The road to release has been a bit of a bumpy one for limbless aubergine Rayman - the sequel to 2011's Rayman Origins, the four player platformer was original scheduled to be a Wii U exclusive that would release alongside the console in November - but that never happened, with the game then being pushed back to the following February to allow for more polishing. February came and went, yet Rayman was still nowhere to be seen, as mere weeks before it's planned release Ubisoft announced yet another delay, although not for the purpose of making the game better - instead it was to port the game to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 too. Angering many fans of Ubisoft's old mascot (some of which who'd jumped on board with the Wii U for the sole purpose of playing that game), they promised an exclusive, stand-alone downloadable mode would be launching on the Wii U over the summer, in the hope of appeasing the angered fans - and now that mode's arrived on the store.
Wii U players can have an extra fifth player on the Wii U GamePad manipulating the environment with the Touch Screen as Murphy the fairy/frog thing.
Called the 'Rayman Legends Challenge App', the free download is basically an extension of the free demo that was made available last year - it's got the same three levels, which you access from the same tent full of paintings, although there's no usage limit here, unlike on the demo. There is however another painting this time, named 'Challenges', where you can find a number of weekly and daily challenges to play through - short levels in which you need to race to the bottom of a pit as fast as you can, or manipulate the environment on the Touch Screen to race as far through a dungeon while flames lick at your behind. Set a time you're particularly proud of, and you'll be able to see how your records stack up against your friends and random people all around the world via the leaderboards. It's a nice little freebie, although perhaps not as expansive as we originally thought it would be.
The free app is available to download from the Nintendo eShop right now, and comes with some more good news - Ubisoft have brought the release date of the full game forward by a whole month, meaning that Rayman Legends should be out for the Wii U, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on the 30th of August. Assuming they don't delay it any further to port it to the Atari 2600 anyway.
