I find it really strange how the game that pushes the concept of dandori so much is the one where dandori matters the least. It's also just really strange how enemies don't respawn on the overworlds, so they end up feeling empty if you're going back for one cave or treasure that you couldn't get earlier. Things like that or the fact that a lot of the game is just combat when Pikmin's strength has never been in straight combat (granted 4's bestiary is pretty impressive, and the final boss is pretty fun) so eschewing the time management of 1 and 3 or even 4's own dandori challenges in favor of just making the bulk of the gameplay throwing a bunch of pikmin at a big enemy seems like a strange decision to me. I could say that it's casualized to make Pikmin appeal to a wider audience, but the series is already an attempt at making the RTS genre more approachable so I don't think it's that. It's still Pikmin so it's a pretty fun time and the fourth area is probably the closest to a new Chibi-Robo we'll ever get, but it's just worse enough when compared to the other games in the series to make me a little disappointed in it.

Also seriously why isn't there an online dandori battle mode yeah bingo battle is better but online dandori would have made up for all the game's flaws.