Rayman M/Arena (PC, USA) Walkthrough

Описание: Well, this is different.

After playing Rayman Legends recently, I had an urge to go back and revisit this oldie. This Rayman Arena, known as Rayman M in Europe. It's an often forgotten spin-off from the Rayman series, and was actually my exposure to the franchise. Some could argue it wasn't the best exposure, but I loved playing it a ton especially with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in ages (if you're watching, I'm sorry for all the grief I caused you over this game, heehee). I don't think I've seen any walkthroughs of the US PC version, so I wanted to have some fun and kick back on a game I know in and out.

This is basically two games in one, racing and battling. The two modes were actually done by different dev teams...and unfortunately, I think that shows pretty badly. Notably, the racing is a lot more polished than the battling. Looking back on it, it's not very good, but I admire it for what it tried to do and there's potential for a great product deep down. With a bit more fleshing out this could have been a fantastic game, but it's sadly fallen into obscurity these days.

Enough of that, let's get to the comments.

General Comments: I tried rotating characters in and out to give them reasonably equal time, though I didn't bother on Popolopoi or Lum Spring; the former because you don't hear the character themes, and the latter because it's usually over in like five seconds.

Also, worth mentioning, I did not use a controller for this walkthrough. No, it wasn't because I was suicidal...it's because for whatever reason, the game didn't see that I even HAD a controller in the first place, so I had to settle with keyboard and mouse. And it's not as bad as you would think. In races it's definitely worse without analog control, but in battles, M+KB is actually an improvement in some ways, since you can aim ahead of people instead of having to go with the lock-on. This is useful in modes like Lum Spring and Capture the Fly, where you may have to aim at people far away.

Beginner League: Not much to say.

Advanced League: I've always hated Thousand Waterfalls, it just has a horrible layout. Also, I don't know for the life of me where all the lums are on these courses...agh. Either way, I don't have much to say otherwise.

Expert League: The AI seems to have a really bad habit of getting stuck on Treasure Ship, which is really weird. For some reason they forget how to actually shoot switches.

Extreme League: Lava Factory actually took me a few tries in Lums mode; my ritual is try taking the hardest path first and then work your way down to the easier paths. However, because I was so adamant about getting every lum, I ended up wasting more time than I needed on a few attempts. I also have a hatred for Pipe Maze because a lot of the alternate paths are deceptively faster but end up slowing you down, which makes getting every lum a giant nightmare. And of course, Electric Final, which actually isn't too bad until you get to the slide on the upper path. You'll notice I play it safe and jump across turns simply because I have NEVER made it across without doing that. It doesn't help you can't catch the ledge if you fall, so your best bet is to just jump and hope you make up for that lost time.

For battles, why in the world was I getting so many glue bombs in Lum Fight? Spellbound Forest is a joke, it's literally just run in circles until you win. Lum Spring can be a bit troubling, but once you figure out that the target on the radar is faded when you're above or below it, it's a breeze.

Bonus League: Spooky Towers in Lum Spring is about the only battle level I could call a complete nightmare. The AI you battle against is set to Ultra Hard, which means he runs FASTER THAN YOU. This one took me quite a few tries before I actually won. My suggestion is that if the AI is clearly going to reach an orb before you, then go somewhere else and pray to God that the RNG works in your favor and spawns an orb close to where you are. Other than that, this is a toss-up.

Big Bang I did a single lap of, as Training mode is the only option (you can, however, do a race in Multiplayer mode on this course). Born to Slide and Future are both randomly generated courses that are nothing more than a straight hallway where your goal is to get to the end, and I did a single round of both.

It's always fun to see how many forwarded lums you can try and rack up in On and On, though it's not a particularly difficult level if you were sure to get all the lums you could.

And finally, Speed Stress...hoooo boy. Shockingly, I did this on my FIRST ATTEMPT. Not an easy feat, especially considering I didn't cut the recording and take a break after On and On. I'll say my finger sure got tired though. I nearly fumbled it up at the end but thankfully I had done good enough earlier on that it wasn't enough to ruin the run.

Enjoy the walkthrough!