Didn't really keep an eye on this one's development but after hearing recently that the Rayman team was working on it I decided to take a crack at it.

They clearly have a good grasp on what makes a compelling metroidvania. Well placed upgrades and abilities to keep the pacing consistent, easy to get into flashy combat with depth and customisation, plenty of visual cues to encourage exploration, hell if I was good enough I could even perform a few instances of sequence breaking. However I feel like there was something lost in their attempt to balance accessibility and open-ended structure. The linear (and honestly subpar) narrative structure doesn't translate well for this kind of game unless you use Guided mode religiously because there's no guarantee you won't go out of order. It doesn't really help when the game opens it's map 60% through the campaign to ask you to hunt for key items in tucked away in far corners. This could've been a great 15 hour puzzle platformer if they kept the more linear design instead of shifting the more metroid-like level design.

Outside the screenshot map marker this won't the most innovative game out there but Montpellier has something going for them right now and I hope to see this utilised in future projects because the fact a modern Ubisoft game of this caliber can exist is more of a miracle than I can say really.

I need girls to look at me the same way white people looked at the Killmonger cut after PoC said they were tired of afros and fades in media.