Summary Good port of great game

Cons: * The quality of graphics and sound is considerably lower than that of the original
Pros: * Nearly flawless gameplay * Almost all aspects of the original game faithfully ported

Reviewer's Comments

From obvious reasons, handheld game systems are always a couple of generations behind the consoles and the personal computers. So, when the Gameboy Advance was released in 2001, many of its games were ports/remakes of older classics. Such was the fate of Rayman. Originally released in 1995, it was followed by a few expansion packs and even a sequel in the late nineties. Under these circumstances, the GBA incarnation, titled "Rayman Advance", could be seen as a disappointment, because, in essence, it was nothing but a slightly cut down (technologically) version of the original Rayman. However, for a system like the GBA, it was the best that could be done, and it was certainly a better option than releasing a heavily reduced pseudo-3D port of Rayman 2.

Being a port, Rayman Advance has gameplay which is identical to that of the original: the same levels, the same rules, the same characters. I see no point in repeating the description of that here, because it is present in my Rayman PC review. The (very) small differences include some objects (cages, enemies, power-ups), which were moved slightly in the levels and Rayman’s health bar, which now has 4 or 6 hitpoints, as opposed to 3 or 5 of the original. This was perhaps a small attempt to tone down the difficulty of the game, which is considered rather high by most players. These differences are small enough to say that if you have played the original Rayman on the PC or the Playstation, you have played Rayman Advance. All that was good or bad in the original is valid here.

The technology limits of the GBA are the only thing that might somehow harm the playing experience. The graphics are not as sharp and the animation is not as smooth. You may not notice it, when playing on the actual GBA unit, but if you connect the GBA to a monitor or play via an emulator on the PC, you will. The quality of the music and the sound effects was also reduced considerably, but just like with the graphics, it was the only way they game could be ported, so it would not be fair to judge it because of all this. The only thing that bothered me is that the controls did not seem as responsive as in the PC version, and certain parts felt harder because of that, but not in a way that could ruin the gameplay.

To conclude, Rayman Advance is a very accurate port of the original Rayman, and probably the best that could be done on a handheld system. If you already played Rayman, there is little point in trying the GBA version, but if you like playing on a Gameboy and want to enjoy one of the best action platformers in gaming history, give it a shot.