It seem like all the villains had some sort of mind controlling power.
Little nitpick: mind control was present from the very start. The
Sailor Moon frachise started with the one-shot that was retroactively made into
Codename: Sailor V's Act 3, and the youma there, Pandora, used a special TV broadcast to brainwash most of Minato Ward, including Minako's parents and best friend (Minako herself was exposed to the broadcast but resisted it long enough for Artemis to get her away from it). And while
Codename: Sailor V was particularly heavy on it (out of 15 chapters,
ten had villains using some sort of mind control), it's been used in most if not all entries. Including the anime, where Jadeite used it as early as episode
2 (he would reuse it at least three other times: to brainwash the staff at a gymnasium, to control the crew of a cruising ship, and to sick hundreds of cops on Usagi, Ami and Rei at New Tokyo International Airport) and Nephrite had his youma alter the actions of
every single one of his victims in order to better drain them.
Simply put, the series, had an abundance of villains with mind control abilities, the manga, and thus Crystal, simply doesn't have enough other kinds of villain to make it less notable compared to the first anime.