I was highly anticipating this game for years but I never expected it to be so amazing. Just as a baseline it takes all the elements from Pikmin 1,2, and 3 and brings them back with tons of quality of life and usability updates to boot. Miss the caves from 2? They are back and better than ever, filled with tons of different enemies, bosses, and thoughtful situations to work through. Love the multitasking abilities from 3? Also back and improved by the inclusion of the dog Oatchi who is an unstoppable force. Like the time constraints of 1? Let's just say there is some stuff in here that will be right up your alley.
Alongside all of that are new additions as well, first off having some new pikmin types obviously keeps things fresh and the ice pikmin are a lot of fun to use in combat and problem solving. Glow pikmin aren't in the normal rotation of pikmin but that doesn't make them any less fun to use, their ghostly powers are only used in the new night time missions which are a pikmin spin on tower defense. There are a little over a dozen of these and they are pretty short so they function very nicely as a pallet cleanser to shake up the gameplay.
The new dandori challenge caves achieve this as well by taking what would be normal caves and turning them into fun challenge rooms. Sometimes you need to try to get all the treasures within a short amount of time, or maybe you have to battle an AI in a pikmin battle challenge. These different modes shake things up but aren't so prevalent or long that they ever got stale to me. Add in a a neat hub world and a couple good size bonus modes with great rewards and you are looking at 30 hours to get 100% which felt like the perfect runtime to me.
Alongside all of that are new additions as well, first off having some new pikmin types obviously keeps things fresh and the ice pikmin are a lot of fun to use in combat and problem solving. Glow pikmin aren't in the normal rotation of pikmin but that doesn't make them any less fun to use, their ghostly powers are only used in the new night time missions which are a pikmin spin on tower defense. There are a little over a dozen of these and they are pretty short so they function very nicely as a pallet cleanser to shake up the gameplay.
The new dandori challenge caves achieve this as well by taking what would be normal caves and turning them into fun challenge rooms. Sometimes you need to try to get all the treasures within a short amount of time, or maybe you have to battle an AI in a pikmin battle challenge. These different modes shake things up but aren't so prevalent or long that they ever got stale to me. Add in a a neat hub world and a couple good size bonus modes with great rewards and you are looking at 30 hours to get 100% which felt like the perfect runtime to me.