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0:00 1. Admiral “Hey” Navi
5:03 2. Holes of Heroes
12:50 3. Why is Ice Pikmin?
18:30 4. The Art of Pacing
23:10 5. Olimar & The Sage Who Leaves
26:03 6. Graphics & Interfacing
30:34 7. The Uncowardly
33:08 Conclusion
#pikmin #pikmin4
source
"submerged castle being the only cave you have to think your way through." "had to go back cuz i didnt have enough pikmin." my dudes, are ppl not thinking going thru the caves in pikmin 2? to be blunt, not mean, are ppl babies? every cave is like a puzzle on how to tackle it, apparently ppl who dont like pikmin 2 caves didn't understand the assignment. ppl always talk about purp farming and i just have to ask what are you doing? im not a pikmin veteran per say; i only played pikmin 2 multiplayer mode when i was little and pikmin 3's multiplayer mode (not deluxe coop) with my siblings. i played pikmin campaigns in order for the 1st time recently to catch up before 4. even with losing a couple of purples, you get so much going through the caves once, you only need to run thru sub complex like what? i only needed to run thru it twice, maybe 3 idr, to get 100. run straight to the rest area and dip, it took literally no time at all. so everytime i hear this i roll my eyes thinking to myself "this is how ppl think of the 'infamous' pikmin 2?" im not flexin or anything, i hav a few times where i decided to reset. i have to say it took me a few attempts, i wanted to figure out how to, fight empress bulblax the 2nd. however i nvr had a wipe out scenario. its just baffling to me cuz theres only like a couple unfair rly ridiculous things in pikmin 2 but no one ever says those, instead they gripe majorly over non issues or minor annoyances. ye the ship talks to much, but why am i spawning on a stump surrounded by water with a gatling groink/wollywog/jellyfloat closing in on me with the only way to walk is a thin root guarded by a serving fiery blowhog, extra wollywog and 3 liters of water dumples. why is a doodle bug spawning on my inactive captain and pikmin poisoning all of them and having some pikmin running behind a wall where i cant see them to be saved. makes for some funny pikmin 2 stories i suppose.
I agree with most of the criticism you gave, but I don’t think this is a shallow or watered down game in the slightest. While I agree that player given restrictions is not a fair means of shielding criticism, I do think you over exaggerated how big of an impact Pikmin 1 and 3’s time limit had on the overall game loop. 30 Days for 30 ship parts isn’t all that strict, especially since 5 aren’t required and many early game parts aren’t heavily guarded. It’s a pretty forgiving. Pikmin 3 is even more since it’s fruit gives an average of 1.5 days (66 fruits for a max of 99 days). The time limits have never had any large impact on anyone aside from maybe their first every playthrough of Pikmin 1. While I do wish Pikmin 4 had a time limit, I don’t think it effects the game loop nearly as much as the standard day system, which is present and benefitted greatly by caves no longer freezing time. I also think you were a bit unfair when criticizing the combat when comparing it to the previous games. While Oatchi is extremely strong, you can’t stun lock enemies like in Pikmin 3 by hitting weak points nor can you abuse purples nearly as much since theirs now a 3 type limit (so having purples out will handicap you in another way). While the combat is definitely easier than Pikmin 1, I think it’s a huge improvement over Pikmin 3.
I could go on but overall, I think the points you made were valid and thought out, but I think you did over exaggerate just how much of an impact they had on the overall experience. If you didn’t enjoy the game, that’s fine, but I think the game managed to do so much for the series (properly designed caves, all main Pikmin types being included, massive areas, way smarter AI, etc) even if it does have some downsides.
Edit: I wanted to add to the point about Pikmin 1 & 3’s time limit and why that relates to my overall feedback. You talked in the video about how Pikmin 1’s difficulty largely comes from the division of Pikmin due to multitasking, but I believe that counts as a player enforced restriction. The game’s time limit isn’t nearly strict enough to prevent players from having one squad of 100 Pikmin with them at all times. Multitasking isn’t required at any point in the game. If the player wants to keep a full squad on them at all times and quickly clean anything that gets in their way, the game won’t stop them. The multitasking is purely due to a player’s drive to beat the game as quickly as possible, and I don’t see how that is any different in Pikmin 4.
Some things I agree with you, like the auto lock on, the characters not having much personality and there being a lot of dialogue.
But let me tell you about a magical button called the skip button.
If you don't like the dialogue, then just skip it.
