The Pikmin series has had a bit of a divide in it for a while now, it almost feels like two different series. The first and third games are more compact experiences, focused on time management, speedrunning, and pure strategic mastery. The second and fourth games are vaster and longer, with lots of time spent dungeon crawling, a stronger focus on exploration and combat, and difficulty coming less from time management and more from an abundance of hazards and enemies. I'm not critiquing either half of the series, every mainline Pikmin game is great at worst, and there's a perfectly valid reason to rank any of these four as your favorite depending on what your preferences are. For me, I prefer the time management games, and it's Pikmin 3 that stands out as my personal favorite in the series.
From a set-up perspective, Pikmin 3 stands out as a particularly unique entry in the series. After the first two games focused on the beloved Captain Olimar, this game shifted protagonist entirely to a crew of three Koppaites named Alph, Brittany, and Charlie. Following up Olimar is a tough task and you could argue that none of the Koppaites are nearly as developed as he is, but I think Pikmin 3 still manages to shine with its dialogue. I adore the interactions between 3's trio, they all have very colorful personalities that bounce off each other quite well. Simply put, this game has a cute narrative and I like the Koppaites a lot.
But as far as Pikmin 3 goes, I think the gameplay is where it really shines. Pikmin is a real-time strategy game where you command an army of tiny plant dudes each with their own unique elemental traits. You can toss them at enemies, command them to do tasks, and use their traits to solve environmental puzzles. As someone who struggles a lot with strategy games, Pikmin's more streamlined and accessible approach always appealed to me more than games like Starcraft or whatever, but its simplicity still belies a ton of depth. When they start out with Pikmin, most players are going to take things fairly slow. They'll carry their entire Pikmin army to a location, wait for the Pikmin to do a task, and continue on. But on replays, you start to wonder if you can try multitasking and taking shortcuts. Maybe you can drop off your Pikmin at a gate and leave to do something else while you wait for them to destroy it, or maybe you can bypass certain roadblocks entirely to get important collectibles faster. This is encouraged by Pikmin's time management system. You only have a set amount of time in the day to perform tasks, and you need to be back at your rocket by nightfall or else you and all your Pikmin will get eaten. The amount of days it takes for you to beat the game will be saved on a high-score board, so a lot of Pikmin's replay value comes from doing runs over and over again to optimize your time.
The reason why Pikmin 3 stands up as my favorite is because of just how particularly flexible it is. No other game in the series has this much sheer complexity in its optimization. Since you're controlling three captains at once, Pikmin 3 allows you to break them up to do separate tasks. You can toss the other captains across a bridge or up a ledge to do something on the other side, you can use a Go Here function to direct them to specific locations, and you can swap between the captains on the fly whenever you want. While 2 and 4 do give you a second captain/companion to control or command, I think Pikmin 3 easily stands as the best in terms of multi-tasking potential. In addition, Pikmin 3 also gives you a limited number of days until you run out of food, so you have to make sure to efficiently nab the game's many Fruit collectibles to make yourself more rations. I've heard people say this system is too generous since if you get every fruit in Pikmin 3, you'll have a whopping 99 days maximum to complete the campaign. However, I have a few defenses. First off, I think Pikmin 3's more generous fruit system is a lot better for newcomers to the series, since I know a lot of people who were put off by the first game's strict 30-day limit. But more importantly, the fact that you can essentially choose how many days you get to complete the game gives you even more flexibility when you're optimizing your runs. Technically, nearly every fruit in Pikmin 3 is optional, so taking into account which ones you want to skip can be an additional challenge in itself.
On top of all that, I just think Pikmin 3 plays the best, but particularly its Switch remake. Pikmin as a series is kind of infamous for its finicky Pikmin AI, with your ranks often getting stuck on corners, getting distracted too easily, and even tripping in the original game. This is not an issue in 3. As a matter of fact, this game still has the best Pikmin AI in the series, even more than 4 which was a baffling downgrade. In addition, Pikmin 3 adds a ton of new combat abilities too such as a lock-on system and the ability to have your Pikmin charge forward. I know these changes are a bit divisive for streamlining combat, but I've always liked how much more precise they are. By the way, another baffling downgrade 4 makes is the forced auto lock-on, that's definitely a step too far. Both versions of Pikmin 3 also have incredibly great control options. The Wii U original lets you use the Gamepad and stylus to intuitively and precisely toss Pikmin wherever you want, or you can use the beloved Wii Remote setup that the Wii ports had. Deluxe introduces gyro controls which mostly play like the Gamecube game, but you can just slightly nudge your cursor in certain directions for better aiming. No matter how you play Pikmin 3, it just feels really nice.
