🥕Pikmin was DIFFERENT🔥 (and Nintendo doesn't like that)

I remember being given Pikmin as a kid and relate SO HARD to the "not picking it up again" mood. I legit felt like SHIT having a big wave of Pikmin die before my very eyes and put the game down for months at a time before i got older because I never thought to reload an old save and try again. But when i came back to it with a bigger sense of emotional maturity, I found out I actually liked the feeling of tension it gave. It was at its core a game about micromanaging and multitasking to make sure things go smoothly. And playing 2 and seeing 3 I did notice that feeling was kind of... gone, thanks to the expanded cast and removal of the 30 day time limit. It made the game playable for kids, objectively, but it also removed the sense of dread and agency that made the original so compelling and in the end, heartwrenching. And while it's an absolutely perfect tonal follow-up considering the underlaying themes of exploitation vs cohabitation, it feels like 2 is using it to explain the further 'sanitization' of how you look at the game and its mechanics going forward since it steers you away from thinking about the actual events going on and focus on the mechanics. Because yeah, you're collecting money to pay off a debt your jackass co-worker screwed the company over on, but you're doing it by now choosing to exploit the creatures that Olimar owes his life to... and Olimar doesn't have a lot to say about that. He comments on his first time on the planet, and how he remembers certain lifeforms behaving, but he doesn't show as much of a connection to the Pikmin as he visibly developed in the first game, realizing that they weren't primal creatures following commands, but capable of very complex reasonings and behaviors like bridge building and trap-setting, and just choosing to do what he says because they trust him. So the player is quietly encouraged to think of it less as these lifeforms helping you and dying in droves to do so, but a task to keep various numbers balanced like a checkbook where the currency is time spent doing a thing per carrot-man slaughtered. Even the main themes of both games highlight that dichotomy bright as day. "Tane No Uta" from 2 is just a funny little song about how the Pikmin work and how cute they can be. "Ai No Uta" from 1 is a soft ballad that makes you question just how aware the Pikmin are of not just your active usage of them for your own ends, but their life BEFORE that and how they see you as a net positive since you help them thrive. They don't even expect you to care about them even though they care about you because they don't even bother getting attached to their own mortality so long as enough of them make it through the day to keep going. Overall the original game still stands out to me as, like you said, a master-class in how a game can tell a story without any of the standard ideas and tropes at play, and simply letting things unfold based on how you choose to interact with and interpret certain behaviors and setpieces.

I think the reason why any Pkimin game after 1 has this change in atmosphere is the very topic of what you're talking about; it was considered a bit to creepy and jarring for the target audience of kids, as some people in the comments and yourself had described from the first game. My own memories from playing Pikmin 1 as a kid is hazy, but I had my fair share of jump scares, rage quitting, and uneasy moments, but that's wasn't enough to stop me from being fascinated and beating the game. You may had said this in your video, but as you get older these things stick with you for life, it becomes a special memory that you had experienced to think back on. This new direction of a light hearted comedic tone isn't a bad thing, it actually works fine and the gameplay is largely the same with advance tweets here and there upon each sequel. And there is a "kinda sort-of" Time Counter in 3 base on your leftover juices for food consumption, but that's hardly ever challenging. However, I do think this direction may have ruined the Pikmin series chances to become something unique if done right and had more thought put into it. Pikmin could had been the polar opposite of Metroid; Instead of a powerhouse one-man army on a distant alien planet, you're just a tiny person putting his/her reliability in a army of plant creatures for your survival and overall goal. If there was more careful thought put into the writing and done right, and still kept the foreign weird and unsettling aspects just like in the first game, Pikmin could become a pseudo survival exploration game. Who knows, maybe they'll have that going on in Pikmin 4. They clearly gave a hint of a night time gameplay.

The other comments pretty much say what I was gonna say better than I could word it so I'll bring up another GameCube launch title that went through a weirdly similar trajectory: Luigi's Mansion. The first game isn't scary by any means but, like Pikmin 1, has a dark atmosphere, solitude, and character wholly unique to it that almost completely disappears in the sequels. It's a bit different in that Next Level Games did 2 and 3 instead of Nintendo and they were never going to copy it exactly, but they definitely moved away from the first game's spooky atmosphere in weirdly similar ways--on one hand you have Next Level Games' amazing graphics, animation, and they do have a ton of character to them still, but it feels more like a spooky Pixar than a kid friendly survival horror. Still good, just not like it was, and absolutely on purpose

I've only played 3 DX and a tiny bit of 1 renting it way back, so it's fascinating hearing somebody talk about 1 from my outsider perspective. The games always intimidated me, but I feel like as I get older I'm realizing that it's the opposite of a problem and might have to give 1 another shot someday. I feel like I've also gotten insight on how the atmosphere and gameplay go hand in hand, and wondering how to work that into my own projects.

Pikmin 3 on Wii U using the gamepad controls was my very first Pikmin game. I tired to play the other two's Wii versions and I couldn't gel with Pikmin 2, but I think I completed 1. 3 is still my favourite gameplay wise.

I liked the part where the Almy said "It's Pikmin time" and pikmin'd all over Shigeru Miyamoto's poor vision of 2 and 3

Cool video.