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2017’s Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle had among the finest DLCs we’ve ever seen a recreation starring Mario obtain. The Donkey Kong Journey story enlargement noticed Donkey Kong and Rabbid Cranky staff up with Rabbid Peach to tackle tons of reworked enemies and tons of tight, tactical challenges. It proved Ubisoft knew methods to make a high quality DLC. Up to now, this high quality hasn’t prolonged to the DLC releases for the sequel, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope – whereas each the Tower of Doooom and The Final Spark Hunter gave us extra of what made Sparks of Hope nice, they have been simply that: extra of the identical.
We had excessive hopes for the ultimate DLC enlargement titled Rayman within the Phantom Present. Not solely have we not seen Ubisoft’s platforming poster boy in fairly a while, but it surely appeared prefer it would possibly observe in Donkey Kong Journey’s footsteps. Nonetheless, after clearing the regrettably brief story, it mirrors Sparks of Hope’s different lacklustre DLCs.
Rayman within the Phantom Present begins with Rayman arriving on the Area Opera Community through a golden invitation, which is a run-down TV studio that produces on a galactic scale. A lot to his shock, he runs into two Rabbids, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario, who aren’t out to trigger issues for him. Somewhat, in addition they obtained invites and got here to assert galactic stardom together with their robotic pal Beep-0.
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If you wish to see Rayman staff up along with his platforming friends Mario and Luigi, you’re out of luck. Rayman within the Phantom Present is a very separate journey, which means Rayman can not be a part of within the quest to cease Cursa and her minions. In actual fact, apart from a few post-credits photographs, Rayman and the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom don’t work together, which makes for a reasonably disappointing crossover.
A scarcity of Rayman-specific components furthers this disappointment. Positive, Rabbids originated as a Rayman enemy, however the Area Opera Community has nothing to do with our straw-haired hero’s storied adventures. The Large Dangerous of the journey isn’t a Rayman rival both, reminiscent of Mr. Darkish, however reasonably a return of Kingdom Battle’s Phantom. Whereas a enjoyable character in his personal proper, the shortage of Rayman components left us feeling like he deserved higher.
Rayman does, nonetheless, play fairly in another way than the opposite heroes. As an alternative of utilizing the titular Sparks in battle, Rayman comes outfitted with two of his fits: Vortex and Rocket. Switching to both of those fits adjustments all the things about him, reminiscent of giving his primary Blaster Shot and Plunger Guards the power to push foes off the map or trigger area-based harm. Rayman can even seize onto flying rings, which is the one factor from his video games that Ubisoft included. He can even punch blocks and seize distant gadgets, which just about all the overworld puzzles depend on. These puzzles, as you’d anticipate, play very like they do within the base recreation: discover a formed key, use Beep-0 to disclose a hidden bridge, and repeat. We grew bored with them rapidly.
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Fortunately, Sparks of Hope’s freeform tactical battles nonetheless present a whole lot of enjoyable. The Phantom has Rayman and buddies go to three completely different themed units — cowboy, pirate, and mediaeval — to finish a puzzle or two earlier than a boss encounter of some type. Group hopping to take out Flamin’ Stooges earlier than they’ll hit you with fiery blasts, and discovering a strategy to pop Darkmess Eyes performs as nice because it all the time has. Of those three units, the pirate set stands out with a large cardboard cutout of a Kraken serving as an impediment, whereas the cowboy stage reskins a regular foe and the mediaeval one enlarges a Stooge to function a boss.
After we completed these three in a couple of hours of play, we opened the menu to verify our progress and have been shocked to search out the journey was 80% executed. Whereas we nonetheless had a whole lot of little secrets and techniques to uncover and puzzles to unravel all through the Area Opera Community, we anticipated one other handful of units to battle by way of or a extra open space, reminiscent of the bottom recreation’s Pristine Peaks, to discover. As an alternative, we merely needed to defeat the Phantom to complete the sport in beneath 4 hours.
The Phantom himself has a couple of enjoyable musical numbers as we took him on, taking digs at how Rayman hasn’t had a recreation shortly and lamenting his earlier loss by the hands of Mario. The ultimate encounter with him performs nearly precisely the identical because it did in Kingdom Battle: to interrupt his invulnerability, you should disable his highlight by destroying the sunshine fixtures close to him first. It’s a must to do that 3 times with growing issue, but we had grown bored with the mechanic earlier than we completed the primary spherical.
Conclusion
As we haven’t seen Rayman on the Nintendo Swap in fairly a while, Rayman within the Phantom Present comes as a disappointment – particularly when in comparison with Kingdom Battle’s Donkey Kong Journey. The dearth of Rayman particular components, the shortcoming to play as Rayman within the base recreation, and the rehashing of previous enemies and encounters, make this an journey match just for these that may’t get sufficient of Sparks of Hope’s nice tactical battles.