There's a review immediately below mine that mentions that the level design is kinda bad... And I kinda agree. It's not bad, but traversing the levels for the first time is just not pleasant, probably even moreso than the original, which is more straightforward. Furthermore, as you approach the end, the locations deviate from the classical sci-fi setup of DOOM and go for a different aesthetic, which I don't like.

Still, this game's got an even more frenetic and sublime gunplay with great battles and huge resistance and opposition from the enemies.

All things considered, it's a solid game but just because the first one already was: 2 has quite minimal upgrades over its predecessor. More modes, more booyah haircuts! Salmon Run is a cool addition but obviously it can't change a lot the formula by itself since it's a separate mode, anyways.

Mode rotations must go, this is a very silly idea, no one does it, it's incredible that Nintendo can without too much pushbsck. I think there should also be friendly matches of the ranked modes.

Nintendo also needs to be more imaginative with the campaign mode. Stages in 2 typically feel flat and overly simple, just like in the original.

Great visuals, great combat, that's really all I can say. Narratives of all characters are serviceable, but this disjointedness of hearing full blown dialogues on top of barely-moving pixels just doesn't work for me, it's really awkward. Moreover, and this is clearly generic criticism, I despise that there's barely any interaction between the characters. It's cool to see the way they relate all the stories at the very end, but before that, not much noteworthy happens. It's kind of like a RPG maker game, hampered by the limitations of the resources.

Ultimately, this reason makes Octopath fairly uninteresting besides its RPG side.

As a practical Lacrimosa of Dana successor, well, it's great, not as great but I was expecting worse, tbh. For starters, the setting, Balduq, just looks barren, flat and totally uninspired. Not like Ys VIII can brag about breathtaking scenaries but, you know, the greenery always looks nice no matter what.

So that was an underwhelming start but something I realized quickly is that this game liked to overstate the village raids' feature welcome way too much. Back in LoD, they were fine as a quick change of pace and something almost entirely optional, but here they repeatedly happen, and I wouldn't necessarily say it's a good thing even though the combat is great as usual. Fighting works great in conjunction with exploration, but when you exclusively fight for a solid 2-3 minutes or more, not so much. It's a drag.

This game also has more proper dungeons than LoD, and their design is not so appealing, I'll be honest.

Besides the aforementioned things, it's got the same qualities of VIII, so it's yet another great time. And to top it off, the great plot twist doesn't come from the game's main storyline, it comes from something more or less related, and for that reason I'm excited for what the devs do next.

But yeah, raids have to go.

This game has it everything to keep you immersed for hundreds of hours, it has convincing dialogues and deliveries, interesting storylines, nice pacing in both main and secondary missions, and huge areas to explore. It also comes with a free RPG component, which isn't exactly its forte but it's good enough. Combat can get clunky occasionally, meaning that enemies sometimes get stuck somewhere or you suffer that same problem.

One thing I noticed is that respawns either are rare, are conditional or they don't exist, so if you plan to fight enemies (thr things that mostly disappear), that's not an option.

This remains my most anticipated game ever and it was... alright. It's a fairly serviceable entry but I don't think it lives up to the GameCube games. One way I can put it is that, while the original put you in an alien planet, 3 puts you in a garden, if that makes sense: it's less epic, less mysterious, less wondrous, but it still works, just not the progression one would've expected after a 9-year hiatus.

Biggest change that I find questionable is the music. Music consists of MIDI files in the GameCube games, whereas 3 uses orchestrated pieces. To me, the former compositions always sound foreign and mischievous, mysterious, whereas the music in 3 sounds cutesy in my ears. It's a drastic change in tonality.

On the gameplay side, as usual, everything is solid, I especially like the inclusion of micromanaging with the interactivity of the minimap; it's good for speedrunning and particularly makes mission mode a lot of fun. Pikmin mechanics work as usual, with the exception that the guiding whistle is gone, and I missed it. As a substitute, you can now lock on things and charge all your squad against them, but sometimes you just want to move a few Pikmin around or put to work just a few. Now it's a little more cumbersome to do this. Further, the equivalent of the C-Stick on Wii U and Nintendo Switch, predictably, now controls the camera, but you can't control neither the camera speed (and it's rather slow) nor the vertical orientation. So, yeah, controls could've been perfect on this one. Speaking of which, I liked the implementation they used for the Wii U, which allows you to launch Pikmin with the Gamepad screen. This feature didn't make it in Deluxe, though. Otherwise, Wiimote + Nunchuck is still the best combo.

There are other missing things as well, namely enemy variety and overall numbers, an area where 2 excelled at. The latter managed to give you the feeling that you were exploring a wild area in the perspective of the protgonists, but 3 gives you very few mobs, which indicates you that they're videogamey obstacles more than anything. I was specifically disappointed when I realized there was only one spotty bulbear in the whole campaign, for example.

The Piklopedia was missing in the Wii U release, and the Deluxe implementation is just barebones compared to 2's, which was a great source for humor, character development and worldbulding. There really isn't a replacement for these in 3.

More than anything, what disappointed me the most is that 3 tried way too much to be like the first game, instead of continue expanding the legacy of the first two games. This time the ship doesn't break apart but you still have to collect the main component in order to escape the planet. Four areas again with the same themes and of similar size, with a final one where the final boss is, who also holds the most important item. A welcome change, to be fair, is that bosses distance from the typical behavior they tend to have in the first two games, they're big, faster, can get out of screen, they have set pieces and you can't escape from them (with one exception), which makes them more similar to classic Nintendo bosses than Pikmin ones. Not enough to break the whole typicality, though.

In the end, you know which games are alsl third entries in their series, too? Super Mario Bros. 3, A Link to the Past, Super Metroid... And sadly, Pikmin 3 isn't the definitive Pikmin experience, still waiting for that... Have been waiting almost 9 years again, in fact.