Preview Rayman Legends: Retold, a comeback more ambitious than it looks according to IGN's analysis

Controller in hand for two hours, Rayman Legends: Retold immediately gives a sense of returning to the past... but not a dusty one. The big shift is having changed engines, to Snowdrop, to build the levels in 3D while keeping a cartoon art direction. The environments become more voluminous, with dynamic lighting and small animation details everywhere on screen, without harming the readability of the platforms that make up the levels, the IGN journalist points out. 

The physics remain very close to the 2013 installment: Rayman keeps that extremely responsive mix of running, sliding and charged punches. But it's in the way these movements are staged that we recognize Retold. The chains of sliding or running favor more shot changes, cameras that slide or tilt slightly in order to showcase new terrain features.

The dragon ride levels inject an even more arcade feeling, almost shoot'em up, requiring players to manage the animal's trajectory through corridors full of enemies and projectiles. The new narrative thread, fully voiced, ultimately only serves as a pretext for the arrival of this mysterious new kingdom, and to give the cast a bit more depth.

Cooperation is also still there: up to four players locally, with Kung Foot, and musical levels that promise evenings as exhilarating as they are chaotic. 

Rayman Legends: Retold doesn't aim to reinvent an already excellent formula, as the IGN journalist explains, but to elevate it technically while slipping in just the right dose of novelties that make you want to jump back in, whether you know the original by heart or not.