In it's defense, I always loved playing the original Rayman. I just now created my account (after having been an active visitor to the site), and i was very surprised with giving this game a 5. Had the map actually shown you where enemies were then it’d be less of a problem, but you simply don’t know. But wait, that becomes a crapshoot here because the game uses the original camera range as reference, which you can’t see! Prepare to clear a platform of pesky bad guys, only to turn around and have the same jerks be right there again and ready to kick you in the throat like in a certain 1988 Tecmo game. Speaking of enemies, the game has an extremely annoying habit of respawning defeated foes once they’re outside the camera range. You can drag it around with the stylus to see the lay of the land, where the ending is and your own location, but it doesn’t show enemies or other moving obstacles.

You’ll also likely rack up a lot of annoyed-looking photos of yourself as Rayman bites it for stupid reasons, and since all of the game’s action takes place up top, the touchscreen is relegated to displaying the stage map. You also can’t turn off the shutter sound, which is sure to lead to a lot of perv-accusing looks your way on public transportation. Use of the camera is the most obvious addition you’ll get snapped each and every time you save the game and when starting from a save point, but the photos aren’t stored, which is nice in one way as you won’t have to clear your system memory of pics that you don’t want, but if you do wind up with a good one there’s no way to keep it. The added hardware capabilities of the DSi have wiggled their way in with mixed results.

Rayman shooting