Pikmin 4 (2023)

The opening days are a bit tutorial heavy so far but I'm still having a blast. Managing my Pikmin is as satisfying as ever, and so far Oatchi is mostly a welcome addition. I'm a bit concerned about the quality of life changes (auto targeting and Oatchi, mainly) diluting the difficulty that previous entries had, but at the end of the day, I'm having fun, and that's the important thing.

This game is good. Real good. But the constant tutorializing and dialogue was a bit much at first, even if they were trying to be inclusive to new/young players. Out of curiosity, I had my partner play the first few hours of the game, and she felt it was too much too, even though this is her first Pikmin game ever.

A very different Pikmin experience. Easily the longest game in the series. I think I liked 3 more overall, but this one was still fun. It's a bit bittersweet being done with it because now that I beat the whole series, I just have to wait for them to announce a Pikmin 5 for more Pikmin.

Edit: Adding in specific details to refresh my memory if I ever come back to this post.

Ice Pikmin is a great addition because of their utility both inside and outside of battle. I'm hoping that future installments will add Pikmin types that affect terrain in a similar fashion to how ice Pikmin freeze bodies of water.

I love Oatchi. Oatchi is great for utility whether it be for traversal, battle, keeping Pikmin grouped up, or transporting objects. You can even use non-water Pikmin in the water by throwing them while riding Oatchi. The addition of Oatchi changes the way levels are designed since obstacles that would've required throwing another captain to bypass are often solved by having Oatchi jump, break an object, or having Oatchi and the Pikmin dig tunnels. That makes the game flow really nicely, but it does take out a bit of the challenge that made the series engaging for me. Personally, I preferred the multiple captains of 3 over the convenience of Oatchi.

As always, the overworld sections are my favorite part of the game. I will say that I liked the caverns more in 4 than I did in 2 since they felt less cheap. As for the overworld, there are shortcuts to be found everywhere, the ability to move your base, and being able to mount Oatchi make it so that maps can be larger than other games. There's a nice flow to exploration and it feels way more convenient to make progress since you don't have to go back to the same starting point at the start of every day.

It's nice to see every Pikmin type ever introduced into a single game and being able to use them in the main game. The game did a good job making them all feel distinct, although it feels like a lot of the time they will only feel useful for niche circumstances. The stages generally feel designed to cater to the 3 type limit this game introduces, so certain Pikmin are likely to be completed ignored in a good number of levels.

Upgrading equipment and skills is pretty neat. They're nice incentives to go explore for resources and to go for 100% completion. It is a bit annoying that the overworld doesn't respawn enemies because that forces you to revisit caverns or do dandori if you want to test out new abilities. The order of when you unlock certain abilities is also a bit odd because by the time you would unlock useful abilities, there really is no need to make use of them.

This is easiest the most accessible game in the series, but some of the changes to accommodate that hinders the game. The 3 type limit seems like an arbitrary limitation introduced to not overwhelm new players. Having to slowly grow the number of Pikmin you're allowed to control at once also feels like it's to get newer players acclimated to controlling large groups. Both of these features feels like it's holding the player back. It is kinda neat how they implemented a feature for you to not overthrow Pikmin at treasures is neat, but it's annoying if you are trying to throw more on an object on purpose. I want to talk a bit about the good changes too so it isn't so lopsided. It's great that the map works really well and you're even able to place pins on the map. Nintendo really said it's 2023 when they made this game. Having customizable shortcut buttons is also a great feature.

The diversity in the gameplay actually annoyed me a bit. It felt like minigames you're forced to play to progress. So there's the main overworld segments, the caverns, night expeditions, dandori challenges, and dandori battles. The existence of dandori battles is why I won't be 100%ing this game.

This is probably the jankiest game in the series in my opinion. Particularly with whistling and carrying objects. In this game, a whistle will only make a Pikmin pause and a second whistle will have them return to you. I'm assuming it is reduce the amount of times players cancel an action unintentionally. In practice, I felt like it slowed down all of my actions. It doesn't help that sometimes Pikmin will completely ignore your whistles altogether, leaving themselves in danger (I'm assuming this is a bug of some sort). Carrying objects in this game is harder than its ever been in the series. If an object is by a wall or another object, it will be more difficult than it should be to get enough Pikmin to carry it. It's especially difficult to double the amount of Pikmin on the object for the carrying speed boost.

As much as I liked this game, I don't really seeing myself revisiting it. This definitely felt like it was made to be more of a long adventure, whereas the other games felt like short challenges that you can replay to improve your completion time.

Genuine question: does this get less hand-holdy as the game progresses? Only about an hour in but so far having the same issue that made it super hard for me to play Okami or God of War- it keeps stopping every five seconds to explain why I should want to explore. I want to explore! Don't worry about it! I was walking over to that weird object because I was curious I don't need you to stop and pull me into a cutscene explaining that there's a weird object and a lore reason I should care. I am trying to remember that this game is also for young kids (of which I am not one) who might need more explanation but I don't remember 3 having nearly as slow or frustrating a beginning.

Picked this up with some hesitation. Even after playing the demo I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this. Never played any Pikmin game before and I always thought they looked kinda boring and not for me. Happy to say I've been enjoying it and becoming a believer. The game starts dreadfully slow and the tutorial popups are quite annoying at the beginning but my patience is huge, what with being accustomed to jrpg's that don't actually start until 3 hours in. Got to the 2nd area and I'm having a very good time. Great visuals and surprisingly relaxing. Looking forward to putting in more time over the weekend.

Decided to play the Pikmin 3 and 4 demos after beating 1 and 2. 3 is just as good, if not better than I remembered. 4 put me off at first, I wasn’t a big fan of the presentation and pacing. The font and menus look too clean for my tastes, the tutorials are dreadfully slow, and the caverns from Pikmin 2 make a return. However, the more I played, the more I was getting into it. I wasn’t planning on picking the full game up right away, but I’m tempted to pre-order it now. Rather than improving on the Pikmin experience, it feels like it’s taking the series into a different direction with side quests and upgrades and whatnot, which has me curious to see what the full experience will be like.