Rayman Legends Challenges App

Welcome, Internet! How many of you remember Rayman? You know, that limbless hero who could spin his hair like a helicopter. The one who was eventually pushed aside for some weird rabbits that people like to beat up. That guy. Well, lately he's gotten his spotlight back, and this is a VERY good thing. He was soon to have an even bigger spotlight with the release of his latest installment, Rayman Legends. People were all over the demo at the booths when it was being hyped. When the WiiU was released, some people bought the console solely in anticipation of the game. Then came what is now either a useless idea, or a blessing in disguise. My vote is on the latter.

You see, along the way, and close to the release of the game, Ubisoft decided to delay it until September. Why delay it so long if it's so close to release, you ask? Well, Ubisoft wanted to make the game a multiplatform, available on the PS4 or the Xbox One. I don't think the multiplatform idea angered fans nearly as much as the delay itself did. It did make people angry, however, and Ubisoft didn't like the idea of making their fans angry. Nonetheless, they wanted to make this game for all to enjoy, not just WiiU owners (or at least, they wanted people to throw money at them from as many angles as possible). They didn't leave the WiiU owners in the dust, though. A little while after the delay, they released the Rayman Legends Challenges App. I like to call it the Rayman Legends Apology App, though. Let's not fool ourselves, that's exactly what it is.

In a nutshell, it features the three demo levels that were available in the WiiU demo of the game: Teensies In Trouble, Toad Story, and Castle Rock. It also featured the same characters available from the demo. Rayman, Globox, Barbara, Sir Globrax Grand Minimus, and Goth Teensy. What made it different is the new ranking system, extra unlockable character skins, leaderboards, daily and weekly challenges, and the “awesomeness level” system.

First, let's talk about the characters. The characters all play exactly the same, there's no denying that. The unique thing here is that they all feel different, which is difficult to pull off, as can be seen in some fighting games today. For instance, Despite the fact that Rayman and Barbara move at the exact same speed, you'll feel like Rayman is moving faster (unless you're playing as the two side by side, but, until the game itself comes out, I'm going to talk about the single player experience). There are also some new Characters. They're skins, for the most part, but, again, they feel like their own character, You can unlock the new Characters by earning Lums. Any Rayman fan knows what a lum is. But, for those of you who don't, Lums are these tiny little balls of light with faces on them. They're similar to coins in Mario, Rings in Sonic, Or Wumpa Fruit from the Crash Bandicoot series (Bet lots of people called these peaches back in his hayday. Heck, I bet some people still do). Now, in the App, there's no life count, so you're safe there. The Lums add up to a grand total, which determines what characters you unlock. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but one of my favorite Characters is the last unlockable one. You need 120,000 Lums in order to unlock her. How the heck are you going to get that kind of Lums, you ask? Daily challenges are by far the best way to go.

There are four different challenges, but only two are available to you at the start. There's the Daily and Daily Extreme Challenges, and the Weekly and Weekly Extreme Challenges. In order to unlock the Extreme challenges, you need to unlock them by increasing your level of awesomeness. Already at max awesomeness level? Not in this game! You start with 0 awesomeness level, but you get ranked higher by earning cups from the demo levels, and in the challenges. You won't receive the cups from the challenges until the next day, so don't hesitate to practice, practice, practice!

Once you reach Awesomeness Level 2, which isn't very hard, but may still take a few days, you can participate in the Daily Extreme challenges. These are much harder to earn cups in than the normal challenges, hence the name “Extreme”. The extreme challenges themselves are pretty tricky, but not completely impossible. If you want gold, or the almighty platinum cup in the extreme challenges...well, You better have some INTENSE skills. Also, since you can do the challenges with more than one player, invite a friend over. Actually, that's one of the biggest problems with the App. If you have a friend and an extra Wii remote, you can get much more done than if you were all by your lonesome. It seems a bit unfair that all of player A's hard work is cast aside because Players B and C are doing the challenge together. It would be much more efficient to offer multiplayer challenges as well as single player challenges.

Finally, we get to the truest competitive aspect of the app, the leaderboards. Before, and after trying different challenges, you will be placed in a leaderboard based on your best score in the challenge. You will see some people highlighted who have a score fairly close to yours. You can also see the top ten scores for that challenge, as well as scores of your friends only, or just in your country. The biggest thing about the leaderboard is it's relation to which cup you will earn. You have to make sure to solidify yourself in a good spot for the cup you want. If you don't, you can be pushed off of the ranking for that cup. This gives you the incentive to keep practicing, and keep attepmting the challenges. Even if you have the minimum bronze cup, you can still be pushed off if your score becomes stale. The good news is I've only seen this happen once, so it doesn't seem too likely. All in all, it balances itself out pretty well.

I think that's enough for now. Rayman Legends had people eager to buy the WiiU, and even became a major deciding factor in my purchase of the WiiU. Needless to say, People were angry about the delay. This apology will certainly hold most Rayman fans over until the game is released. I'm certainly still angry about the delay, but I can get my Raynman fix from this App. I can also get it by playing the original rayman on the Sony Playstation, so there's that as well. Well, in the meantime, I'll be looking for something new to talk about. I should also get back to work on that guide...Well, in the meantime, see you guys soon!