Pikmin 1 was something like that I believe. I havent played P2, but P3 I guess feels short (given I'm estimating about halfway through with 6-8 hours done).

Enjoying it very much though. It's unlike any other game series.

Order of magnitude!

Also I'm playing a bit slower somewhat - trialling out a day or two, then restarting the day and doing it efficiently. It's nice practice for multitasking.

I had one instance today where I finished a boss but didnt have time to take back the spoils of war to base, so the following day I sent one guy to harvest the carcass, another up the other end of the map to harvest some fruit, and the third babysitting a handful of yellow pikmin harvesting the chilli seeds.

Very good stockpiling day until some of those small spiders took their toll.

I think its such a relaxing game to play (until the twilight bell chimes) that completion time isnt going to fuss me. In fact, its more likely to make me go back and play P2 finally.

Visually P3 is lovely, but to me P1 still looks nice and organic, so it will be fun to see how P2 differs. I'm glad its a game that very few series have ever tried to ape too. Something unique in gaming can be very rare to come by.

Apparently there's some sort of code hidden in it too?

@EvilRedEye - I got one of those in the third area (vaguely hinting) in one of the areas where you get tiles to go to the boss. Havent seen any others yet myself but now I know ...

igorgetmeabrain wrote:

I'm just bumbling my way through it, first time, enjoying the scenery and only replaying days in the event of horrible massacre (like when I accidentally threw a bomb-rock-carrying pikmin at a boss and in his misguided kamikaze adventure he took about 20 others with him). Then I'll do it again with 0 deaths. Then I'll wait until someone figures out what the quickest possible (number of days) 100% (0 deaths) is and I'll do that. Three games for the price of one; that's what makes it one of my favouritest games. @vela - my favourite aspect of P2 is the dual-time underworld/overworld dynamic.

Thanks for the tip, I'll crack on with P2 I reckon after this is done with.

2 looks good

For GC games, they look astoundingly pretty.

I only finished P1 for the first time ever about six months ago. I'm certainly not a graphics whore, but I still thought it looked very nice. Same with the brief bit of P2.

Obviously Pikmin 3 is another level, but it is astounding to me to think that what is a 12 year old game can still look this good.

Made some big progress in Pikmin 3 this afternoon, although one boss battle took a massive toll. 100in my squad, reduced to 47. Absolutely devastating enemy, incredible scale too. I like how some of the 'bosses' are very much tailored for fighting with specific coloured Pikmin, but you can still get them with some attrition with the other colours.

I've just come to accept that you need some types to start the battle, and others are colateral damage. The key is being quick with the C button to switch between what ones are being thrown.

And make sure to harvest those chillies whenever you have a spare pilot to send off with half a dozen Pikmin.

OK, now I'm up to the final mission bit. Hurry up and play this people so I can talk about it.

Brilliant twist that.

Am I being thick or is there any way to have more than one save file going at a time, without switching Miis?

EDIT: Also, do unplucked Pikmin only become flower Pikmin if left overnight, unlike previous iterations?

Thanks but I'm still confused about flower pikmin; I should have been clearer. I know you can flower them by drinking nectar etc but I'm talking purely about unplucked pikmin. It seems that they possibly do flower if you leave them in the ground for a while, just not sure how long it has to be. In previous games it was about 5 mins (real-time).

I've had some bloom to the flower stage but that was on a day when I came back after a boss fight to get the carcass so getting those seeds in was the first thing I did. They seem to need most of a day now.

Pikmin 2 flowering tip (mild spoiler for the uninitiated):

Had a crack at the final mission earlier and it's a crafty piece of work, to be sure. Not sure I've entirely gotten my head around why there's a 'flag' hierarchy thing, but if one thing's for sure, it's that this is trickier than the previous two games and could be a bitch to complete with 0 deaths.