I think the music is great because it sets a nice atmosphere by only being a few notes. The caves are great, although it would be nicer if they were harder. Although the game isn't too difficult I still lost a lot of Pikmin, not because of controls, but because I didn't know what the new enemies did. And not to mention the difficulty of getting platinum on the later levels of Dandori Battle, the treasure collecting one and the Trial of the Sage Leaf. Some of those are really difficult and take time to plan a good route and use your dandori to be able to get platinum.
There being no time limit is fine. Whether it has a specific time limit to complete the game or being able to spend as much time as you want, both are enjoyable in their own way. Also with there being infinite time, you can appreciate the scenery in-game more. And with not as much time passing above ground when you're in caves, why do you care? What effect does it have on the gameplay?
The power-ups you can give yourself and Oatchi (Oht-chee) don't make the game super easy and remove the need for the elemental pikmin. How would you do everything the elemental pikmin can do just because you have Oatchi being immune to elements and have a high carrying power? It would just make it take longer because you can't do as much (because you only have Oatchi). And the upgrades are just there so that you can make yourself immune to elements as you progress.
You can feel free to have your own opinions, I just don't agree with most of them.
17:00 Ngl, I think this is an awful point when it comes to fixing the game’s difficulty. While I do agree that Pikmin 4 should have had some kind of hard mode I don’t think adding a timer would be effective at doing it. You would have to change things like the story, the game feel, and get rid of the completionist style found in both Pikmin 4 and 2.
i do partially disagree with your purple and ice pikmin being "broken" argument, the cost of only being able to carry 3 types of pikmin for the entire game does force you to genuinely think about what pikmin you take out of the onion with you. Yes you could take purples with you but then you could lose a key resistance for caves and objectives, yes this can be circumvented because of wild pikmin and infinite time, but i think the ice and purples being as strong as they are is completely fine. This is only really an issue if your a new player to pikmin and then learn how easily you can abuse these things, but im sure many players will get better, then limit themselves and try to beat the game or 100% faster even with infinite time.
best video on pikmin 4 ive seen. I have never been so needlessly mad at a game for being easy and holding my hand until this game
18:24 I disagree completely. I believe that the enemy gates are a great thing because they FORCE you to take time to kill the enemies. You have to plan with the gates in mind and work accordingly. I am sad that they only used the gates for this purpose in the White Sage challenges but it is still great there. In the main story they are exclusively used to force you to beat a boss on a floor. If you do not kill the boss the game will not let you get the castaway and escape the cave and those are also great because it forces you to kill the boss. If you do not have a lot of pikmin going into the boss because of previous floors it forces you to make do with what you have and try your best which makes for harder battles and insensitivity you to be more resourceful. Also there are very few caves that have ways to escape before the boss which means on your first run you have to go through the whole gauntlet to get to the boss which lets this work more effectively.
Pikmin 4 was alright for me. my only issues were the auto lock on enemies, few times it cause me to lose more pikmin than usual, lack of music in general and the spam text boxes of the characters. would be nice if they added the pointer gyro controls like they did for mario galaxy port. and more ost's for caves and areas. the camera angle is a little awkward for me so idk if thats an issue for everyone.
Yeah kinda.
This game needed more replay value like the previous entries. You mentioned that the Dandori challenges were weak because of the upgrades, I think that's the opposite case, the upgrades make each battle atleasst unique because you can only take what you're given in them and they're not unchanging. I went to replay the game after beating it 100% and quenching more but got fed up realizing the caves to a lesser extent and the dandori are unchanging. They should've changed around when you get the onions and whatnot. There's no goddamn variety.
Also probably won't come back to the Olimar sidemode too as I beat that first try in 8 days and I'd have to go through the beginning house cutscene every time :^
This is the best pikmin game.
I enjoyed the game, it was nice to have a new adventure even if it was a little watered down.
I actually introduced Pikmin 4 to my sister and she is hooked now with the game, sometimes i just sit with her and watch her play.
Good times.
I also found Olimar's Shipwreck tale to be probably the best part of the game. I enjoyed P4 overall but what I'm really excited for is for people to start making mods. I have a couple of suggestions to make a challenge mode on top of fixing controls.
– Oatchi is permanently in his small state and limited in upgrades. This allows for breaking pots and knocking things down without letting him carry Pikmin over water and have like 100 strength. AND NERFS THE STUPID CHARGE. Not sure how to get around the jumping, but he could probably just throw Pikmin up slopes and jump afterwards.
