Maybe a bit too easy a lot of the times, but it's got (so far) the best level design of the series and maybe the most inventive puzzles of the series. Sacrificing a little bit of the laid back vibes of 1, Pikmin 3 tends to be a lot more faster paced with combat being quicker, the controls being a lot more snappier, and even the story is quite quick.
Which is maybe this game's biggest fault: If you kind of follow the story expecting it to tell you when you can just stop and go gather the rest of the collectibles, you're going to potentially accidentally beat the game. It's very odd how quickly the story itself progresses but yet I still clocked in around 14 hours just casually playing through collecting fruit as I go. But suddenly I've beaten the game and realized there was entire sections of maps I haven't even gotten to (you get water pikmin kind of absurdly late). Very odd.
Still, that polish over the previous two games combined with some very beautiful graphics maybe puts this one just a bit higher than Pikmin 2 for me. Miss the dungeons tho.
Which is maybe this game's biggest fault: If you kind of follow the story expecting it to tell you when you can just stop and go gather the rest of the collectibles, you're going to potentially accidentally beat the game. It's very odd how quickly the story itself progresses but yet I still clocked in around 14 hours just casually playing through collecting fruit as I go. But suddenly I've beaten the game and realized there was entire sections of maps I haven't even gotten to (you get water pikmin kind of absurdly late). Very odd.
Still, that polish over the previous two games combined with some very beautiful graphics maybe puts this one just a bit higher than Pikmin 2 for me. Miss the dungeons tho.