Many people's first PS1 game usually is anything Crash Bandicoot. Mine was Rayman 2, Crash came to my life later on. As far as I recall, I even played a PC demo before this, but as a kid I never understood why the PC version felt so different from the PS1 version. Regardless, the PS1 one is the one I love the most. Having played the re-release on the PS2 (called Rayman 2 Revolution), this is still true 'till today: the PS1 Rayman 2 is and always will be my favorite.

[GRAPHICS] - 10/10
I don't know if it's all thanks to PS1's processing power or whatnot, but damn is this game vibrant. And colorful. Its artistic aspect is just beautiful enough for me to say "this game doesn't need anything else". Even with today's technology allowing us to do even greater things, Rayman's style is truly unique. Right at the main menu (in PS1 version's case) you get a glance of what you're diving into: lush landscapes, places that could only have been crafted inside a fantasy novel, everything has a "mystic" feeling, which is pretty awesome. Speaking of "mystic", that also applies to another area of the game:

[SOUND] - 10/10
Enchanting. I could wrap it up here but I don't want to :3
Rayman 2 has gorgeous musics. A couple of them could even make me cry, I bet. There's a bit of everything: chill ambients to industrial madness to funky tunes and something that could've come from a thriller detective movie, to tribal, jungly and groovy goodness, also creepy-maybe-to-the-point-of-s***-yourself-a-bit styles and a side of epic final battle badass rock, this game's got you covered for (almost) everything when it comes to soundtrack. This is pretty much the first thing I remember about Rayman whether I think about it. My favorite tracks go from Clark's theme to the songs that play when you're in a flying barrel. There's no way not to love the OST, it almost feels atemporal.

[ADDICTIVENESS] - 8/10
Even after beating it numerous times, I always try to get back and play it one more time, as Rayman 2 is kind of big and it also has its mini-games and extra levels. Say, I think this isn't a secret to anybody anymore so maybe there's no problem saying: if you finish the PS1 version with 90% or more of the game's total Lums, you'll get to play a few levels from the first Rayman! (which I actually never managed to get into, sure, Rayman used to shoot his limbless fists before shooting silver Lums from his hands, but IMO the latter is way nicer)

[STORY] - 9/10
The story goes smooth like this: a robot pirate from outer space named Admiral Razorbeard - along with his massive crew of robot pirates - has invaded Rayman's world, imprisoning him and his friends, as well as breaking the Heart of the World - the place that stores the primordial energy - into a 1000 pieces, called "Lums" in-game, that are scattered throughout the world (for some reason I never understood (probably hardware limitations?) the PS1 version is the only one to have 800 Lums, all the others - N64, Dreamcast, PS2, even the PC one - have a thousand. Actually I made a quick research and the Game Boy Color version also has only 800 Lums, but still I never understood why). I do say the story gets a bit deeper as it goes on, like things involving betrayal and reuniting friends and everything that makes a great family game truly great, but I'm not spoiling it

[DEPTH] - 8/10
Looking back after all these years, I really think Rayman 2 is a very long game. Probably due to how the game deals with levels (you have a big world hub with all the levels represented as portals, widely separated from each other), I might have found it pretty long all the time, but it might actually be, say, a bit shorter than the first Crash Bandicoot. If you count the massive amount of exploration you might have to do to find all the Lums and secret stuff, I'll take a wild bet and say around 7 hours, which, in my personal opinion, is a pretty good duration (a perfect one IMO would around 8-10 hours, top, but 6-7 is great as well).

[DIFFICULTY] - 7/10
I believe the difficulty is just right, scaled down just a tad. The difficult levels start to appear after the first half of the game, such as The Precipice (special mention to this one because it is literally a non-stop level, you either keep running from the first second or you'll fall down to oblivion) and levels that involve mounting a little dog-like pet that is literally a missile (like The Menhir Hills, if I'm not mistaken). Bosses are fairly easy, but require paying attention to certain patterns which aren't too hard to memorize as well. If we talk version comparison, the PS1 version is a tad easier than Rayman 2 Revolution (PS2), but as I haven't played the other versions, this is all I can say. Overall, the game has a nice difficulty curve that doesn't get boring at all.

And this is all. Although most of you may know about this game, I highly recommend it to everyone who never heard of Rayman before. You may pick the version you desire, but the PS1 one is a great experience. (unless you really want an extra 200 Lums for no reason, as I believe this is pretty much the only difference between them, but choose as you see fit).
[OVERALL] - 9.8/10

supremesonicbrazil : LOL you went to go and do a review on another game I adore! There are two versions of it. I prefer the ds one because of the frog. The frog I always felt was the funniest person in the game. Anyways I like this version too it make them to talk lot more, but they didn't say much of the frog and all that normally helps out rayman in this journey. Thank you for making a review of this. Its as you said I will come to like more of what next reviews you might do. I'll be looking out for more great work.

Eniitan:I think we may have a lot in common when it comes to retro gaming lol

The PlayStation family was pretty much my entire childhood and early teenager entertainment, I still love those classics even though I'm a PC gamer now. From Crash Bandicoot to Wacky Racers and even those two Bugs Bunny PS1 jewels, Lost in Time and Time Busters (the latter having a NTSC/PAL selector exactly like this, which made me love it even more ---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WSShqtRpFs), I had pretty good times that I'll never forget

And yes, I forgot about the DS version but I've played it as well, kind of a pain since, y'know, D-Pad in a 3D game...