Trivia / Rayman 2: The Great Escape

• Acting for Two: Rayman and Polokus are both voiced by David Gasman.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: There's a French Disney magazine with a synopsis of Rayman 2 saying that Globox is the game's antagonist. Globox is actually Rayman's friend and the antagonist is Razorbeard.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's sold a set of six toys in their Happy Meals in the UK and France. There was Globox, Ly, a Robo-Pirate, a cage, and two different figures of Rayman.
• No Export for You: The Game Boy Color version was never released in Japan despite the GBC port of Rayman 1 being released and localised there.
• No Port For You: The game never saw a Nintendo Switch port despite Ubisoft making ports for both of its predecesors, the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo 3DS.
• Port Overdosed: This is the game in the Rayman series with the most ports. To put this into perspective, this was a launch title for both the Nintendo DS and its successor the Nintendo 3DS. Not to mention an an iPhone version (before its removal), a Game Boy Color version, and even a PS2 remake. And that's not even counting the two Play Station Network versions (one being a port of the PS1 version, the other being a port of the PS2 remake)!
• What Could Have Been:
  • Rayman 2: The Great Escape was originally going to be a 2D sidescroller like the first game, and a playable Beta version can be found in the PlayStation port.
  • The plot of Rayman 2 has had some changes over time. Originally, Rayman 2 took place after the original game, in which Mr. Dark has been defeated. Evil robotic invaders from space arrive and imprison many of Rayman's friends, one of whom is Betilla the Fairy. The robots, led by a character named Chief, were set on converting Rayman's planet into a cold ball of metal. It's speculated that Chief was the original villain, eventually to be replaced by Razorbeard. Like in the original Rayman, all of the characters would have been limbless, and old friends, along with new ones, would have made appearances and helped Rayman.
  • Rayman 2 was going to have "Tank Controls" but it was changed to free-roaming controls when playtesters found the controls unplayable. An example of what that would have been like can be seen with the Tonic Trouble: Special Edition game released for PC which is the early alpha version of that game.
  • According to some early artwork, Ly was originally a Cat Girl rather than a fairy, which explains why she has a tail and that she sometimes runs on all fours during the Walk of Life and Walk of Power racing levels.

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