The Pikmin series is one of Nintendo's most inventive modern franchises. Beginning on the GameCube in 2001, the series blended action and strategy elements with a brilliant aesthetic. The game's unique and eclectic energy compelled fans, and while Pikmin remains one of Nintendo's more niche series, the franchise has received three core entries and one spin-off title.

Now Pikmin is seeing a resurgence on Nintendo Switch with the release of Pikmin 3 Deluxe, an enhanced port of the 2013 Wii U masterpiece. The question, though, is how does Pikmin 3 Deluxe compare to its predecessors?

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Iterating on the Pikmin Gameplay

In just about every sense, Pikmin 3 Deluxe is an organic extension of the Pikmin titles before it. The only outlier is 2017's Hey! Pikmin, a 2D puzzle-platformer developed by Arzest. Other than that spin-off adventure, each Pikmin game has built upon what came before it. The gameplay has remained largely untouched, maintaining the goal of collecting some sort of treasure, exploring the natural world, and commanding scores of Pikmin. The series has retained its goofy personality and scientific curiosity with each entry, too, asking the player to engage with the world through a new set of eyes as a bug-sized intergalactic explorer.

Since the appeal has largely stayed the same, the Pikmin series has added depth and nuance through expanding the tools at the player's disposal. The first Pikmin title only gave the player control of one captain and a handful of Pikmin types. Pikmin 2 offered two captains to control and more Pikmin varieties to juggle. Pikmin 3 Deluxe expanded that to three captains and even more Pikmin types. Each color Pikmin has its own application, with Yellow Pikmin being able to conduct electricity and Blue Pikmin being able to swim, for instance. Giving the player more moving pieces to balance increases the game's focus on time-management and multitasking while opening up new possibilities for level design.

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What's New in Pikmin 3 Deluxe

Alph leading a group of Pikmin in Pikmin 3

While there is a great deal of continuity between the games, there are some changes as well. Every Pikmin title is broken up into days, and one in-game day passes in real-time minutes, its length depending on various factors. The original Pikmin title required the player to beat it in thirty in-game days or less, adding an intense time pressure to the experience. Pikmin 2 did away with this finite amount of days, and Pikmin 3 Deluxe put its own spin on things.

The game's plot revolves around collecting fruit to save the planet of Koppai from starvation. So, while time still passes on a day system, the game's end is predicated on completing its story tasks, with the only chance of a game over occurring if the player runs out of collected food. Even in that case, the player can just retry from an earlier day. In this sense, the game is a lot more forgiving than its predecessors, especially the first Pikmin, where the player could lose the game and get a bad ending if they haven't fixed Olimar's ship in the time limit. Still, Pikmin 3 Deluxe's new Ultra-Spicy difficulty mode does add some extra challenge for players craving it.

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It's in the plot and character differences that Pikmin 3 Deluxe may feel the most unique. While Olimar and Louie, the core characters from Pikmin and Pikmin 2, are present in Pikmin 3, they play a secondary role to the new cast. Pikmin 3 Deluxe includes them in a more robust way due to the new Side Story content. However, the story still primarily focuses on Alph, Brittany, and Charlie, explorers from the aforementioned planet of Koppai. While the game still takes place on the planet of PNF-404 like the other games, this new cast helps give Pikmin 3 Deluxe its own identity.

On the whole, though, Pikmin 3 Deluxe is in step with the games that came before it. The title retains the same core experience and expands upon it while adding its own flavor in terms of story. It also has a renewed focus on multiplayer, with plenty of co-op and competitive options that the prior games lacked. Still, there's room for growth by bringing the Pikmin series online and making more evolutionary changes to the gameplay, but that's for the next Pikmin title to address. Pikmin 3 Deluxe is an excellent end-cap to the trilogy that borrows from past titles and grows the series in a linear way.

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