Very unique and strange with excellent sound effects and environments.
The gameplay was easy to handle and get used to. Although in some spots it got annoying to do a bunch of combination attacks to some later enemies and still dodge all their attacks. It felt like I needed an extra hand. It was also pretty hard to die first up. I didn’t die at all for about 4 or 5 levels or more when I started playing. But later on it really shows you need all that health. The rest of the gameplay was relatively enjoyable. The can items were a really cool unique idea, giving you different powerups for each colour. I liked also the sound effects. One of my favourite ones was when you shoot a spiral thing (the platforms that spin around and lift up) with just a hand and it makes a pop sound and wriggles, as well as the menu transitions where they make a bonk noise and jiggle. The different variations, amount and uses of sound effects pleased me. Such small details like the hidden frogs making chirp noises to tell you they are in that area were good touches. The music was also really good and set the feel very well. Some of the ideas in the game like you shrinking and riding around in your shoe I thought was a bit too stupid, as well as the fact that it was annoying to control and attack. There were funny bits in the game too like how the bee guy reads the game manual to tell you what to do at the beginning. And some of the things the monsters on the temple level say. “Spit in his eye!” and many, many other clever moments throughout the game.
Another thing I liked was the environment. The level design and concepts were very well done and made sense. Some small details like hot air balloons in the distance, little birds, light reflections on water, moving flowers and other things did a good job at making the game interesting and creating a better sense emersion in the levels. However, in the last couple of levels, the designs and detail got sloppy, which was a bit disappointing. On the lava level (where you have to race against the lava) I noticed a lack in detail put into the landscape. And the boss before that part was very difficult, firstly trying to understand what you had to do, and secondly because you had to tap repeatedly on the shoot button while still dodging its shots which nearly gave me RSI. The final bosses really annoyed me too. Firstly because there were 4 stages of it! And I was really peeved with the randomly disappearing platforms after you get through the first stage of the series of bosses. On the final boss where you are in the aeroplane shooting at the dude was pretty annoying also, firstly because of the lack of detail (again) and if you fired too many shots they would build up on the screen getting in the way, and some would also disappear not leaving any explosion or mark. This made it extremely frustrating to beat the boss. The bonus stages were really fun and the backgrounds in them were amazing and mesmerising. I just wished there was a way you could go and play them when you finished the game, although it was an issue that it was so easy to fall off the ramps.
Overall Rayman 3 was a pretty enjoyable game to play and it really got me into the Rayman genre. If you pay attention to detail, then you will love the design and environments, at least in the first few levels anyway. If you are thinking of getting this game, I would probably recommend renting it because it is a bit strange and probably won’t be worth finishing anyway if you run out of time.