Hi there! You may already be familiar with the terrible web demo of the original Rayman … but did you know that the Game Boy Color release also had its own?
Indeed, Rayman GBC got its dedicated Flash demo, and since it’s quite obscure and I couldn’t find any footage of it online, I thought I should do the video myself!
I showcased both the French one and the fan English translation by Droolie.
If you want to experience those Flash games yourself, you can download the bundle shared in this post: raymanpc.com/forum/viewtopic....
UPDATE: I’ve just made some more discoveries in this demo which I’ve detailed there: raymanpc.com/forum/viewtopic....
For example, you can take damage by falling from the vine and tree, display instructions by hovering your mouse over the Game Boy’s buttons, or do funny things by ‘mixing’ Rayman’s animations while he’s climbing or dancing.
Thankfully, this isn’t the Rayman equivalent of Sonic 2006 unlike what the classic title had… But it’s still no masterpiece, mainly due to the weird stiff controls and the immense lack of features.
The goal is to ‘save Rayman’s friends’ who for some reason are represented by bats in this trial… No, not Electoons, nor friendly characters or animals from Rayman universe, just BATS! They sure aren’t grateful to the limbless hero in the full game considering how hostile they are…
It just throws you into a short section of the Spellbound Forest (which is unique to this release) and you have to reach a cage. Break it open to free a bat, Rayman dances, and voila … game is done.
Yes, that’s it… Otherwise, you can punch, you can glide, crouch, hang to ledges, climb on vines, fall in the water … all with animations different from the complete portable entry.
Funnily enough, the minigame gives you one life, but it serves no purpose as you can’t get a Game Over if you drown after losing it.
At the very least, the original’s demo had some content to it … even if it was a total disaster, it was still something and it was more accurate to the actual product (aside from the millions of issues lol).
If the goal were to advertise Rayman 1 and its Game Boy release, you can say Ubisoft really failed at the job, because those demos would do the exact opposite!
I can’t see how anybody would be enticed into purchasing either of those awesome games after trying this… Maybe just the GBC one due to the different standards on handheld consoles back then, although that would be very low expectations even for that …
0:00 English version (unofficial)
0:41 French version (original)
By the way, I had to use a Flash emulator (Ruffle) for obvious reasons, so there may be a few slight inaccuracies.
On a side note, the PDA enhanced ports of Rayman GBC on Pocket PC, Palm OS and Symbian also got their own demos, but they’re even more obscure and I have no idea how to play them…
Which is a shame because they were probably better.
Anyway, that’s it. Thanks for watching!
I’m still working on finishing the Rayman GBC ReDesigned project when I have so time, so see you later for Dark Legacy and the worlds’ updates!