I'd never played a Rayman game before. I have to say, while I generally enjoyed the gameplay, I wasn't blown away.
There's creativity in the levels, decent graphics, some mildly interesting puzzles and a comfortable formula with how the levels work so you know what to expect. But it all feels a bit frivolous. There's no story to speak of. Few if any of the levels were truly inspired or particularly difficult.
While there's style to the characters and some of it is cute or amusing, it's not my favourite style. It looks very flat. Two or three layers warping and shifting on top of each-other. Some of the reactions in animations are really delayed which is annoying. Rather than the detail of Disney films where every frame was individually drawn, it seems to use the computer to artificially shift simple images which were only drawn once. Not much of it is what I'd call beautiful or breath-taking.
The levels themselves are fun but are often either too easy or frustratingly tricky. I prefer games where there's a gradual incline to the difficulty and the abilities you have. But you have the same abilities all the way through. Much of it is more about memorisation than skill since you end up having to redo the same sections again and again.
The placement of checkpoints is mostly fine but sometimes the gaps are too big. A few of the 8-bit challenge levels were especially frustrating near the end. Why simulate a fuzzy screen where you can barely see anything? Like I said, it veers much more closely to frustrating than challenging.
It's annoying that some of the trophies apparently require months worth of online play to achieve. I got all 700 things you have to collect so a better balance where only a few more hours are required to get the platinum trophy would have been good.
Still, I enjoyed the game. There's a satisfaction to finishing a level thoroughly the first time, finding all the hidden areas, timing jumps right and beating all the enemies. I just think it's a bit overrated and probably better suited to children than adults.