Pikmin 3 - Complete

Well, it's done.  We finished playing through Pikmin 3, which we bought a few weeks ago, on Saturday.

Did I love it?

I loved it!

Everything I mentioned in my initial review remained true.  The puzzles were challenging, the use of the new mechanics was thorough and integral to the game.  The creation of the ability to tell each of your three party members to "move here" while other leaders did other things - this was very useful in many of the challenges, and I think was absolutely critical to making our way through the final "world."

What kind of a game is Pikmin 3?  Well, I'm going to assume you don't know what Pikmin is like, as a game.  If you know what Pikmin is like, this is more and better.  But if you don't, here are the basics.

You play as an explorer on an alien world (which looks remarkably like Earth, but you're tiny, and the creatures you run into don't really map to Earth creatures.)  You have a goal.  In the first game, you are trying to collect enough of the parts of your spaceship (which have fallen off) to get you back home before your breathing apparatus is depleted.  In the second game, you have to collect treasure.  In this third game, you are after fruit.

However, your explorers are not big enough to carry any of these things.  Fortunately, they quickly make friends with these even-smaller creatures called Pikmin. The creatures follow you around, if you keep them under control with a whistle.  And these creatures seem to love to carry things for you and fight monstrous creatures for you. 

Each pikmin has a color, and the color determines its abilities.  Red Pikmin are fireproof and are strong fighters.  Yellow Pikmin can be thrown higher, are impervious to electricity, and move faster.  Blue Pikmin are at home in water, whereas other Pikmin drown.  And so on.

The "worlds" which you encounter require significant planning in order to use your Pikmin wisely, and you must finish your work in "daylight" -- so there is a running timer for each day, forcing you to get efficient in your movements.  And, of course, there are "bosses" which must be faced, using those friendly Pikmin as your forces. Where the original Pikmin game had one explorer, Pikmin 2 added a second, and Pikmin 3 adds a third. 

We played each of the first two games many times -- at least five times each, and probably more.  The first takes around 8 hours of play time.  The second about 15 hours.  This one took over 24.  I'm sure I will get better at Pikmin 3 as I play it more, and I will play it more.  But for now I simply have to give this a very high recommendation.  It's fun, it's completely family-friendly, it's very pretty, and it's challenging.