It's fantastic. If you're new to the series, it's the best game to start with due to how many items and gear are available to help you out. It's also a great place to start story-wise too (even though these games' stories aren't important or big anyway) since it's a retread of Pikmin 1's story, but expands on it with more characters.

I can comfortably beat all games in the series, so difficulty-wise, I think it's the easiest in the series. The game definitely becomes difficult in the dandori battles (where your efficiency skills are put to the test in a battle against a cpu to collect the most treasure).

As for downsides, this game has no true coop either, which is a bummer since Pikmin 3 Deluxe included this feature. The second player option in this game acts as a helper instead of controlling a full character. There are no difficulty options either, and a new game+ would be nice as well.

Overall, I give the game a 9.5/10.