Rayman M | A Prelude of What's to Come

So Rayman M/Arena is kind of a weird game, but was it actually instrumental in how the series would express itself going forward? I don't go too deep into it here, it's more like entertaining an idea for a brief moment if anything, but nevertheless join me as I play through one of the oddest Rayman games out there. At least from a gameplay perspective.
Alright, another one for the books! This one was a downright joy to make and I hope that reflects in the overall quality of the video, enjoy!
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Links and shizz:
Rayman for Palm OS by 'FramePlay - Media Conservatory': • Rayman for Palm (M515)
Rayman Arena Pre-match Cinematic uploaded by 'RaymanSecrets': • Video
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Twitter: / fromherot0zero
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#RaymanM #Rayman #Ubisoft #FromHerotoZero #Retrospective

[@Opaquit]

Back in the less globalized world of early 2000s I was a member of the official RaymanZone forums. One of the actively discussed topics was the lack of online multiplayer in Rayman M. To a surprise of us Europeans, one American member said that the PC version of Rayman Arena actually has this feature. I was extremely excited and asked how I could obtain the game - which resulted in getting banned from the forums for "promoting software piracy". After the help from the rest of the community I was able to get my account back and later even got to became a mod. Anyway, the point is - when I got my debit card at the age of 15, I was finally able to buy stuff from the US through eBay. The first thing I ordered was Rayman Arena - and the network play was really there! It officially only supported LAN but through various VPN apps the community was able to organize a few matches over the internet. This worked soooo much better than the original split-screen multiplayer and was exactly what Rayman M should have been from the start. I still can't believe Ubisoft didn't even bother to release an update to the European version when it must have taken them significant effort to develop this for the US release. Lt;dr: The US release for the PC has network multiplayer and it's extremely great! Too bad it was never promoted enough.

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Wow, I actually had no idea about the online multiplayer. Don't think it ever came up during my research. Weird...

[@Opaquit]

@@FromHerotoZeroYT Technically it is supposed to be just within the local network, however, since it already has the IP protocol implemented getting it to play over the internet is always possible in such cases. I even found a fairly recent tutorial specifically for Rayman Arena on Reddit and I was also shocked to find that my ancient 2005 tutorial is still googlable. 😹 Anyway, feel free to hit me up if you ever decide to make a video about this. I can't believe your channel doesn't have a ton of subscribers already, it's super underrated.

[@drifter402]

Damn I never knew that. I never played this game multiplayer but it would obviously be such a better experience. Even as a kid as a single player game I always found it a bit meh

[@KingEngine97]

Today there is a Rayman Arena Discord Community with over 400 members playing it online every day. They are also modding the game. Just look for it on youtube or on my video descriptions. JOIN US

[@RaymanMArenaCommunity]

Playing this game online is a blessing, it's exactly what the game is supposed to be. We now play online matches pretty much every day and even made our own website to download the game with online capabilities, custom skins, HD textures, etc. It's not entirely legal, but we have dedicated our time to make the game better than ever. Rayman Arena PC does have some leftover code for online play, but it was never actually fully implemented, sadly.

[@KingEngine97]

The game is a lot more fun with real players, i promise you wont be able to stop playing this with friends once you connect 4 players on an online lobby. It is so much fun. The sound design is really good, the map-songs are always fitting, the race-character themes are similar but really well composed in terms of instrument usage... And the gameplay itself is straightforward with really handy physics It's sad that there was no such game after Rayman 3, where they could've implemented many more Arenas and Characters

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

I had one of my friends come over to play a bit with me. This might be because it were just us two but the multiplayer experience wasn't a lot of steps up compared to the single player one.

[@angurz]

This Rayman series shouid really have pushed you into the spotlight. Binged through them all today!

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Thank you! :D

[@alexblackmore7744]

Your videos are criminally under-viewed. Enjoying this Rayman series in particular.

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying my content :)

[@whereistheguru.]

Same thought on my side, I love listening about whole Rayman series, being honest I'd love to hear even about that PalmOS one mentioned xD

[@mitromney]

That's core of my childhood right here on screen. I used to play this with my friends, siblings, and solo, all the time. Loved the music, colorful maps and characters from my beloved Rayman 2 game that I couldn't play with my friends... and the fact that there were so many mods made it repayable to the point of absurdity. I could play some hardcore game mods solo for hours, like the extreme arena games or the "on and on" mode for some real challenges, and then I'd invite some friends and we'd just race on our favorite maps or battle on arenas on multi-weapon mode, which was always fun because you never knew who was gonna get which weapons and who's gonna ultimately best who with so many different weapon combinations possible. Absolutely love this game.

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Ah, I really wish I knew of and had this game back when my friends and I used to do couch co-op all the time after school. The multiplayer sounds so damn fun when you do it locally with friends. Nowadays it's much harder to schedule time for something like that, sadly :(

[@SkaiXmask]

Rayman M is the goat. Me and my cousins use to play this all the time 4 player battle and racing modes. I’m gonna get a new powerful phone soon. Once I have that. I’m gonna emulate this game with 4 PlayStation controllers and bring those memories back

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

I love this idea haha I really wish I bought this game back when couch co-op was big with my friends

[@Willllow]

1:33 Until you mentioned it, I _never_ noticed those shadows.

[@Flashyface]

Tbh the GameCube and XBoX version are the definitive versions imo, plus the jumping is fixed in it and the game overall feels more polished.

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Ubisoft really had a weird thing about the Rayman franchise back in the day where they'd make small changes to the game and then re-release 'em. It's too bad we never got "Arena" in Europe though, because as you said, it really looks like the definitive version!

