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What's the best Pikmin game?
The US Nintendo eShop currently has sales for Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2, Pikmin 1 + 2 bundle, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Pikmin 4.
I've never played a Pikmin game before. Which would y'all recommend if I were to only buy one of these options?
This is one of my favorite game series. They're all fun, but my order is exactly the order of release.
Pikmin 1: Best atmosphere, good balance of difficulty. Downside is rougher mechanics (though if you're into mods, there's a Pikmin 1 remake in the Pikmin 2 engine that is very good).
Pikmin 2: Very fun, but can be very challenging. Caves are a totally different kind of gameplay (combat focused with limited numbers, but unlimited time). The 2P mode is great (both battle and challenges). Piklopedia is a really fun piece too, the flavor text you get for the enemies is a great read.
Pikmin 3: More similar to 1, but much easier. Probably the most beautiful of the series still. Mission mode in this is amazing and the best side mode of the series in my opinion. 2P is also good.
Pikmin 4: A very fun game, but far too easy. The recent patches that added better difficulty and the swarm back in help a bit, though. This brings back the cave style gameplay, but is more balanced with overworld gameplay compared to Pikmin 2. I did like the Dandori battles too (even if a little trivial, and super easy on hard mode due to the AI not being smart enough to deal with hard mode). My biggest complaint is the 3-type limit, and no respawning enemies. Still a great game.
Since you haven't played before, I'd say 1+2 is the best bang for your buck since it's IMO the best of the series, and two games. You can't go too wrong with any of them though.
All I can add to your description of 3 is that I don't play Pikmin at all, and when my wife wants to play 2P, I always steal her victory macaron and she gets very very angry with me for winning that way.
I agree, I think 3 is the best balance for difficulty, and the most gorgeous
If OP were only buying one then 3 would be my pick: all the modern quality of life things and then if they want more there's still one more newer one
Twilight River is probably the prettiest area in the series. Definitely can't go wrong with 3.
Pikmin 3 thoughts, just in case OP doesn't want to see (minor gameplay spoilers?)
I really love 3, but there were just 2 things that keep me from ranking it higher.
Oh I loved twilight river!!
But you know, I went back to look at some screenshots and I'll have to amend my opinion: the flyover shots in Pikmin 4, especially Blossoming Arcadia which takes places in a children's playground in spring, with cascading cherry blossoms all-around... That's the prettiest
/noise
As someone who has only played one Pikmin game, I have to say Pikmin Bloom. It's Pokemon Go, but Pikmin and better.
Are you currently playing? I think it's a neat little freebie and gets me going for walks
I am! Been playing daily for just over two years, and it has certainly gotten me out of bed some mornings for walks I otherwise would have skipped.
My account is brand new. From what I know unless I'm always sending you the same postcard from outside my house then my most likly walking areas are not sharable?
It's such a cute game and I love Pikmin. I think I had an older, abandoned account way back from Pokemon go days but being rural there's really not much actual ways to play other than pick up local small items.
That seems to be true. The game is relatively good about keeping information about your location visible to only you. Best I can tell, the only ways to reveal your location would be via postcards (especially repeats or several different ones that come from the same vicinity) or mushroom battle invites. The postcards thing is entirely your own choice, so that's easy to avoid. Mushroom battles, on the other hand...
Let's say you and I are in-game friends, but I don't want to reveal my location to you so I'm judicious about inviting you to only mushroom battles that aren't near my home. Over time, assuming I keep inviting you to other mushrooms, you could send friend requests to other people I battle mushrooms with, especially repeats. These people are likely also in my friends list. If I'm inviting them (our mutual friends, which i would have no way of knowing about) to mushroom battles close to home because I don't really care if they know where I live (since they don't know anything else about my life), then it's possible that one of more of them could start inviting you to those mushrooms, too. You wouldn't even have to tip your hand by joining them, you'd just be able to see that I keep joining the same mushroom battles in the same small town and not inviting you to them.
Similarly, if I invite you to a mushroom battle and I'm the only one fighting it when you see it, then you can be fairly certain (unless I'm spoofing my location to get better access) that I'm physically close to that location, since it's incredibly unlikely that someone else invited me to it and then quit. This could give you information about my rough geographic location, maybe even travel habits.
