This being one of the few adventure games that came out on launch, I decided to buy it. I remembered Rayman from his 2D games and the delightful charm of the previous games, as well as the rather good sense of humour. Sadly, I feel like a lot of that has been lost in his transition to 3D.
First of all the graphic looks like a first generation Nintendo 64 game. It has nothing of the colourful crispness of the other 3DS games I posses. The controls are okay once you get used to them, but I found the fighting somewhat awkward. Much worse than every single enemy I have encountered so far is the camera though, which is clearly hell-bend on killing you. It loves focusing on everything other than the enemy before you (even when this enemy is a boss), hides behind things or does all the other glorious things cameras in the early days of 3D did. We are not in the early days of 3D anymore though. 3D has been around long enough that there should be really no excuse for this awful camera movement unless they didn't bother to update the game at all... which is where in my mind half the problem lies. A game that was not that amazing to begin with got ported onto the 3DS without any major effort. The 3D effect looks okay, but again nothing like other games.
The worst part however is the story. When I last played Rayman it didn't really pretend to have a story. Free X to save Y - GO! Was the extend of it. Which was perfectly fine and adequate as the levels were fun and interesting and the light-hearted set up really didn't need much of a story. Sadly, this time around they decided that a story was needed. The dialogue is outright painful to put it politely and the storyline stupid enough to hurt your head. It feels almost as if they decided Rayman should be more like a Mario game, but should take himself somewhat seriously and sound more heroic. The result is very much not like Mario to put it mildly. It doesn't feel unique like the original Rayman games anymore - just like a fairly generic jump and run, with mediocre graphics and really bad story. A massive shame.
Note: I am 24 and am reviewing this from an adult perspective. I don't know if a kid might enjoy this game more, but I did not - especially as I know the original.