working. I really digged the aesthetic as a kid.
Yeah lol like I said I'm not french, I literally looked up how to pronounce Montpellier and tried to replicate it as best as I could. Michel Ancel is a lot easier for me to say because I've heard it so many times in other videos.
Had to look up what an R4 cartridge is, honestly I've never seen or heard of those things before. Though it brings me back to days when I had an Action Replay card. I remember I slapped so many cheats onto NSMB with that thing that the game straight up crashed every time on startup. It made me really sad, I really liked that game.
Ugh, Rayman 3's animation to voice-acting desync caused me to never play the game. When the game came out I was young and had no money, so I decided to pirate the game, and when I noticed that desync issue, I thought it was the fault of the pirate download that I had, so I tried again to the same results. "The game can't actually be like that", I thought, so I decided to save-up and buy the game legitimately. Took me a few months, but I finally achieved it, and... there was still desync. At that point I reasoned that the problem lies is my potato pc that I had at the time, and I just knew I couldn't play the game like that so I left it.
Years later, once I did start having my own money, I got into gaming pc's and built myself one. At some point I got nostalgia for the Rayman series and played them again, and when I got to the 3rd entry with my beefed-up pc... THERE WAS STILL DESYNC! I thought I was doing something wrong, so I took to the internet to find some installation guide, but found non. As a last resort, I went to RUclips to watch let's-plays of the game, that finally confirmed that my much younger self's assertion that Ubisoft wouldn't really release a game in such a state, was wrong!
So yeah, in all my life I've only ever played the first level of Rayman 3. I could play it despite the desync, of course, but I find it too distracting, and I just don't care for that game anymore. The relatively newer Origins and Legends are better games anyway (Rayman 2 is still the best).
As for Rayman 1's difficulty I don't know. I first played that game when I was 7, I think, and I found it really hard indeed, but I did manage to beat it. When I was in highschool I tried playing it again, and found it wasn't that hard. Sure there were some hard parts, but nothing that I really got stuck at. It was just a charming game that offered some difficulty. I've since played the game many more times and I still feel the same. (The game forcing you to 100% complete it was and is still bs though).
I've played Redemption, and it is indeed a superior game in every aspect, but there is still some charm in the ps1's original.