Rayman Legends is coming out on Friday but did you play its predecessor Rayman Origins? It was first released by Ubisoft on the PlayStation 3 in November 2011. Full of fun and colour, it was a 2D, side scrolling platformer that let you play locally with 3 friends as Rayman, Globox and two tweensies.

The music and sound effects were purposely goofy in line with the general theme to the game. The lums which were the simple collectables of the game floated in space with happy little faces humming songs as you collected them. The art style was excellent with every level full of brilliant details and colours that had many hidden paths within it. Even with such a happy go lucky vibe the game wasn’t a push over, the main levels required you to have some platforming skills and knowing the attack patterns of the bosses was a must to defeat them. The real challenges were extra side missions such as chasing a treasure chest across a level, not as simple as it sounds.

The biggest complaint for Rayman Origins is how it required you to have found a certain number of electoons to unlock each area. You could be having a great time going through the levels only to be stopped and forced to revisit areas before you are allowed to continue. Collectibles like this should be an extra option, not mandatory in order to continue playing and it really stopped the flow of the game.

Following its release on the PlayStation 3, Rayman Origins was then brought to the Vita in February 2013, a welcome addition. The transition was a smooth one graphically; the biggest difference between the two versions is that the Vita lacks any multiplayer. Since the PS3 version only supported local co-op this isn’t surprising. Additions to the Vita version were new collectibles, some touch screen features which allowed you to zoom the screen in and out to get a better look at the level and ghost runs of levels that could be shared between friends.

Rayman Legends looks to closely follow the gameplay and visual style of Rayman Origins and hopefully we’ll get to see some improvements made to how it plays too, this time round the PlayStation 3 and Vita versions will be getting a simultaneous release in Europe on the 30^th August.