Pikmin 1 is a spectacular first attempt at an RTS from Nintendo. The melancholic atmosphere, weird art design, and varied enemies carry this game, and even looking back on it after over twenty years, the simple 3d models and textures bring a nostalgic feeling that almost look like the beginning of 3d CG animation from the early 2000s, more so than any other gamecube game. Some very minor nitpicks I have with the game, but none so big that they sour the experience. At around 7 hours I was able to get every ship part, and at that length, it was perfectly paced. The difficulty never spiked and I was challenged gradually all the way to the end. Some might see the length as an issue, especially probably when it first released, but imo it kind of makes replayability a lot more appealing.

Ps. The music in this game is fire and far superior to pikmin 2’s music, fight me

Pikmin 2 ditches the time limit of the first game, focusing more on the collectathon aspect of pikmin, and it’s for the better. Collecting treasure and paying off your debt is so satisfying, as is completing a cave. It isn’t without its flaws though; many game design decisions had me questioning the devs, such as pikmin lagging behind (which only gets worse as you get the boot upgrade which increases your speed), and some bosses having very punishing attacks, and overall I felt the days were a bit short. These issues don’t plague the game too bad, though, as this is still such a solid experience and holds up regardless of the QOL issues that future entries would implement.

Many caves in this game had me restarting (thank god it saves in-between sub levels) and I’m genuinely happy that the game is probably the most difficult in the series to 100%. I’ve yet to complete challenge mode, but 100%-ing the main game has been a blast.

Music in this game is also just okay, at least compared to the rest of the series. Some themes just get annoying, too. But I suppose that is personal preference.

Wow this is a hell no from me. Did they playtest this before sending it out? The level design seems very unfair (especially with the towers) and it seems like they didn’t know how to make a level designed around Sonic’s fast moveset. The main game didn’t have this problem, so the design of the towers and even some of the sub levels seems really out of place. This dlc is very artificially difficult, and sometimes even too easy, with how much you can cheese sections with tails and knuckles, not to mention knuckles having an infinite jump glitch. I’m impressed by the amount of content they packed in for free, and I’m happy with the new characters (some weird moveset quirks aside), but the content here is just not up to par with the campaign.

EDIT: I’m gonna try to push through on it, only because I’ve heard the final boss scene is cool.

EDIT 2: I’ve gotten a fair way through the dlc, and the one thing I’ve noticed that is more evident in the dlc is that the level design doesn’t nudge you in the right direction. Many times I’ll be headed towards a beacon/marker, and I’ll find myself puzzled as to get to the location, as the location is 1000 feet in the sky, and because of the horrible pop-in, I’m unable to see where it is and where I need to go in order to get up there. The pop-in was a problem with the main game, but it is only really called into attention through the vertical level design they implemented in the DLC.

Cutscenes also feel very weird sometimes, a lot of which show one of our heroes just making a face with no voice acting, which makes me question why there was even a cutscene in the first place.

The map is, like the main game, completely blank until you go around to map puzzles. These puzzle were fairly easy in the main game, but some of these puzzles are made extremely difficult, and even seemingly requiring different characters, which isn’t made clear by the moment you start one. Not having. The map immediately available was an, at most, questionable decision, but the DLC makes this problem feel even worse.