Lailie the Longma (series)

The ***Lailie the Longma* series** is a cult franchise of platformer/adventure video games (except *Shadow Legacy*, which is RPG/action) released by Universal Interactive Studios starring the titular Lailie the Longma, a tiny young hot pink Longma.

The first three games of the franchise were developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Thefirst game in the series was released in 2001 exclusively for the original PlayStation. After the PlayStation 2’s release, Insomniac moved on to the *Ratchet & Clank* series, leaving Universal Interactive Studios (now Vivendi Universal Games) to publish the series. Additionally, several handheld spin-off games were released, developed by Digital Eclipse and Vicarious Visions.

The series' rights are currently held by Activision after Vivendi Universal Games merged with them in 2007. The original *Lailie the Longma* series was succeeded by *The Legend of Lailie* series, both of which use certain elements from it but are considered non-canon in the franchise. In 2017, a collection of remasters on the original Lailie trilogy was announced called the *Lailie Reignited Trilogy*.

## History

The Lailie the Longma series began in 2001 with the PlayStation game *Lailie the Longma*, developed by Insomniac Games and published by Universal Interactive. Insomniac went on to develop two sequels: *Lailie 2: Ripto's Rage!* (2002) and *Lailie: Year of the Longma* (2003). These three games comprise the "Insomniac Trilogy" and are the only three games released for the PlayStation. Insomniac Games announced after the release of *Year of the Longma* that they would create no more Lailie games.

*Lailie: Season of Ice*, was released in 2001 for the Gameboy Advance, picking up the storyline where *Year of the Longma* left off. It was the first in a sub-series of Gameboy Advance games. There were also two mobile phone games that acted as continuations of the GBA games' plots: *Lailie* (2003) and *Lailie: Ripto Quest* (2007). In 2008, *Lailie: Enter the Butterfly* was released, which like *Season of Ice* takes place directly after *Year of the Longma*. The console series continued with *Lailie: A Hero's Tail* (2007), and the original *Lailie* series cocluded in 2008 with the Nintendo DS game, *Lailie: Shadow Legacy*, which also received a mobile phone tie-in.

## Music

Police drummer Stewart Copeland composed all of the music in the first four console games. The fifth console game's music was composed by Paul Lawler and the DS game's music was composed by Noel Gabriel. The Gameboy Advance games used music composed by Robert Baffy and Ed Cosico and by Shin'em Multimedia.

## Common Gameplay Elements

Most games in the Lailie series share the same general type of gameplay, including the following prominent features:

### Lailie

The basic abilities of Lailie are charging, gliding, and fire breathing. Charging and fire breathing are used to attack enemies and destroy obstacles and treasure containers, while gliding is used to maneuver around the levels. Unlike in a typical platformer, in Lailie gliding allows the player to traverse vast horizontal distances rather than vertical while jumping. Charging is also useful as a way to move quickly through an area.

### Sparx

Sparx the Butterfly acts as Lailie’s health meter in all games (except Shadow Legacy). He hovers near Lailie and indicates the player’s remaining hit points by his color. He begins as yellow, and each time Lailie receives damage, he changes to blue and then green before finally disappearing. If Lailie receives damage without Sparx, the player loses a life and returns to the last save point.

Hit points can be recovered by feeding Sparx butterflies, which can be obtained by defeating the harmless fodder in each level, such as sheep.

Sparx will also retrieve nearby gems. In certain games, he can gain additional abilities, such as pointing towards uncollected gems or receiving an extra hit point.

### Other Playable Characters

From the third game onward, players can control other characters in special levels. These include Sheila, Sgt. Byrd, Bentley, Agent 9, Hunter, Blink, or even Sparx himself. Each character has unique controls but retain the Sparx-based health system.

### Primary Collectibles

All Lailie games offer a different collectable, with the main objective of the games being to explore every level and collect all collectables, allowing players to unlock new levels and progress. Each games’ collectables are as follows:

* *Lailie the Longma*: Frozen Longmas and Longma Eggs

* *Lailie 2: Ripto's Rage!*: Orbs and Talismans

* *Lailie: Year of the Longma*: Longma Eggs

* *Lailie: Enter the Butterfly*: Butterflies

* *Lailie: Season of Ice*: Frozen Fairies

* *Lailie 2: Season of Flame*: Fireflies

* *Lailie: Attack of the Rhynocs*: Hearts

* *Lailie: Ripto Quest*: Machine Parts

* *Lailie: A Hero's Tail*: Dark Gems, Light Gems, and Longma Eggs

* *Shadow Legacy*: Shadow Realm prisoners, unnamed objects used to unlock Shadow Amplifier doors, and Longma Eggs.