-60 pikmin in the overworld max like 3s ultra spicy mode, but not limited in caves.
-Increase number of types of pikmin in overworld to 5, 3 is too few to optimize
-Disable Rewind
Overall with a few changes this could become the best pikmin game, kind of upset Nintendo didn't try and make options for difficulty but let's hope the fans step in for that
This game can be surmised in two words (for me, at least):
Disappointing Fun.
While the game overall is fun to just blast through with a powerful dog, strong pikmin types, and is charming enough for a first blind-ish playthrough, it leads a lot to be desired due to faulty difficulty and balancing (no arbitrary restrictions), the character's personalitys, the stupid controls, and tying together all three Pikmin games equally into one game (Pikmin 3 was basically completely gutted from this game).
This all doesn't mean I hate the game. I love Pikmin 4, but I probably won't replay it as frequently as Pikmin 3 or especially 1(if I owned it) due to their much tighter and better moment-to-moment gameplay and balancing.
Pick accessibility and success for more pikmin games with room to improve
Or
Pick to not do that and most likely not get another mainline for 50 years.
Pick your poison. I went with the first. I also dont play pikmin for challenge; I play to just relax and vibe.
Honestly Pikmin 4 is just an expansion of Pikmin 2 while Pikmin 3 was an expansion of Pikmin 1, there's so many flaws on defending both sides and the reason for that is they just aren't made for the same people. Pikmin 2 and 4 have their own auidence and Pikmin 1 and 3 has their own.
Finally someone mentioned the uninspired soundtrack of this game. It's a far cry from the previous games, which had unforgettable soundtracks where a good half of the tunes are stuck in my brain for all eternity.
Meanwhile from this game there are only a few tracks I distinctly remember, those being the title theme of the game, the song that plays on Base Camp, Groovy Long Legs and a couple of themes from Olimar's Shipwreck tale, which themselves are remixes of Pikmin 1 areas. There might be more… but guess what? I forgot! Because 90% of the tracks in this game are boring ambiance, which the previous games didn't really have.
Nintendo is too obsessed with creating a singular experience for all types of players. They think it's more "elegant" and "clever" than having difficulty options. If anything Nintendo games need difficulty options the most because their audience has such a broad age range.
I love this game and have a ton of fun with it. The one thing I absolutely hate is the characters. They are overly dramatic, and they talk to me like I’m a 4 year old. They are so annoying and don’t add anything to the game, and their interactions are like I’m watching paw patrol or something
Dandori issue
I mean in all seriousness though, I expected more but I'm glad we got something.
Your gonna get alot of dislikes but this needed to be talked about. The player is too strong, even stronger than pikmin 2. Theres no tension in the main story, no risks, no memorable pikmin wipes. The game is too hand holdy and brain dead until post game and 20 hours of menotenous shit isnt worth it
I think I’m the only one who’s bothered by this but i hate how they rebooted/erased the story and the timeline of the other pikmin games and it has a lot of plot holes and issues with connecting to other games
I found myself cursing at every single character in pikmin 4. Especially the goddamn scientist. Pikmin is the last game that would ever need a hub world, it just slows the player down and creates space between them and the things they actually want to do.
Dandori issue
Even with these problems I still really enjoyed the game, Its definitely either 2nd or 1st out of all the pikmin games in my opinion. there are too many good things about it compared to bad things about it for me personally to say "not worth the wait" and this whole game seems like its going to change the future of pikmin, with this entry bringing in so many new fans, we are sure to get pikmin 5 in less than 8 years.
I came into this expecting someone nagging about random stuff in pikmin 4, but it's actually an extremely well-thought out and scholarly critique using very genuine comparisons using past games, coming from a true pikmin fan. Amazing work. 4 is great but certainly has it's large share of critical blunders.
