Yeah, well. My 3 changed into 73.
I've been making so many slip ups lately. I guess I thought I was hot shit clearing these dungeons people were losing 90 Pikmin in with ease.
Then I just made accident after accident. Mostly ignorant stuff. Getting ambushed when toiling 100 Pikmin to a dungeon is not fun. Much like when one of those Daisy monsters I swore wasn't there before popped up on me.
My swift reaction? To minor retreat by swinging my multi-colored army into a fucking lake.
Quick impressions so far:
It's a much more enjoyable game than the first. The worlds are so much more clever, and everything feels much more fleshed out and realized. The newer relaxed feel really shows around the stages as well.
The ammount of content is also way, way better. Much more to do, so much more monster varitey, and great side features like the Treasure Hoard and the Piklopedia.
The dungeons are solid and a clever distraction, and with the guilt trip the game now laying on you way more than before for lost Pikmin can make for some grueling floor hopping.
Combat and general control/Pikmin AI has been really hiked. You fight, at least in my experience a
LOT more than the original Pikmin. And it just flows so much easier. The groups stay tighter, you can toss them faster, they return more competently, and the d-pad color swap REALLY helps.
On top of that, just the little AI touches, like having them automaticly return with items they've siezed, and getting stuck less really help. Although, a 100 Pikmin swarm still needs some heavier tweaking. Although character swapping them into groups helps, it simply doesn't do enough.
The game is still way too easy. But, more difficult than the atypical Nintendo game, including the original Pikmin
(to be honest, the day meter in Pikmin did crap, you were never rushed and it was easy to complete the game in the late teens/early twenties even on your first playthrough) by a fair count.
Also, while there are a handful of neat two person puzzles so far. Louie really feels like a tepid addition. It stream lines some things, but he's not too nessicary IMO. Should've given Olimar and Louie both solid special properties, and did much heavier split team puzzles. Maybe they'll pop up, but it's been absurdly light so far.
They should really put a lid on the Pikmin production. I seriously think it'd go a long way towards smart playstles if you had to handle R/B/Y's as well as you did P/W's.
Speaking of Purples and Whites, while I scoffed at the features they had as new Pikmin, they've been pretty invaluable and clever in new puzzles situations. Limiting them was by far for the best though, as a total army of purples would be devistation to the mild difficulty Pikmin has.
Anyhow, I really enjoy it so far. If you made me give an early ranking, I'd probably slap an 8.5 on it, whereas having played through the original Pikmin twice, I'd give it a 7-.7.5
