While Rayman 3 doesn’t have much going for it, the game was enjoyable to the point where you want to finish it.
The story of Rayman 3 is fairly simple, almost too simple for any enjoyment whatsoever. Basically the red lums of the world, that restore Rayman’s health and hold other story importance from Rayman 2: The Great Escape, have become infected by a black lum turning them into hoodlums, brilliant huh? Rayman’s best friend, Globox, accidentally swallows a black lum and then the quest is on for a doctor that can remove it.
While it’s not a life or death situation for Globox, the game certainly would have benefited from a sense of urgency. At the expense of forgetting why you are going places and why you are doing the things in the game, it kind of totters along without much direction other than finding these doctors.
When you do find these doctors, you will be quickly disappointed to learn that they are all stereotyped from various cultures. There is the Austrian doctor, the 1970’s stoner doctor, and the Asian doctor. Each of them attempts at getting the black lum out of Globox by playing an instrument on a body part.
During the process of finding these doctors, you will encounter a wide array of environments and enemies. The key to taking down these enemies are the new powers Rayman can use for a brief period of time. Each of these powers has a specific use and can usually be used for combat as well. Mostly these powers will be about solving simple puzzles, like breaking through a door, to get to the next area.
My issues with the story is that even though it begins where Rayman 2 left off, with Rayman sleeping, but doesn’t include some key players – such as the fairy. While it is a good transition from The Great Escape, it just doesn’t feel like it was a good enough story overall and was extremely lackluster.
Most of the problems with Rayman 3 are that you do things repeatedly in a different environment every couple of levels. The problems themselves aren’t with the mechanics of performing these actions, just the fact that the action isn’t varied enough for much enjoyment about the 7th time around.
The replay value is almost entirely shot for the fact that the game has a very “been there, done that” feeling to it almost immediately after you finish the level. The fact that there are cages and gems in the levels try to promote replay, but that doesn’t really feel that rewarding in the end.
While Rayman 3 doesn’t have much going for it at any given time, it does look reasonably nice on the Gamecube. The graphics are fairly fleshed out, and retains much the same style of Rayman 2, with a comical look; but not cell shaded. And with the very funny audio usually accompanying the graphics, at least Rayman 3 was enjoyable to the point where you want to finish the game if you are a Rayman fan.