I get why people want there to be an overall time limit, I think it's a cool way to structure a game that you don't see too often and I'd be fine if they tried it again, but I don't really feel like it's a strong part of pikmin's identity or anything. it was a big part of the first game, sure, and 3 half-measuredly brought it back with what I still think was a very creative idea, but it was implemented in a way that created very little time pressure for (I'm assuming here!) most players (save for maybe the very beginning of the game and one brief sequence toward the end) to the point where it wasn't really even necessary to think about
what I would like to see more of is something that encourages you to strategically pick which area to go to on which day. the first game had a tiny bit of this with the Smoky Progg only appearing if you made it to the fourth area before a certain day, and the boss in the starting area rotating out each day. I feel like there's a lot of potential to do more with that idea! weather forecasts for the different areas creating different conditions, the new resource management features making it worthwhile to prioritize one area over another at a given time, maybe soft time limits or rewards for getting a certain thing by a certain day, who knows what else. maybe Pikmin needs to take some cues from Dragon Quest Treasures.
for all I know all that stuff is in 4 already! but it's one aspect of the "days" system that I think could add some interesting strategy without adding failstate-related time pressure.
I think the time limit was always better as an idea than it was as an actual mechanic. Like, the threat of having a time limit was by far the most useful part of it. There's this catch-22 where a run of the game is only short enough for this kind of absolute fail state to be reasonable if you finish hours under the limit. In other words, the only people who will ever lose all of their progress in Pikmin are also the ones who spent the most time on that playthrough, and the difference in length between an expert run and a failed one is so exaggerated that it's a matter of
five hours. That... doesn't seem well thought-out. The additions in NPC Pikmin and 3 were simply band-aids that watered down the idea to try and make it more palatable, but it just doesn't work very well to begin with. It's been at odds with the desire to make a long-form console game like oil and water for the entire series, and being unshackled from its limitations was the best part of 2.
Now, the day timer itself, that's 100% essential, and time passing in caves is the best news I've heard about Pikmin 4 so far. Pikmin does not work without time management as the driving force behind it; leaning solely on resource management like 2 attempted encourages really obnoxious level design that just tries really hard to kill you instead of asking you to split your attention and multitask to get everything done in time. Which in turn encourages you to play in the most slow, safe, unfun manner possible for maximum success instead.
I think all of the games had some minor timed changes to the areas, mostly concerning enemy spawns, though they're barely present in 3. If you played 2 for long enough Beady Long Legs could suddenly appear in the Perplexing Pool, and there were those really obscure enemies that only appeared in the Wistful Wild every 30 days. I had a similar thought a while ago, that for the sake of accommodating a larger game, maybe it would be better to switch to smaller time goals, maybe ones that don't necessarily function as deadlines. Instead of a Game Over, it becomes more like the old speedrunner "imagine a bus.." analogy, where your goal is to arrive before a certain time. The "bus" you're trying to catch could be a particular season or weather event which will alter the layout of an area. You could even go more granular with it, and do things with the days themselves like giving the creatures within an area a daily schedule they follow, so a creature that's sleeping in the early morning might become active later in the day. Additional layers of strategy for an expert player, makes the world seem more alive to a newcomer.
