A solid start to what has quickly become one of my favorite game series. The music, environments, and gameplay are all charming even despite the rough edges. The gameplay loop is immensely addicting but with some bumps in the forms of frustrating mechanics and iffy controls. While the limited number of pikmin varieties and mechanics make the puzzle solutions obvious, the punishing nature of combat and screwups are a welcome surprise for a nintendo game. Fantastically addicting and a solid difficulty for "combat" make this a solid pickup, just wish it lacked some of the minor annoyances and had more puzzle variety.