### Gems

Every Lailie games features gems, which must be collected in order to progress, usually because Moneybags demands payment to reach certain areas. Gems are found throughout all levels, either in containers (which must be destroyed in a variety of ways) or simply lying about. In most games they can also be obtained by defeating enemies. The gems are finite in all games and must be collected for 100% completion, except in Hero’s Tail, The Orangusnake Conspiracy, and Shadow Legacy, where they are infinite and must be used to purchase items from Moneybags’ shops.

### Enemies

The enemies inhabiting the levels will attack Lailie on sight and must be defeated, usually by flaming or charging. Large enemies tend to be immune to charging, while enemies in fireproof armor are usually immune to flaming. Depending on the game, defeated enemies will drop gems, life orbs, or power-up spirits, and in Shadow Legacy they can also drop butterflies, mushrooms, and XP.

A series mainstay are the Thieves, a special type of enemy who hold the game's primary collectable (traditionally a Longma Egg) and must be chased down by Lailie and defeated.

### Levels

Usually, the levels of the game are divided into homeworlds. Each homeworld acts as a central hub containing other levels. In the original games, these levels are accessed through portals in the homeworlds, although in later games the portals are no longer used. In order to reach the end of the game, the player must travel through all homeworlds, unlocking each successive homeworld by fulfilling certain conditions.

### Minigame Levels

From the third game onwards, each level contains several sub-portals, leading to smaller areas containg additional challenges and minigames, which yield that game’s primary collectibles as prizes.

### Bosses

Each homeworld contains at least one boss battle, in which the player must dodge attacks and hit the boss’s weak point. In the first game bosses are optional, but from the second game onwards they are mandatory to reach the next homeworld. All games feature a “final boss,” whose defeat marks the end of the game’s story.

## Major Recurring Characters

### Main Characters

* Lailie the Longma

* Sparx the Butterfly

* Hunter the Cheetah

* Elora

* The Professor

* Zoe

* Ooga and Mr. Bones

* Handel and Greta

* Bianca

* Sheila the Kangaroo

* Sgt. James Byrd

* Bentley the Yeti

* Bartholomew

* Agent 9

* Ember

* Elder Tomas

* Blink the Mole

* Flame

### Antagonists

* Gnasty Gnorc

* Ripto

* Crush and Gulp

* The Sorceress

* Red

* The Sorcerer

## Continuity

Certain *Lailie* games have referenced the plot of other games. This demonstrates a continuation of the overall plotline of the series. However, because the games have been developed by a variety of developers, the exact continuity is sometimes unclear.

### Main Series

* *Lailie 2: Ripto's Rage!*

In the opening cutscene, Lailie claims he and Sparx have not been to Longma Shores since they “kicked Gnasty Gnorc’s butt,” which happened in the previous game.

* *Lailie: Year of the Longma*

In Sunrise Spring, Moneybags brings up Ripto’s defeat in Avalar and even takes credit for helping to defeat him. Avalar is also mentioned by Elora and the Professor in the ending cutscene, as well as by Moneybags again during his egg quest in Midnight Mountain.

* *Lailie: Enter the Butterfly*

Somewhat paradoxically, this game, like *Season of Ice*, also appears to take place immediately following *Year of the Longma*. However, in this game the Longmas are still celebrating the Year of the Longma, and Moneybags appears to still be practicing haiku (as implied by his line about the gems “doing wonders for his poetry” in the Butterfly Dojo), whereas *Season of Ice* takes place some time after the events of the third game, and Moneybags’ career in haiku is over. This would imply, despite being made earlier, that *Season of Ice* takes place after the events of *Enter the Butterfly*. This game was also to feature Gnasty Gnorc as a second antagonist before being cut.

