I knew it was a good looking game, that much is obvious when you look at the screenshots and videos available, but when I was actually playing the game? I was grinning from just how frickin' gorgeous it looks. Whether you like a design or not is entirely subjective, everyone should know this, but this style just appeals to me a ton, which I'd attribute to three things.
1. The colours
In an era where blacks, browns and blues largely dominate the gaming market, even if it's gotten much better compared to a few years ago, it's an incredible relief to see a game that looks like this!
Obviously the picture is dominated by green, and from what I've seen of the game so far green does play a heavy role in the colour choice, and it's important to mention that this is just what I've seen from the "dreaming tree" hub and the first two stages. But it's balanced with other colours, like the blue of the sky, the brown of the cliffs, the purple of some enemies and Rayman, to name a few things. Plus, all the colours are bright. This is extremely important. You can look at a game like Dead Space and say that it's a good looking game, just like I can say this is a good looking game. But can you look at Dead Space and say that the choice of colours makes you happy? Probably not. But I can look at Rayman Origins and say that the colours just make me happy. Bright, varied and extremely vibrant colours? Amazing colour choice. The colours also seem to be chosen in a way to make the usable objects and characters stand out compared to the background. Take a look at the image above. Rayman, the reaper hiding inside that tree and the hat are all visually distinct when compared to the background. You may be wondering why. Well, it's actually incredibly simple.
Colour opposites.
Take a look at the following image of Rayman, a heart and an enemy.
Rayman is a mix of purple, red, brown and white. The heart is red and the enemy is red.
This is a chart of colour opposites.
As you can see, red and purple are on the complete opposite of green. This makes our eyes perceive them as more distinct. So when the background is mainly green, with some blue and brown thrown in here and there, it makes us focus on what's different, namely Rayman, the enemies, and the collectibles.
2. The style
The general style of the characters, of the environments, of the entire game, is pretty much entirely unique. It looks drawn, which is one thing. It's not common, but it's not unique either. I think it's more the way it looks drawn. It doesn't look drawn in the way the game Don't Starve does. It doesn't look hand drawn. By it looking drawn I mean that it looks like any frame could be a piece of art by itself. It's hard to put into words, but I'd say that it is that the style by itself makes it look more like an animated movie than a game.
The general style of everything is great, too. It's a combination of the "newer" style of Rayman, by which I mean everything past the first game, and this drawn graphics style. Rayman already looked very unique, and combined with this drawn thing? It looks fantastic. Not only does it look very different, but it also looks really, really good. But again, this is subjective.
3. The animations
The animation quality. Dear lord the animation quality. It is... superb. Stupendous. Amazing. If the animation quality was ice cream I'd be licking the bowl so I could every little bit of the fluid goodness in me.
Look, this is hard to show without having a video, and even if I had one Youtube reduces the framerate to 30 FPS. This is really hard to show, but just trust me. The animation quality is incredible. You have to play the game for yourself to really see it, but dear lord does it look good. Especially coupled with a graphics style that I, personally, have trouble imagining as working well with fluid animations. But it does! It really, really does!
These things together just make a really great treat, to use my ice cream simile again. It's a feast for the eyes and watching it while playing just makes you... happy. It's not the stress relief you get by killing horde upon horde of enemies, like many other games. It's the kind of stress relief you get by just feeling a kind of childlike joy. I cannot praise how it looks enough.
Next post will be my first impressions of the actual gameplay. It'll probably not be as gushy as this post, but here's a spoiler: I really like it.
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