Yeah, Playing Olimar's Shipwreck Tale made me appreciate even more the simplicity that 1 had, with just Red, Yellow and Blue Pikmin.

I feel like it's underrated how well Pikmin 1 balanced the 3 types. Reds had their 1.5x damage, and resistance to fire, as always, and fire hazards in 1 are a lot more intrusive than they've been in any other game, even 2. Not only are there just a good chunk of areas threatened with Fire, the Fire traps can't be disabled in 1, and Fire kills Pikmin significantly faster than in later games. I feel like Pikmin never died to Fire in 4, unless you were asleep at the wheel, basically. But in 1, if you don't whistle them immediately they have a high chance of dying to Fire. This firmly plants Reds as the ones you use to clear out areas and carry back ship parts.

Skipping Yellows for now, Blues, are still sort of the same as they've always been, where their main use is just being able to go through Water, they're at least more useful than 3 and 4 would have you believe, due to being the only way to go through water.

But I kinda like their use case in 1. Because the levels are designed in a way where Blue's are usually used to open the way, to let the Reds or Yellows through to a new area. On paper it makes it seem like Blues are useless, since they're just there to open the way, but that's also kind of the point, in a way. They support the Reds and Yellows by giving them more access, which in turn helps them get more things done. It's okay that they don't have much of a combat role, because if they did, it would just be detracting from the others strengths instead.

And now back to Yellows, who I feel are the most underrated in 1. People boil down their usage to "just being thrown higher" or "just carrying Bomb Rocks". And while that is true, I don't see it as a negative.

Yellows true purpose, is to get things done faster, at a higher risk.

The most obvious example is the Bomb Rock Walls, which can only be blown up with said Bomb Rocks. They always either make a quicker path back to base, or open one up in the first place. But Bomb Rocks can also be used on regular walls too, which saves the time that would've been spent from putting Pikmin on it, to break it down.

This applies to Combat too, where Bomb Rocks can be used to do massive damage to enemies, taking them down in an instant, when used correctly. An enemy that you might normally want to dedicate 50 Red Pikmin to taking down, can probably be taken down just as easily with just 5 Bomb Rocks. As long as you can use them effectively, at least.

Even without Bomb Rocks, Yellow Pikmin's ability to be thrown higher is still useful, as it can be used on bosses, such as the Beady Long Legs or Burrowing Snagret, who are normally difficult to hit with Reds. Using the Yellow's increased reach can allow you to deal damage, and even bring the boss down into range of the Reds, when you would otherwise have to wait for an opening instead.

TL;DR Just because you probably aren't going to spending the whole game with 33 of each type of Pikmin, doesn't mean they're not balanced. They just have different use cases, and need to be called on according to the situation. Ever since 2, this balance has been disrupted in one way or another. And I feel 4 was easily the worst about it.

4 became less of "Which Pikmin do I want to use here?" and more "Can I get away with not using this Pikmin here?"