what are everyone's thoughts on pikmin 4?

decided someone needed to start sprouting some pikmin in here. i'm almost finished with it (i think) and as a long time fan of the series, this one has really got me hooked. i was so worried from the trailers that the new stuff like oatchi and the dandori battles wouldn't flow right or that the new aiming/lockon system would mess the game up, but it all works amazingly. there is so much less fiddling around with your pikmin and making sure everyone is in the right places and more just doing stuff. it rocks.

my main gripe i have so far is the tried and true classic pikmin critique: the game suffers from being too easy in most areas. hopefully someone puts out a difficulty mod that isn't on kaizo levels at some point.

i also wish the caves were a little more complex, but the huge overworld areas make up for it with some of what i would call the best level design in the series.

what do you guys think of the new game? what's your favorite pikmin in it? favorite area? cave?