Rayman Legends has found its way into many “Best Platformer Games of All-Time” lists. Though it closely fails to beat the uncrowned king Super Mario, it found a safe place next the Nintendo mascot.

The Rayman series was created by French game designer Michel Ancel and started in 1995 with the 2D jump’n’run Rayman. It was followed by two 3D platforming games: Rayman 2 (1999) and Rayman 3 (2003). But the series went back to 2D sidescrolling with Rayman Origins in 2011. Origins was also the first Rayman game using the UbiArt Framwork which also was adopted by the 2013 release “Rayman Legends”.

The art-style of Rayman Legends is gorgeous with very colourful graphics. This makes playing the game feel like being a cartoon. One of the game’s level designers, Chris McEntee, states in a Game Developers Conference talk:

“We’re constantly thinking about the rules and constraints that the artist has given us with the art the’ve created and use it to our advantage rather than seeing it as something that’s holding us back.”

The game’s incredible music was composed by Christophe Hérald. The instrumentation of the compositions is very interesting as he uses whistling and went with the ukulele as one of the soundtracks main instruments. The compositions can go from calm and relaxing songs to epic orchestral music as seen in the stage “Creepy Castle”:

Rayman Legends OST — Creepy Castle

But it can also change to energetic band music when you are running against the clock, too:

Rayman Legends OST — Castle Invaded

The soundtrack was recorded with real instruments, with the use of quite uncommon ones. Composer Herald even used a cello played like a bass guitar for the music used in in the game’s stealth-like levels.