I’ve already spoken with John Rairdin about his experience playing Rayman Legends: Retold in a preview session he had earlier this summer. At Gamescom I got to go hands on with the game myself and try out one of the new musical levels as well.

In short, yes this is Rayman Legends as you remember it. The on-rails dragon levels help break up the pace of the 2D levels and I found them to be quite fun, especially in local co-op with another player. The new level was based around the Macarena running around a chef’s kitchen. If this is a taste of what we can expect of new stages in Retold I’m very excited. As you progress through the level you see the chef preparing more of his dishes that you’ll need to traverse. I love these bits of storytelling that are happening as you run through the levels themselves. It reminded me of some of the best stages in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.

If you have never played Rayman Legends before I’m pretty sure you’ll have a hard time distinguishing the new ones from the old. My one gripe is that the Murphy gameplay in the platforming segments still feels out of place, a leftover from the Wii U gameplay experience. I do think that having a single button assigned to his actions removes a lot of urgency you may have as a player. It’s something I probably wouldn’t have retained if I had retold Rayman Legends.

That having been said, Rayman and the gang look better than ever. Yes, you can complain about the necessity to have this game in 3D instead of keeping the gorgeous Ubi-art engine. But if you aren’t comparing these versions side-by-side, I’m sure you’ll still find plenty that leaves you in awe. The Switch 2 version of the game seemed to run at the exact same framerate as the PC version, but with slightly longer loading times and an obvious decrease in visual fidelity, particularly the lighting engine. It shouldn’t hamper gameplay for Switch 2 owners, however.

Ubisoft has reignited my hope for the future of this series. That definitely won’t backfire. When has Ubisoft ever dashed our hopes? Right…?