A couple things I'd like to add:
Oatchi CAN go underwater, actually. Another upgrade they have allows them to dive in order to grab objects or attack enemies. On top of that, Oatchi's combat abilities get utterly insane later on and they can easily solo most bosses that don't have some kind of gimmick, but even then he circumvents them. Oatchi can't charge with pikmin traditionally, but instead they have a BETTER charge that just has an extremely short cooldown, throwing EVERY SINGLE PIKMIN IN YOUR SQUAD at an enemy in a SINGLE MOMENT, on TOP of stunning the enemy for a disproportionate amount of time. you can jump while doing this too so flying enemies or arachnorbs are not safe. In my own playthrough, as the game went on, i started to realize that this isn't Pikmin 4 – Starring Oatchi, this is Oatchi – Starring Pikmin. You can easily complete the whole game with Oatchi alone and the only reason pikmin exist are for multitasking which is completely unnecessary due to the lack of any kind of time limit. in fact, while Pikmin 2 didn't have a time limit, you still needed to manage things well as you are encouraged to do so by the storytelling and the threat of pikmin being left behind at dusk. However, in 4, there are several ways to simply call all pikmin back or call them to a specific location. Multitasking and positioning is no longer necessary as you can keep all pikmin in 1 squad, send them to carry something back to base, and once they deliver it you can simply call them back to your location near instantly or move the base and teleport them to you. A good example of this is, in 2, the sort of 'supply route' system used by pikmin delegated to collecting ultra spicy or ultra bitter berries to save time later on or assist in tough battles. They would keep delivering berries and then running back to the plant to collect more, regardless of enemy presence in their path or the time of day, so you had to keep an eye on them as you went about their tasks so you didn't find yourself staring at the 10 second countdown while there's still pikmin spread all across the supply path and you couldn't run fast enough or carry your whistle far enough to get them in time because you were too distracted. In comparison, in 4, if you ended up forgetting about 20 pikmin on a spicy berry route… no biggie, just hit the homesick signal button and hey, there they are. Smarter pikmin is nice sorta, but they didn't change or add anything to account for it. You could even just rewind 1 minute and go pre-emptively gather them. There is ZERO penalty for any mistakes EVER.
Another annoying thing is the 'Dandori' obsession, and as another commenter pointed out, having 'good dandori' doesn't mean being good at pikmin. It means literally just having foresight and having as many upgrades as possible. I was pretty damn disappointed when i got stuck halfway through the leaf sage challenge and decided to look up videos of other people doing it online, excitedly wondering what my big mistake was or what the key to the whole challenge was — until i realized it was a simple matter of "oh, you don't have the pluckaphone, 100% upgraded oatchi, the ability to run at super speeds and a whistle that covers literally the entire cave in width. I guess you're just fucked then."
I never heard someone complain a game was too easy, i am pleasantly surprised.
Did you upload this video with 3 different titles
I'm nearly at the end of Pikmin 4 and my thoughts are: it's an amusing Pikmin adventure game, but not a good Pikmin game. The flaws just irk me too much. And then there's the fact that you only get "good dandori" by knowing what you're going up against beforehand, so being skilled in this game is less a matter of skill but more of how many times you've pressed Rewind.
Pikmin 4 gives so much and is such a huge entry and yet it also contains so many minor disappointments that I can't help but feel it's not really the perfect sequel we've been waiting for. Your analysis nails it. It's too easy and hand-holdy. Pikmin 1 was hard. Even Pikmin 3 was challenging. Pikmin 2 was ridiculous and badly balanced but it was pressured to be made within 1 year.
YOU LITTERALY HAVE THE SAME PLAYER CHARACTER AS ME (asides from colors) what a conincidince
Pikmin 4 is what a lot of people expected after 3 cracks in some aspects
And 2 questionable additions
Pikmin 4 makes itself more basic to appeal to a wider audience
While I enjoyed the game you have honestly summed up all my problems with the game
I had
4 really feels more like Pikmin for people who don't like Pikmin
While I enjoyed the game you have honestly summed up all my problems with the game
I had
4 really feels more like Pikmin for people who don't like Pikmin
While I enjoyed the game you have honestly summed up all my problems with the game
I had
4 really feels more like Pikmin for people who don't like Pikmin
I do agree with you that the Pikmin 4 caves are more memorable than Pikmin 2 but I personally prefer the challenge of the Pikmin 2 caves over Pikmin 4. I still love the cave exploration here, but there was something euphoric about going through a challenging cave, beating a never before seen mechanized spider at the end and escaping with as few casualties as possible.
Even in the final Pikmin 4 cave, I never really felt challenged in this game. Not all the caves have bosses, and those that do usually only have either larger variants of a normal enemy or a repeat boss from Pikmin 2. Even the Waterwraith AI is nerfed when compared to Pikmin 2. One of the few exceptions being the Groovy Long Legs and that admittedly awesome final boss
Since you shine best in essay vid type roles, I think you would have significantly massive amounts of fun making a video essay on Death Stranding's unorthodox gameplay or Horizon Zero Dawn's combat systems and overall world immersion.