I'm not particularly worried about these things, as I'm unfortunately not as hard to locate based on information freely available on the Internet as I'd like to be, but it is the sort of thing I think about.
Yeah, so in theory i like these kinds of geocache-adjacent games, but I do wish they were combined in a meaningful way as MMO's we can meet at a neutral fictitious place.
Same. Ingress was kind of like that, but the locations were real and you could end up meeting some less than friendly faces sometimes.
I am! Over three years now, since the tie-in with the Pikmin 4 release, playing every day. Since we already know each other from the Minecraft server, feel free to HMU with a friend code.
I'm playing very slowly through Pikmin 1 again after only occasionally touching it since I was a kid. It is a short game, and the time limit isn't that much of a factor once you get comfortable with the game.
Pikmin 2 will be next up. I've replayed it more over the years but haven't done a full playthrough since I was a younger teen. The multiplayer mode is surprisingly fun addition if you can find someone to play with.
I'd personally recommend the 1 & 2 bundle as I enjoy both of them immensely, though I freely admit that I have only played the first 2 games so I won't be able to give an opinion on the later entries.
I would like to note that there was a small amount of censorship/unnecessary changes depending on how you look at it for certain treasures and some of the mail you can receive at the end of days in Pikmin 2's rerelease on Switch. You can find a quick comparison online if you're curious.
Oh I didn't know there were sensorship changes how interest maybe I need to have another look
I should also mention Pikmin 4 contains a mini/condensed version of Pikmin 1, allowing new players to enjoy the OG without the difficult challenge and in a shorter time.
Going back to look at the changes it really feels like Nintendo trying to sand off any potential edges or any speck of potential controversy from the series when there wasn't any to begin with.
I still own my original discs still (though they are very far away), so when I found out about the censorship after thinking about picking them up on Switch to show support for a franchise I enjoy, I didn't feel bad about downloading a ROM instead to play through the games again on my phone and show my kids.
What did they think? Do they want to try playing?
They enjoy watching me play it and call Olimar "the daddy" and all the pikmin his "kids".
Right now they don't have much exposure to gaming in general and have limited screen time. The only game we've let them so far play is Animal Crossing where they run around my wife's island. They'll occasionally see me play a different game, but I try not to game much in front of them since they get interested in the screen and just want to watch that instead.
My oldest struggles a bit with reading, so I've been telling him that if he works on his reading more he can start to play games with me since he needs to be able to read to play most games.
:) we learned how to read while playing pokemon yellow, when I read all the dialogue in voices. Midway through the kid got tired of waiting and read them herself and I was made redundant .... Enjoy the years together! But yes there are so many things to share your limiting screen time is as difficult as it is admirable
It's a wild ride that is for sure! I do look forward to sharing more things with them as they grow older, especially older games that I enjoyed as I grew up. I'm hoping to set up an emulation station and potentially bring over my old consoles for them to play with as well.
The screen time limit is something that I didn't have growing up, and while I enjoyed my childhood there are a lot of things that I feel like would have been a better use of my time or my parents could have encouraged me to explore instead of letting me play as many games as I did.
Pokemon Red taught me how to read, so maybe something they can get into something that's text heavy to help them along?
My youngest is ahead of his reading age, whereas my oldest is struggling somewhat. His teacher told us he is at an average level and to not worry, but it is a bit hard to not compare the two and my wife and I were both early readers.
My wife didn't grow up playing many games, so I'll probably bring that up again as I also had games help me to learn to read. I would personally like him to have more of the basics down before adding in gaming to the mix so he doesn't only want to read when he is playing something more interactive.
I haven't played all of them so it's hard to say what's best, but I had great fun with Pikmin 4.
Edit: I went looking for listicles and found no consensus beyond "it's Pikmin, you can't really go wrong".
The original game is the best introduction to the series. The 1+2 bundle, as others have said, is a great purchase to start.
The third game has the best multiplayer, so if you like couch coöp, start with that.
The fourth game wears on a bit, and is probably the least of the series but still very fun.
Pikmin 3 easily is the best Pikmin for families. The additions are easy to understand and the multiplayer is very good.
If you are playing on Wii U, you are in for a treat. Top 5 Wii U game.