the nostalgia has worn off and it's hard to say that this was a "slept on classic", like i used to view it. it's still definitely a good platformer and stands out amongst the unsuccessful mascot platformers it was rubbing elbows with. the biggest drawback to this game is that the level design feels less tightly designed and engaging. if gex: enter the gecko was crash bandicoot meets spyro, this game is just super mario 64 (all weird comparisons, i know). you have levels like organ trail and red riding in the hood (dumb but great level name) that are functionally just tall, tall mountain. meanwhile, i don't really have a good analogy for a level like poltergext or samurai night fever. etg was less conventional and it paid off in that way, but dcg does conventional level designs moderately well in a fairly decent presentation, especially compared to etg's rougher textures and fidelity. gex also controls what feels like a trillion times better in dcg than he does in etg.
the biggest thing that might shy people away from this game is that there's less emphasis on platforming as opposed to collecting, though it's not absent wholly. this game leans much more into the collectathon aspect, and it doesn't always hold up (see: the fact that flycoins can glitch out and go beneath level geometry in my three goons.) i do think it's a lot more fun in the moment-to-moment gameplay, though, because the levels are more focused in their theme, and having them only appear once means that there's nothing left on the cutting floor to warrant redoing the level theme. levels like sleepless in seattle, organ trail, unsolved mythstories, and red riding in the hood are great because they each focus on simple ideas and then execute them fairly precisely. meanwhile, levels like my three goons and superzeroes suck the fun out of the game like a vacuum. this is due to their tedious nature and lack of fun level gimmicks that make the moment-to-moment gameplay of traversing the level 3 times more memorable and engaging (something each of the 4 levels i listed prior succeed at.) the contrast between etg and dcg is much more stark after playing them in quick succession; in some respects, i think the best gex game could've been a marriage between etg's solid level design and dcg's polish and refinement.
i would ever so slightly say that dcg is the better gex game of the two (why did they call it gex 3 when there's only 2 gex games? i hope someone got fired for that blunder.), but it's definitely closer than i would've said half a year ago. if you take the best designed levels of etg and put them through dcg's polish and presentation, you'd have probably some of the best 3D platforming you could find from a midbudget title of that time.
the biggest thing that might shy people away from this game is that there's less emphasis on platforming as opposed to collecting, though it's not absent wholly. this game leans much more into the collectathon aspect, and it doesn't always hold up (see: the fact that flycoins can glitch out and go beneath level geometry in my three goons.) i do think it's a lot more fun in the moment-to-moment gameplay, though, because the levels are more focused in their theme, and having them only appear once means that there's nothing left on the cutting floor to warrant redoing the level theme. levels like sleepless in seattle, organ trail, unsolved mythstories, and red riding in the hood are great because they each focus on simple ideas and then execute them fairly precisely. meanwhile, levels like my three goons and superzeroes suck the fun out of the game like a vacuum. this is due to their tedious nature and lack of fun level gimmicks that make the moment-to-moment gameplay of traversing the level 3 times more memorable and engaging (something each of the 4 levels i listed prior succeed at.) the contrast between etg and dcg is much more stark after playing them in quick succession; in some respects, i think the best gex game could've been a marriage between etg's solid level design and dcg's polish and refinement.
i would ever so slightly say that dcg is the better gex game of the two (why did they call it gex 3 when there's only 2 gex games? i hope someone got fired for that blunder.), but it's definitely closer than i would've said half a year ago. if you take the best designed levels of etg and put them through dcg's polish and presentation, you'd have probably some of the best 3D platforming you could find from a midbudget title of that time.