YMMV / Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

• Anti-Climax Boss: Andre. He does nothing at all, and you defeat him with one move. To be fair though, Leptys-empowered Reflux was doing all the work.
• Awesome Music: Behold, one of the funkiest video game soundtracks ever made.
  • The Hoodlum Wizard theme.
  • Madder, the opening theme, is pretty badass, and the trailer that accompanies it is just as awesome. Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, it's missing from the HD release. The video can be viewed here.
  • The Land of the Livid Dead's theme, a peaceful, serene track that really gives the mystical feel.
  • Reflux the Knaaren is suitably epic and ominous for a Boss Battle. And it does so with jaw harp and didgeridoo bits, of all things.
  • The snowboard music. Pumps you up beautifully.
  • Funkyboard, the music for the Teensie Highway levels, as funky as both your board and the crazy levels themselves.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Both of Razoff’s fights are extremely memorable: the first is a cat and mouse chase through the hunter’s mansion and the second is a fight in his dungeon where he swings from a wrecking ball.
  • The first fight with Reflux is arguably one of the most memorable fights in the whole franchise with its dark music, epic arena, and Reflux himself who steadily gains more and more attacks as the fight goes on.
• Best Level Ever:
  • The final phase of Clearleaf Forest where, after you defeat Hoodstomper, you take control of his colossal mechanical legs and smash the hoodlums like bugs.
  • The Land of the Livid Dead and the Desert of the Knaaren are often considered the game's high points. The former is a level with some of the best Scenery Porn in the entire game (and introduces the fan-favorite Hoodoo enemy type) and the latter is an extremely intense Survival Horror romp through a tomb filled with dozens of horrific monsters.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The Bog of Murk. This section has no plot importance, Globox is absent for the majority of the level, Andre has no dialogue, and Rayman fights two villains who aren't connected to the Hoodlums in any fashion. This is however all justified since Rayman got here because he fell out of a Teensie Highway that was under construction, meaning the whole level is quite literally a detour.
  • The segments involving Rayman being shrunken down and riding one of his shoes to repeatedly hit the other. While they crop up multiple times, the segments have no story relevance or foreshadowing whatsoever, Rayman never acknowledges what happened at any point and they primarily act as padding.
• Breather Level: The Longest Shortcut is a much shorter level than Desert of the Knarren, with a few rooms of puzzles/platforming and no enemies or end level boss.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Rayman fans generally agree that Billy West is the definitive voice for Murfy.
• Catharsis Factor: After being forced to avoid Knaaren as Rayman, the Sentinel minigame has you bomb them away as a Hoodboom.
• Contested Sequel: Rayman 3 is quite different in tone from the previous game, and opinions are divided as a result. Some say that it was the game that put the series on the back-burner before Rayman Origins was released (though way more blame the Raving Rabbids for that), while some others say that it was the last good Rayman game before then and that it is actually more polished than Rayman 2.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The "Wanna Kick Rayman" bonus videos. Animal abuse in on itself? Not all that funny. Dressing the animals up as Rayman and having a hoodlum torture (and in some cases, kill) them in absurdly brutal ways like hitting one with a hammer so hard its eye pops out or flushing another down the toilet? Hilarious!
• Disappointing Last Level: The ending phases are relatively lackluster compared to the rest of the game. Once you hit the Hoodlum Hideout, the final few levels start to become straight platforming challenges with little variation, and the Tower of the Leptys is essentially nothing but platforming and combat all the way through with little in the way of puzzle solving or interesting bits, aside from the surprise turret section towards the end.
• Evil Is Cool: The Knaaren are the main reason why the Desert of the Knaaren is such a beloved level, completely stealing the spotlight from the Hoodlums and shifting the game into an entirely different genre through their intimidation factor alone.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Murfy's infamous "See you in Rayman 4" seems harder to swallow given Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman and had once promised a Rayman 4, announced his retirement from game development in 2020. Add to that, while Ubisoft owns the IP and trademark, both Origins and Legends only came to be thanks to Ancel's involvement and sold poorly, meaning an actual Rayman 4 is less likely to occur due to the franchise being seen as not as profitable as massively successful properties that skew towards older demographics like Assassin's Creed. Whether the Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope DLC Rayman in the Phantom Show can lead to a new game is up in the air.
• Memetic Loser: While Reflux makes up for it with some great boss fights, more than one player has felt that he's somewhat underwhelming for being the so-called "Champion of the Knaaren", since he is the only one in an entire species of invincible monsters that Rayman can face in one-on-one combat.
• Memetic Mutation: "See ya in Rayman 4!"^note  Murfy shouts this out to Rayman as a farewell. Rayman 4 is in Development Hell for years.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Combat in Rayman 2 was strongly criticized for mostly boiling down to a tedious “attack, dodge, wait for the enemy's invincibility frames to wear off, attack again”. Combat in Rayman 3 is much more dynamic and requires a greater amount of agility from the player, since many enemies are now capable of dodging or parrying hits, or otherwise must be defeated in unconventional ways.
• Scrappy Mechanic: After a while, you'll start getting really annoyed by the fact that Rayman has to somersault EVERY time he jumps, which seems to slow him down.
• That One Attack:
  • Reflux has the fireballs he summons every time his weak point is exposed, they home in on you and avoiding them usually means you give up the chance to deal significant damage due to the short window of time he's vulnerable.
  • Final Reflux ups the ante in his first form with homing lightning strikes that he basically floods the field with once his weak point is exposed.
• That One Boss: Final Reflux's last form, which you have to fight using the flying machine introduced earlier. The issue is the mechanics of the turret section have changed so you now only fire in spurts, making focusing on the weakpoint, which you pretty much have to be on at all times to proceed, a chore. And then there's the regeneration phase, where you have to contend with an awkward camera angle and a very unreliable area of effect attack to try and reduce the hoodlum numbers.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Those old turtles that you can carry or kick around. Their common design shows them having very long eyelashes, yet their in-game description refers to one as a "he". And to top it all off, their elderly voices are extremely androgynous, which could imply that each turtle could be any gender.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The game has a surprising amount of innuendos for an E-rated game, among them a Teensie doctor who's a G-Rated Stoner and a Double Entendre conversation when Knaarens argue about their hats but it sounds like it's about their penis. Not to mention the Darker and Edgier Tone Shift compared to Rayman 2. The remaster was bumped up to an E-10 rating.

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