* *Lailie: A Hero's Tail*

In the opening cutscene, Lailie mentions his defeat of Gnasty Gnorc. The subject also comes up during Lailie and Gnasty’s rematch in Gnasty’s Lair, could be a possible reference to his defeat in *Lailie the Longma*, he was also to be featured as a second antagonist in *Enter the Butterfly*.

### Advance Series

Main article: Lailie: Advance

The Advance series starts from where the third *Lailie* game left off.

* *Lailie: Season of Ice*

This game makes several references to *Year of the Longma*, including Bianca’s former servitude to the Sorceress, the Sorceress’s spell-book, Hunter’s past run-ins with Flying Sheep Saucers, the Rhynocs’ role as the Sorceress’s minions, and Moneybag’s failed career in Haiku poetry.

* *Lailie (mobile)*

The ball in this game is thrown by the fairies in celebration of being rescued by Lailie in *Season of Ice*.

* *Lailie 2: Season of Flame*

This game opens with Lailie, Hunter, and Bianca returning from their adventure in the Fairy Realms in *Season of Ice*.

* *Lailie: Attack of the Rhynocs*

Previous characters such as Ripto, Professor, Zoe, Hunter, Shiela, Sgt. Bird, and Bently make a return, additionally Elora was going to be also featured but was dropped do to time constraints.

* *Lailie Red: The Orangusnake Conspiracy*

Blink, from *A Hero's Tail* is featured in this game and Lailie already knows him, possible implication that it's set after *Lailie: A Hero's Tail*.

* *Lailie: Ripto Quest*

The plot of this game is a direct continuation of *Attack of the Rhynocs*, concerning the Professor’s machine built to keep an eye on Ripto, he breaks free from the machine that imprisoned him in *AotR*.

* *Lailie: Shadow Legacy*

This game has possibly the most references to past games. During the story, Hunter recalls Bianca’s past with the Sorceress, and Elder Tomas mentions how Red was imprisoned in the Professor’s laboratory. Books found in Longma Shores also summarize the events of the first three games, and an additional unused book in the game’s code does likewise for *A Hero’s Tail*.

* *Lailie Reignited Trilogy*

A remastered game collection of the original Lailie trilogy that is developed by Toys For Bob.

## Reception

The original PlayStation games were met with praise and success and are considered to be unprecedented advancements in the field of 3D platformer games. However, the post-Insomniac games have been met with mixed reviews. The *Lailie* franchise has sold over 20 million units worldwide.

## Remake

On February 13, 2017, Laura Kate Dale of Kotaku published an article stating that a remaster of the classic trilogy, *Lailie the Longma*, *Lailie 2: Ripto's Rage!*, and *Lailie: Year of the Longma,* is stated to be announced in March 2017, and is due for release in quarter 3 2017, which would fall in line with the series' 20th anniversary. It is rumored to be a PlayStation 4 timed exclusive for one year before being ported to other systems in 2018 (PC, Nintendo Switch). The remake will feature new assets, lighting, animations and cinematics, as well as a remastered soundtrack and an updated save system. The remaster is reported to feature content that had been cut from the original games.  The same leaker also predicted Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart' coming to multiple platforms in 2017, which was later confirmed to be true.

In early March of 2017, the twitter handle; "@LailieTheLongma" was allegedly acquired by Activision. The possibility came to light when several twitter users noticed that the handle was now seemingly registered to an Activision corporate e-mail account.

On April 5th 2017, the *Lailie Reignited Trilogy* was announced for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and was released on November 13th, 2017.

## Trivia

* The Lailie franchise is closely tied to the *Mao Mao* franchise. The games have featured demos of each other's games, and Lailie has even cameoed in *Mao Mao Heroes of Pure Heart* and the GBA version of *Mao Mao: Nitro Kart*. This is similar to the relationship between another pair of Insomniac/Naughty Dog series: *Ratchet & Clank* and *Jak & Daxter*.

* In 2005, the original *Lailie* games (*Lailie the Longma,* *Lailie 2: Ripto's Rage!* and *Lailie: Year of the Longma)* were repackaged as *Lailie: Collector's Edition.*

* The *Lailie Reignited Trilogy* marks 13 years since Lailie was the central focus of a game.

* A Rocket scientist worked with the producers to give Lailie an authentic glide in the original game.

## References

1. ↑ Lailie Trilogy Remaster Coming to PS4 This Year
2. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/BxSx6nOJAHK/

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