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While there's nothing wrong with mini-game collections - they can add a lot to any system library - there was an over-abundance of them in the Wii era. Major franchises were reimagined for the genre, with a particularly early example being Rayman Raving Rabbids, which brought Ubisoft's mascot onto the last-gen system and kickstarted the Rabbids' own series.

That title was 'codenamed' as Rayman 4, but that's not the whole story for what was supposed to be a major entry in the franchise. In fact, the original Rayman 4 was supposed to draw on the earliest games for platforming inspiration while taking an altogether more creative and meta approach.

As reported by Unseen64 (originally on Patreon but now shared with everyone else) a company called Phoenix Studio spent 10 months working on its project, a commission it had won through the originality of its idea. Planned for the GameCube, PS2 and Xbox, it was a rather unlucky project, with the announcements of the Wii and Xbox 360 contributing to a change in direction for the mascot.

The full lowdown is in the video below and it points to an intriguing game - it's a pity it never saw the light of day.

[source youtube.com]