Just finished all three pikmin games, going to just list some thoughts on what I liked and disliked about all three (in their respective reviews). They are all pretty unique in their strengths and weaknesses but I think I enjoyed all of them to similar capacities.
- Time limit encourages efficient gameplay and was short enough that I felt decently pressured throughout my playthrough, but wasn't overbearing enough that I couldn't get through it first try.
- Controlling your hoard definitely feels the worst in this game. For the most part its fine but sometimes the pikmin just want to die.
- Story contextualization in this one is my favorite of the bunch. I think the fact that Olimar is alone with no one but the pikmin to help adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.
- Never any particularly cheap moments like in pikmin 2, but it can be frustrating to lose a bunch of pikmin to a boss simply due to lack of knowledge about the boss that you couldn't have received without trial and error.
- Related to above, not sure if I missed something but I found the final boss to be a very significant jump in difficulty and it took me many many tries to successfully defeat it.
- Some of the little puzzles you have to solve for the ship parts are very satisfying to figure out, I often felt like I was outsmarting the game even though I think I was simply doing what it expected of me.
- The steady day-by-day progress you make through each level in this game is my favorite. Each day I spent on a level I felt I had conquered just a little bit more of it, and had a bit more of a plan to execute on for the next day. This was a great feeling for me that is lost in 2 due to the caves breaking up overworld sections, and lost in 3 due to story progression/unlocking pikmin types making the exploration aspect of each level feel less self-discovered and more scripted.
- It feels like there's a lot of weirdly placed walls and bridges in the Forest Navel. The sheer number of them and how densely they're packed feels odd, and while some of them were obviously useful shortcuts there were others I opened up having no clue what I achieved for myself. This could just be me being dumb but it's something that stuck out to me when I was exploring through that area.
Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting but overall if it weren't for some of the jank I think this would be the strongest entry in the series.
Edit: Retroactively upped it to 8/10. None of the other pikmin games really nail atmosphere like this one and I clearly prefer this one over all the others.
- Time limit encourages efficient gameplay and was short enough that I felt decently pressured throughout my playthrough, but wasn't overbearing enough that I couldn't get through it first try.
- Controlling your hoard definitely feels the worst in this game. For the most part its fine but sometimes the pikmin just want to die.
- Story contextualization in this one is my favorite of the bunch. I think the fact that Olimar is alone with no one but the pikmin to help adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game.
- Never any particularly cheap moments like in pikmin 2, but it can be frustrating to lose a bunch of pikmin to a boss simply due to lack of knowledge about the boss that you couldn't have received without trial and error.
- Related to above, not sure if I missed something but I found the final boss to be a very significant jump in difficulty and it took me many many tries to successfully defeat it.
- Some of the little puzzles you have to solve for the ship parts are very satisfying to figure out, I often felt like I was outsmarting the game even though I think I was simply doing what it expected of me.
- The steady day-by-day progress you make through each level in this game is my favorite. Each day I spent on a level I felt I had conquered just a little bit more of it, and had a bit more of a plan to execute on for the next day. This was a great feeling for me that is lost in 2 due to the caves breaking up overworld sections, and lost in 3 due to story progression/unlocking pikmin types making the exploration aspect of each level feel less self-discovered and more scripted.
- It feels like there's a lot of weirdly placed walls and bridges in the Forest Navel. The sheer number of them and how densely they're packed feels odd, and while some of them were obviously useful shortcuts there were others I opened up having no clue what I achieved for myself. This could just be me being dumb but it's something that stuck out to me when I was exploring through that area.
Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting but overall if it weren't for some of the jank I think this would be the strongest entry in the series.
Edit: Retroactively upped it to 8/10. None of the other pikmin games really nail atmosphere like this one and I clearly prefer this one over all the others.