Hasquarl on 12 April 2013
Pikmin 2 has more varied gameplay and greater things to do, but Pikmin 1 is where the atmosphere is.
Basically, in Pikmin 1, you've crashed landed on a planet and have to use Pikmin to recover lost pieces of your ship to get home before your time limit is up (30 days, I think). It's very strategic and you have to be able to micromanage multiple tasks to get everything done during the day. Bosses can get very difficult.
Pikmin 2 was good, but it did away with the time limit which took away from the experience. Also, while the a surface levels were fun, the dungeons sucked. However, they're both good game and I'd recommend picking them up if you can find them before playing Pikmin 3.