[@Flashyface]

FromHerotoZero honestly I recommend it, if you have a ntsc gamecube or xbox you should try it out, the multiplayer in racing has some differences like having mario kart style items, have a certain amount of victories and laps, and battle mode has better combat as some items curve, like the rubber bullets and ice shots, also a new item was added that is similar to the flaming tounges or whatever since they aren't in the PS2 and PC American versions, except that it's a breath of fire. And theres a master league which can test your skills against Dark Rayman (that's gonna give Rayman 1 flashbacks,) and my favourite character Dark Globox, idk why I love him so much, but his song is a jammer.

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

@@Flashyface Hey yeah, I might go back to it one day when I have friends over! Honestly the best part about the game was the multiplayer despite the singleplayer focus!

[@Mandrene]

Well, I just discovered your channel, watched a few videos and man you got me hooked :) seriously, I love your work keep it up! Greetings from Italy my man :)

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Thank you! Glad you like it so far :)

[@thecommentsofyoutube7265]

Holy shit , you sir make outstanding content . It’s a crime you don’t have 100k subs

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Haha, thank you! :D

[@pedroribeirogomes7882]

Great video!

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Thank you!

[@jacktilley7299]

Weirdly this was the only game my parents bought me as a child. Thanks for a huge nostalgia rush

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

You're very welcome! Thanks for watching :)

[@AlexxxMYLSince2013]

So they brought a Ps2 that costed hundreds of dollars to buy just one game?

[@xHarryHaroldX]

Man i loved this game, great fun and deffintly played it endlessly from when i was younger. speclially with custom lum fight settings against the AI. All time bombs being my favorite. Funny enough the "Cheat" at 10:10 is actually a possible jump, its just very hard since you need to do it at the max height of the swing and the camara needs to high enough for you to be able to shoot the purple lum. I agree the AI in racing is pretty bad, but atleast if you played a course multiple times the AI would get better and better. and would even use secret routes. But in general youd still be beating them no problem.

[@SykoMuffin]

i grew up on bargain bin games from second hand stores and this was one of my faves. me and my friends loved it. so many memories with the GameCube version. (P.S.: played the NTSC version called Arena, if that matters. so many different versions :P)

[@ChristianFrates1997]

Great game!

[@lordrambo7898]

Absolutely loved this as a kid and I wish it can come to current consoles

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Same

[@SarahWestTheAmericanTailQueen]

Nice, Rayman arena was a great game on PS2 and GameCube

[@gtwist8065]

Never thought Rayman M for the ps2 was so glitchy and the physics were weird, I grew up with Arena for the ps2 which is the same thing except no flametoungue bullet and you have freeze shots in races, (arena for pc has no freeze shots for some reason and lan mode) I recently completed the gamecube/xbox version which has skins for all characters, at least 3, (except rayman who has 1) new levels, battle mode gives you rubber bullets as a default weapon, points are awarded by reducing someone's life points instead of killing them (maybe to prevent kill stealing but why tho and also no suicide penalty) Removed capture the fly, Removed training, removed popolopöi, removed lums, removed everything (ok no seriously) and added kill time to singleplayer mode. AI Significantly improved and is not unfair, (instead very annoying in Lum spring renamed to Freeze combat because freeze shots are infinite and there is no reload and they just use a machine gun. And Kill time renamed to Time attack because they can aim anywhere if you are too close to them) and the only hard race part was maybe Obstacle race - Master mode - challenge in Water Canyon where you have 1 lap to beat your opponent and if you fail any shortcut or don't optimise enough you're done for. Also, any sort of manual aim was removed. you can't aim sideways or up and down while locking on any more which is a bummer. Battle mode is pretty weak, I still think the Ps2/Pc Versions had better battles, they even removed the ability to choose a specific weapon for the Lum fights. The racing mode was pruned a lot but in the good way, racing is the best part definetely. The opponents didn't do much to interfere nor you could interfere them too much so it just became the time trial that popolopöi was supposed to be, and lums, well, it was just too basic maybe and didn't find out how to implement it to multiplayer. They were fun in their own ways but it is still the best multiplayer experience

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Kinda glad I got to play 'M' tbh. Freeze shots in races sounds like it would be waaay too infuriating. Kinda wanted the costumes tho!

[@gtwist8065]

@@FromHerotoZeroYT Arena for PS2 is the same as m with freeze shots, pc doesn't have it, Arena for gamecube has freeze shots in one of the 2 race modes, though in multiplayer can be toggled off

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

These small changes between the versions made it a confusing mess to do research lol, but I kinda miss it when the different consoles had different versions of the same game. At the very least it's fun to look back at

[@gtwist8065]

@@FromHerotoZeroYT Yeah, I've played all of them except Rush, the only things I know about that one it is that the physics are similar to rayman 2, globette (or uglette) replaces dark globox, big bang was textured and renamed canopy.

[@lordrealashemtov5818]

I love rayman m

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

Don't we all?

[@lordrealashemtov5818]

@@FromHerotoZeroYT i enjoy is video and yes 🥰 and i sub to u

[@taraventaube1977]

Don't you dare hate on the teensies theme

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

I'm fearless

[@machinegunkorok4509]

rayman m is 999/10 amd i will stand by this very,very biased and stupid opinion until they kill me

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

I hope you're able to escape their grasp until at least after christmas

[@nikomint4894]

We all know the ps2 version is better then the other versions

[@FromHerotoZeroYT]

So weird how there's that much of a difference between version of the same game lol