Pikmin 2 vs 3
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I know where I stand on this already, but I'm kinda fascinated with how the fan base of Pikmin kinda splits almost evenly here.
I'm wondering, those of you how strictly prefer one over the other, why is that? Does it all come down to the time limit and treasure hunting or are there other reasons?
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If I had to pick one to play right now, from start to finish and strap in for the long haul... It'd probably be 3. My only complaint about 3 is that I wish there was more of it.
It's a shame it's shorter than 2. I didn't have an issue with the caves in 2, but in hindsight it's kind of a cheap way of lengthening the game. Only a few of them particularly stand out in my memory anyway, like the shower room, the one with the waterwraith, and the breadbug kitchen.
If you think of it as a follow-up to Pikmin 1 instead, which it's more similar to, 3 succeeds at improving almost everything. Graphics, navigation, handling of Pikmin and captains, combat... And has a ton more variety despite being more streamlined than 2. Also just my personal preference, but I like that it has a bit more story. If there was a Pikmin 4, I'd want it to be like 3.
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@ShrineFox hm, yeah, looking at 3 as follow-up to 1 is a really good way to look at it given how much more similar they are than 2 is to either.
About a potential Pikmin 4 though... judging from how the design philosophy for other major franchises from nintendo has changed due to the portability of the Switch, I'm not sure any Pikmin game but 2 with its unlimited completion time could be a fit. Definitely can't imagine 1 or 3 working well portably in the same way BotW or Odyssey can.
I personally like Pikmin 2 a lot, but a Pikmin 4 exactly like it doesn't seem totally appealing in 2019.
Dang, nice thoughts though.
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For me the winner would be Pikmin 2.
The only reason being that the other games get me a bit more stressed with the day limit. I know its not hard to finish the games with a good amount of days left but i like the feeling you can play at a slower pace.
Objectively Pikmin 3´s game design is better. More Ideas wich are better put together than the over titles.
I´m also hoping they bring the cave system back in future titles with some improvements.
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Really, the thing that killed Pikmin 3 for me was the controls. For me, the ability to swarm the Pikmin with the C stick was pretty much essential to how I played the game, and I couldn't understand why it was removed in Pikmin 3. The motion controls also just were kinda poop, with the pointer controls not directly correlating to the actual place you throw the Pikmin. I think people that played the Wii version of the original games adapted to those controls and could more easily transpose them to Pikmin 3, but for me I found the whole thing unbearable.
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Preface: I have watched let's plays and speedruns of all three games, but I have only played the first one. This is from the perspective of someone on the outside looking in.
My favorite memory from my first playthrough of Pikmin was realizing that I had less days than parts remaining, and that I would have to pick up the pace if I wanted Olimar to survive. I knew about the medium ending, so I knew I didn't need to beat the final boss, but it was cool for me to feel some aspect of the stress Olimar was supposed to be feeling in the game.
After I eventually did beat the game, I asked a friend what Pikmin 2 was like, and he told me it was about collecting treasure. That of course led to my follow up question, how did they put a time limit on that. When he told me that there was none, I was disappointed that this castaway-esque game that I so enjoyed had its most interesting aspect stripped away in the sequel. Years later I have seen all three games, and although Pikmin 3's time limit is far from limiting, it's at least there. The idea of Pikmin as this weird fusion of Survival and RTS was what made the series interesting to me, so with that in mind I can't reasonably say that I think 2 is better than 3, nor can I say that any of the three is the ideal Pikmin game.
While 1 has the best premise, it is bogged down by several design decisions that likely resulted from being the first game. It is far shorter than the other two games, which makes for less game time per dollar spent. The ship parts are way too heavy to allow for effective multitasking, simply because too many pikmin must be dedicated to just one task (a great example is in the forest navel where multiple parts have to be fished out of the water with blues and then dragged through the blowhogs with reds). And of course the pikmin AI is at its most primitive state, making for clunky gameplay at times.
