Man you guys are wusses. I feel like I'm literally the only person on the forum who wasn't somehow ever scared of cheesy, over-the-top spoop in children's video games.
As for the mechanics, Rayman 2 has the fastest, snappiest, most flexible and responsive platforming mechanics in any 3D platformer I've played by far. When you're quickly running, jumping and rolling everywhere dodging shit, it's exhilarating. Rayman 3 by default stunts this given the simple fact that he has only one jump height (no tap-jumps) and his horizontal speed slows down to a walking pace as soon as you lift off the ground. This, well, by definition, completely kills any kind of momentum the character has, making what would normally be a simple platforming challenge in any other game a lot more difficult. Truth be told, they do execute it well, but it removes a lot of potential variety on the platforming front.
Aside from them arguably feeling ever so slightly unpolished, especially due to things like the stop-motion vertex animation system, I don't think Rayman 2's controls have aged at all really. Every move you pull off connects and feels incredibly satisfying. The sliding physics can be a bit janky at times, but you rarely saw mechanical variety like that so directly integrated into the environment at the time. Rayman feels like a lovely ball of body parts hurdling through spacetime.