Ring your bell and raise your song!
Been a while since I've done a pointless trivia, hasn't it? This time, I'll be covering everyone's favourite limbless wonder, Rayman.
The original concept for Rayman was that he was a ten-year-old boy named Jimmy, who got sucked into Hereitscool, a world he created in his computer. It was probably a good thing they didn't go ahead with that idea.
Despite his iconic limbless nature, Rayman was originally designed with proper limbs. They were removed to make the character easier to animate, and the design just stuck from then on.
The main reason for the first game's infamous difficulty was that it was never playtested. Luckily, Ubisoft learned from their mistakes, and the next games in the series (as well as the first game's remake of sorts, Rayman Origins) were more balanced in terms of difficulty.
In the original version of the first game on the Atari Jaguar, the two mosquito bosses, Bzzit and Moskito, had an identical appearance, leaving many players ignorant of the fact that they were actually supposed to be two separate characters (a fact which is mentioned in the manual, but nowhere in the game itself) and confused as to why the mosquito whom Rayman had befriended after the battle and who had helped him in the previous level was now suddenly fighting him again. The PlayStation version fixed this by giving Moskito a unique red colouration, helping differentiate the two.
In the original versions of Rayman 2: The Great Escape, a cutscene shows the villain Admiral Razorbeard eating a Yellow Lum, of which there are only 1000 in the game. This causes the counter showing the amount of Yellow Lums the player has collected so far to change from saying X/1000 to X/999. However, the 1000th Yellow Lum can be found in the Tomb of the Ancients, though collecting it will not bring the total beyond 999. In the PlayStation 2 remake Rayman Revolution, the Lum Admiral Razorbeard eats is changed to a red one, which are normal health-restoring items in the game, keeping the Yellow Lum total at 1000.
In the Japanese version of the games, Rayman and a few others' colour schemes are changed from purple to blue. This is due to it being common in Japanese media for villains to be dressed in or coloured purple, so the change was done to ensure Japanese players would know Rayman was the hero.
In the very self-aware Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the character Murfy bids farewell to Rayman with the words "See you in Rayman 4!" No such game actually exists, but concept art for it was made shortly after the release of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, showing it was being worked on. Planned for a Nintendo Wii release, the concept art and trailers showed it as a Dynasty Warriors-style hack and slash game, with Rayman donning new costumes and using new weapons to fight through hordes of vicious rabbit-like monsters. Then Nintendo gave the development team a pack for mini-game programming, and the game was changed entirely, eventually becoming Rayman Raving Rabbids.
The first game was originally planned to be released on the SNES.
Rayman 2: The Great Escape was originally going to be a 2D platformer, and originally looked very similar to its predecessor. However, when Ubisoft saw how well-received 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot were, they reworked the game into a 3D platformer. The PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions of the game include the first level of the original 2D version of the game as an Easter egg.
Rayman Origins was originally planned to be an episodic title about the origins of Rayman released on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, with each episode dealing with Rayman growing up and maturing. The final game was intended to be a prequel to the first game, and would have tied it and Rayman 2: The Great Escape together. It was changed into a retail game when Michel Ancel realised an episodic format would ruin the exploration nature of the franchise. According to information discovered by fans, it was then planned to be about Rayman and his friends realising the game was a sequel to Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, instead of the prequel it was marketed as. It was also originally going to have lots of dialogue. The final game has very little dialogue, and is deliberately unclear as to whether it takes place before the first game or after the third game. Despite its title, it doesn't actually explain the origins of Rayman, though it does explain the origins of a few other characters, and a mosaic can be found in the PlayStation Vita version of the game that details Rayman's past (with his girlfriend/ex-wife) and the reason he can spin his hair like a helicopter to glide.
The third game features three unique creatures that were planned to be used but never implemented - the Xowar, the Glute and the Mawpaw. They can be seen if the player scores over 43001 points in the Tower of Leptys, which will open a door to reveal them on the way to the final boss. The Xowar was originally going to be a boss and part of a minigame, and the Mawpaw was going to be ridden. It's unknown what the Glute was going to be used for. The name "Glute" was later used as the name for Globox's species.
Rayman Origins was planned to feature a world based on different art styles, but it was scrapped very early on.