Then we get to 2, which ditches the timer in favor of brutally unforgiving level design. Enemies that can come back from the dead, random bomb rocks, insta-kill electricity, the list goes on. But at the same time, the game improves on basically everything the first one failed at. With the added hazards, each variety of pikmin seems to have a meaningful role (except the reds, but they're the tutorial pikmin so they get a pass). The collectibles are lighter and you have two captains to work with, which means multitasking is not only feasible now, it's encouraged. Of course there are exceptions, like the giant dumbbell which requires you to dedicate all of your pikmin to one task, but for the most part the collectibles are fairly inoffensive. Then there's the bosses, which is the highlight of this game. The enemies are diverse and in greater numbers than before. It's not perfect, but 2 does a fair amount right.
Then we get to 3, which tried to do both at once. Unfortunately, they didn't account for a few things. One, an incredibly generous time limit is effectively the same as none at all. Sure, you start with only 3 days, but it isn't hard to push that out to 20, even 30 very early on. Not to mention that the game has a potential limit of 89 days, with it being possible to complete the game in just 10. Two, the game suffers from modern-era nintendo design, where the main campaign is fairly tame and the real challenge is the post game. The problem with this philosophy for Pikmin games is that the bonus modes have never been the focus of the franchise and the whole point of the story is to be done with it. There is no post game. It seems nintendo just sorta forgot about this when designing Pikmin 3. On top of the new time limit, you have 2 new varieties of pikmin that are very easy to abuse. With rocks being immune to crushing, the most threatening enemy of the first game, the wollywog, might as well not exist. And then there's flying pikmin, which directly encourage you to ignore the landscape and just use them to carry everything that isn't explicitly submerged in water. Also, the removal of the C-stick feature from the previous 2 entries simplifies the combat in a way I'm not comfortable with.
I know this has basically been an extended rant complaining about the Pikmin series as a whole, so I want to end this in a succinct manner. Pikmins 2 and 3 both lack the tension of the first, so that's a tie for both. Pikmin 2 seems to have a greater focus on combat while 3 is more puzzle-based. Since it's harder to break the puzzles in 3 than the combat in 2, I have to say that 3 is the better game. Regardless, I hope that nintendo continues to learn from each entry and that Pikmin 4 is the game that finally is able to balance everything well.
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Pikmin 3 for sure. I've talked to different people about both games, which was interesting cause I didn't consider that some people preferred the lack of a time limit and liked the cave treasure hunting levels more than Pikmin 1 & 3 style levels, but I couldn't get into it. The caves in 2 didn't catch my interest at all because of the emphasis on fighting enemies. I missed going around a big level and solving puzzles, and finding random crap just lying around, and figuring out different ways to interact with the world.
Gave up when Pikmin 2 pulled a "you're done... joooookes still got more to go" with the Louie thing. Irks me when games do that, like Rayman Origins.
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I'm a little torn on this because there is a lot to like about both. I've always been more of atmosphere/world building guy compared to just raw gameplay in my video games. So when I see Pikmin 3 fleshing out the world, adding new characters and angles as well as continuing the pressure aspect of a time limit (albeit easier), I lean towards it. Pikmin 2 aims for more gameplay by adding a ton of caves that are pretty samey after a while, like Bloodborne's chalice dungeons, they don't have that same level of design polish I expect when playing through a Pikmin area. Pikmin 2 however does offer the Piklopedia which is a fantastic tool to deliver world building, by having descriptions of items and creatures habitats exclusively through the viewpoint of an everyman who writes extremely casually it gives us a better symbiosis with Olimar and his situation. Pikmin 3 also suffers from having a lot of time focusing on a more comedic trio dynamic between the characters which is a follow through from 2's similar bend of more comedic interactions which I'm fine with on some levels, but feel it could hurt the overall experience.
Honestly I always say 3 when asked but it's a complicated question, all I objectively know is Louie is garbage.
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@StevoIDH said in Pikmin 2 vs 3:
all I objectively know is Louie is garbage
bruh don't go smack talking the king of the bugs
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