Geez, that was a lot about the gameplay. Thankfully, everything else in Pikmin 3 is top-notch too. The Pikmin lineup is overall quite solid. Reds are as reliable as ever, Blues are as crummy as ever, Yellows are better than they've ever been, and Rock and Winged are both great additions that are both adorably designed and very fun to use. Purple and White have been sadly relegated to sidemodes, but considering how broken Purple was in 2, I can't be too broken up about it. The five overworlds in Pikmin 3 are also a joy to explore, super vast and filled with collectibles without being overwhelmingly large like in 4. Twilight River in particular is probably my favorite Pikmin level period, with its beautiful autumnal visuals and fun lilypad gimmick. And there's no caves, I was never a huge fan of those. And then there's the bosses, which are definitely one of Pikmin 3's best aspects. I never loved how low-key the boss fights were in the other games, but Pikmin 3's fights are these flashy arena battles with wild enemy designs, multiple phases, and intense music. The Quaggled Mireclops in particular stands out as my favorite Pikmin boss overall for essentially being a giant living chunk of ground that can absolutely wreck your shit if you're not careful. Pikmin 3's campaign is just such a blast, it's short and a bit easy, but it's immaculately paced and consistently fun throughout.
However, if there's one thing most Pikmin fans can agree on with 3, it's that the side content is incredible. There is so much to do outside of the main campaign. For starters, there's a huge Mission Mode with a wide variety of missions, some of which taking place in entirely unique settings like a fortress made out of toys and a mechanical cavern with conveyors to navigate around, as well as boss rematches. There's also what is easily the best multiplayer mode in the series in Bingo Battle, itself coming with 12 unique arenas to progressively unlock. And if you have the Deluxe port, there's even more. You get two short but very fun mini-campaigns based around Olimar, a robust achievement system, multiple difficulties for those who find the game too easy, a Photo Mode, and the return of the Piklopedia which not only has unique entries from Olimar and Louie but from the three Koppaites as well. I found that many of Nintendo's Wii U ports felt a bit lame. Tropical Freeze and NSMBU Deluxe just added an easy mode, and Treasure Tracker locked most of its new content behind further DLC, but they went way above and beyond with Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Between its mechanical fixes to the charge and map system, the great new control scheme, the fact that it came bundled with all the DLC missions, and the abundance of new content, playing Pikmin 3 Deluxe felt like experiencing the original all over again, and it helped me appreciate and fall in love with the game even more.
On the visual side of things, Pikmin 3 looks drop-dead gorgeous to this day. As a matter of fact, I think it's still the best-looking Pikmin game. The game goes for this really unique and striking visual style where the characters are cartoony, but the environments are borderline hyperrealistic, and it just looks so pretty. I love how shamelessly detailed all the fruits are, I frankly have no idea how Nintendo made them look this good on Wii U hardware (and then they did it again with the lemon in Color Splash). I think all the Pikmin games look very pleasing but no other game really leaned on that realism/cartoony dichotomy like the third game did. It truly feels like those claymation promotional images come to life. The soundtrack is also one of the series' best, up there with the first game for me. Each stage theme is cozy and comforting, but also just melodic enough to be memorable. There's some great usage of adaptive music, especially in the boss fights, and the entire game has this very whimsical and magical soundscape that feels quintessentially Pikmin. Highlights for me have to be the Garden Of Hope, Twilight River, Tropical Wilds, Boss Theme, and the Fortress Of Festivity.
The Pikmin games are so similar yet so different that, at this point, I feel like everyone is going to have that one entry that appeals entirely to them. Pikmin 3 is that game for me. It's my first Pikmin game, and to this day, nothing else has really topped it. I love its focus on multi-tasking with the multiple captains, how it balances streamlining the difficulty while giving you a ton of options and freedom, how fluid its time management system is, how vast its levels are and how flashy its bosses can be, how much side content it is, and how lush its presentation is.
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