History YMMV / Pikmin2001

** Similarly, there's the bad ending where you have less than 25 ship parts. If Olimar fails to escape the planet, he perishes and is rebirthed as a Pikmin. Many like to imagine Olimar's fate after that. ''VideoGame/Pikmin4'' ended up taking place in a timeline very similar to this one, though [[spoiler:Olimar gets turned into a humanoid Pikmin called a Leafling instead of a Pikmin with his head, and ultimately gets cured from this fate]].

** Similarly, there's the bad ending where you have less than 25 ship parts. If Olimar fails to escape the planet, he perishes and is rebirthed as a Pikmin. Many like to imagine Olimar's fate after that.

* UglyCute: True to our real world, the Pikmin series doesn't stray away from having some strange creatures, but this doesn't make any of them less endearing. Really helps that in our scale, they would essentially be FunSize.

*** While an imposing final boss in it's own right, the Emperor Bulblax is no less adorable as its brothers and sisters, with a big droopy face and a long slobbering tongue reminiscent of some kind of Bulldog.
** The Mamuta's asymmetrical body plan, bizarre anatomy, and wide, unblinking eyes gives impression to an off-brand plush toy you would buy at a yard sale as a child. It helps that they're one of the friendliest enemies in the game.

** The best ending in hints at there being at least ''fourteen'' additional Pikmin colors. Of course, it's not like the lack of such a cutscene that shows this would stop anyone from making Pikmin [[OriginalCharacter OCs]] ranging from a simple [=OC=] Pikmin to entirely new subspecies of Pikmin.

* HarsherInHindsight: The bad ending, where Olimar [[spoiler:dies from his life-support system failing and gets turned into a Pikmin]], becomes much worse when the fourth game has the exact same scenario occur [[spoiler:due to Moss sneaking aboard the ship and forcing Olimar to turn around]], meaning Olimar [[spoiler:''dying'']] is now canonical to the series.

* The Wii version only allows motion controls and doesn't have any compatibility with the [=GameCube=] controller, despite the Wii having ports for that controller. The Switch version rectifies this by having both control schemes.

* PolishedPort: The Switch version, which contains all of the quality of life upgrades from the Wii version, as well as upscaled resolution, higher quality textures, and a more stable framerate. In addition, the infamous crushing glitch and audio bugs from the Wii version have been fixed, alleviating complaints about the original keeping said bugs in.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Mushroom Pikmin. More than a few pieces of fan art that involves the race itself has the Mushroom type depicted alongside the others, despite never being controllable. This probably owes to their design, and how they are the closest the series has to an actual EvilCounterpart to the Pikmin. By contrast, their "successors" lack something like this: Pikmin under the control of an Antenna Beetle do not look any different at all, and Scornets aren't even the same creature as them.

* AntiClimaxBoss: While the [[OptionalBoss Smoky Progg]] can easily lay waste to an army of Pikmin if fought normally, by abusing bomb rocks, it's [[https://youtu.be/y-BLAm3zvgI?list=PL4Lscasoi2us4awjboj0Vm5p3qKRmGMEX&t=812 possible to one-shot him.]]

* PortingDisaster: The "New Play Control!" Wii version, despite adding the quality of life changes from the second game and having native widescreen, unfortunately suffers from worse performance than the [=GameCube=] original. Examples include glitched sound effects that were not present in the [=GameCube=] version (most notably the "squeaking" sounds from Bulborbs and Wollywogs), major bugs from the original not being fixed and actually occurring more frequently, and awkwardly mapping the camera buttons and swarming to the Wii Remote's +Control Pad. Prior to the release of the Switch version, which fixed these issues and is considered a PolishedPort as a result, it wasn't unheard of to hear fans prefer the [=GameCube=] version.

*** The Wii remake adds its own issue where thrown Pikmin won't drop the bomb rocks they're holding when whistled back. While this sounds good on paper - and, indeed, can make it less cumbersome to move them around - it also makes getting them to drop the things an exercise in tedium. Oh, and it makes defeating the final boss without losing any Pikmin a '''''nightmare.''''' It's not exactly a problem in a casual run of the game, but if [[SelfImposedChallenge you're going for a zero death run]], well...

* ThatOneSidequest: While "sidequest" is nebulous since it's a required item, few ship parts are as notorious to retrieve as the Libra in the Forest Navel. It's the only main part that requires all three Pikmin types at once (without glitches and/or constant monitoring): Yellow Pikmin to reach up the cliffs it's on, Blue Pikmin to open up a geyser for Olimar to ride up to it, and Red Pikmin to carry it past the fire geysers. All this, plus its location very far from the Dolphin and past a bridge, means that many players dedicate an entire day just to reaching and retrieving it. Additionally, because of its small size and high-up location, it has an uncommon chance of bouncing when it falls down and falling into the surrounding abyss, [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable likely becoming unattainable]] and forcing a reset of the day to try again.