Big Mama was originally going to be a main story boss in Rayman Origins, and her true form was going to be a middle-aged female Glute instead of a young nymph.
The original concept for Rayman was that he was a ten-year-old boy named Jimmy, who got sucked into Hereitscool, a world he created in his computer. It was probably a good thing they didn't go ahead with that idea.
Despite his iconic limbless nature, Rayman was originally designed with proper limbs. They were removed to make the character easier to animate, and the design just stuck from then on.
The main reason for the first game's infamous difficulty was that it was never playtested. Luckily, Ubisoft learned from their mistakes, and the next games in the series (as well as the first game's remake of sorts, Rayman Origins) were more balanced in terms of difficulty.
In the original version of the first game on the Atari Jaguar, the two mosquito bosses, Bzzit and Moskito, had an identical appearance, leaving many players ignorant of the fact that they were actually supposed to be two separate characters (a fact which is mentioned in the manual, but nowhere in the game itself) and confused as to why the mosquito whom Rayman had befriended after the battle and who had helped him in the previous level was now suddenly fighting him again. The PlayStation version fixed this by giving Moskito a unique red colouration, helping differentiate the two.
In the original versions of Rayman 2: The Great Escape, a cutscene shows the villain Admiral Razorbeard eating a Yellow Lum, of which there are only 1000 in the game. This causes the counter showing the amount of Yellow Lums the player has collected so far to change from saying X/1000 to X/999. However, the 1000th Yellow Lum can be found in the Tomb of the Ancients, though collecting it will not bring the total beyond 999. In the PlayStation 2 remake Rayman Revolution, the Lum Admiral Razorbeard eats is changed to a red one, which are normal health-restoring items in the game, keeping the Yellow Lum total at 1000.
In the Japanese version of the games, Rayman and a few others' colour schemes are changed from purple to blue. This is due to it being common in Japanese media for villains to be dressed in or coloured purple, so the change was done to ensure Japanese players would know Rayman was the hero.
In the very self-aware Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, the character Murfy bids farewell to Rayman with the words "See you in Rayman 4!" No such game actually exists, but concept art for it was made shortly after the release of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, showing it was being worked on. Planned for a Nintendo Wii release, the concept art and trailers showed it as a Dynasty Warriors-style hack and slash game, with Rayman donning new costumes and using new weapons to fight through hordes of vicious rabbit-like monsters. Then Nintendo gave the development team a pack for mini-game programming, and the game was changed entirely, eventually becoming Rayman Raving Rabbids.
The first game was originally planned to be released on the SNES.
Rayman 2: The Great Escape was originally going to be a 2D platformer, and originally looked very similar to its predecessor. However, when Ubisoft saw how well-received 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot were, they reworked the game into a 3D platformer. The PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions of the game include the first level of the original 2D version of the game as an Easter egg.
Rayman Origins was originally planned to be an episodic title about the origins of Rayman released on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, with each episode dealing with Rayman growing up and maturing. The final game was intended to be a prequel to the first game, and would have tied it and Rayman 2: The Great Escape together. It was changed into a retail game when Michel Ancel realised an episodic format would ruin the exploration nature of the franchise. According to information discovered by fans, it was then planned to be about Rayman and his friends realising the game was a sequel to Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, instead of the prequel it was marketed as. It was also originally going to have lots of dialogue. The final game has very little dialogue, and is deliberately unclear as to whether it takes place before the first game or after the third game. Despite its title, it doesn't actually explain the origins of Rayman, though it does explain the origins of a few other characters, and a mosaic can be found in the PlayStation Vita version of the game that details Rayman's past (with his girlfriend/ex-wife) and the reason he can spin his hair like a helicopter to glide.
The third game features three unique creatures that were planned to be used but never implemented - the Xowar, the Glute and the Mawpaw. They can be seen if the player scores over 43001 points in the Tower of Leptys, which will open a door to reveal them on the way to the final boss. The Xowar was originally going to be a boss and part of a minigame, and the Mawpaw was going to be ridden. It's unknown what the Glute was going to be used for. The name "Glute" was later used as the name for Globox's species.
Rayman Origins was planned to feature a world based on different art styles, but it was scrapped very early on.
Big Mama was originally going to be a main story boss in Rayman Origins, and her true form was going to be a middle-aged female Glute instead of a young nymph.
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