Earthworm Jim 3D is an actually good game with lots of charm, and I'd say on the same level as its predecessors, EWJ and EWJ2. Not a masterpiece, mind you--it does have the occasional jank that was displayed even in highly regarded games of the same era, such as Mario 64, with the camera being a bitch to juggle around at times and boss battles being... useless? For the most part, however, I can only voice good things about this title: the playable character is very responsive (no delayed animations like in Banjo-Kazooie), platforming is extremely tight (to illustrate, you don't become briefly uncontrollable when you bonk into a wall, like a certain polygonal plumber does in his starring title) and there is a decent amount of exploration in a world filled with cow warriors that you have to decapitate, exploding leperchauns, baby Wild West sheriffs, kitchen aliens, possessed vacuum cleaners and many, many others. The writing is very funny too.
Yet is has mostly bad to mediocre reviews, scoring a 3,2/10 on GameSpot and 6/10 on Steam. Like, I like the first two EWJ games as much as the next guy but there's no need to act like a nostalgic wreck when the character evolves into a new dimension. It is indeed shorter and more linear than the similar classic 3D sanbox games, but that doesn't make it awful.