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Discussion Pikmin 4 Discussion and Speculation Thread

Pikmin 4 Announcement in 2022?

  • Yes

    Votes: 16 25.0%
  • No

    Votes: 48 75.0%

  • Total voters
    64
What is the best Pikmin game in your opinion?
My personal ranking would be 3 > 1 > 2.

Pikmin 3 to me has the best level design and the best gameplay. It also is the most balanced I feel.

The maps are really amazingly designed and I appreciated them even more when I replayed it on the Switch.

I also love the concept of the Extra Spicy mode in Deluxe version. Really hope that they are keeping the difficulty settings for the next game.

Whats yours?
 
What is the best Pikmin game in your opinion?
That would be 3 I think. It is perfect, save for the last level which is its weakest point. But still one of Nintendo best game and dx makes it even better imo.
Ranking would be 3-2-hey-1-bloom but actually I don't think there is a bad Pikmin game.
 
My personal ranking would be 3 > 1 > 2.

Pikmin 3 to me has the best level design and the best gameplay. It also is the most balanced I feel.

The maps are really amazingly designed and I appreciated them even more when I replayed it on the Switch.

I also love the concept of the Extra Spicy mode in Deluxe version. Really hope that they are keeping the difficulty settings for the next game.

Whats yours?
Sorry, I could’ve started telling you mine.

3>2>1 did not try the 3ds game, I thought the first was really cool, but way too hard. They just kept becoming better though.
 
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What is the best Pikmin game in your opinion?
They all have different strengths.

1 is the most replayable, but it’s the least polished and has the least content.

2 is the longest, has more unique enemies and the best soundtrack. But the Purple Pikmin are a bit overpowered and the caves take up too much of the runtime, they get old after a while.

3 is my favorite overall. It has the Rock and Winged Pikmin which add more unique gameplay, it has numerous quality of life improvements, and the best extra modes. But it isn’t perfect, the final area is tedious and some things feel like a downgrade from 2 (like the enemy variety).
 
2>3>1 for me.

I like the caves. Pikmin 2 also has the best product placement in video game history. Always fun to see just what real world item would turn up next and it was great reading what Olimar made of these ‘ancient artifacts’. The fruit in 3 just wasn’t the same.
 
I guess I am in the minority for loving the last area in Pikmin 3.

I think it was a really nice way of encapsulating what the series is all about. Namely making progress under pressure and getting more efficient while also testing everything you have learned. The boss fight was also a really fun way to end the whole thing.
 
Having only played the mainline series and not the 3DS/mobile spinoffs, I think I'd have to rank it

1 > 3 >= 2

Pikmin 1 is great, at this point my only cons with the game is that I can breeze through it so easily and that being the first in the series, it obviously has its limitations. But nostalgia is a helluva drug; the music, the sound effects of ambient scenery and local fauna, the flavour text of rocket parts you're collecting, even the little parade horn march melody that slows down or speed up based on how far you tilt the C-stick on a Gamecube controller is imprinted on my brain as a core memory.

Pikmin 3, I love the detail of graphics being the first Pikmin game developed in HD and can't wait to see how it'll improve for here. While I appreciate the extra missions added to Deluxe, the overall main story is just too short. I've played it through three times now, and I feel the only way it feels substantial is if you actively seek out a perfect fruit run. Some enemies are really cool, but I feel Pikmin 2 definitely has the edge here overall in terms of variety.

It's tough to place Pikmin 2 at the bottom of this list, because it's not as though I dislike it in any capacity, but rather I was never a big fan of the cave systems and often how difficult it was to spawn purple pikmin that meant I had to go through so much hassle resetting the game just to load up the main menu anytime I lost even so much as one purple pikmin because of that damn dumbbell in the final area (especially with that Gattling Groink wandering around surfaceside). But the expansive nature of the worlds, the new enemy variety, and even expanding the subspecies of Bulborbs and Armoured Cannon Beetle larvae I thought was a really cool way to flesh out the ecosystem and I hope Pikmin 4 can do more like that in this regard.
 
I guess I am in the minority for loving the last area in Pikmin 3.

I think it was a really nice way of encapsulating what the series is all about. Namely making progress under pressure and getting more efficient while also testing everything you have learned. The boss fight was also a really fun way to end the whole thing.
Wholeheartedly agree
 
I actually have a lot of thoughts about Pikmin 3 lol—I like it quite a bit but it is by far my least favorite in the series, and the relatively minor changes in the Deluxe version take things even further in the wrong direction.

The first two games had fairly imprecise controls, weird & difficult-to-understand enemies, mostly-nonlinear levels, and interesting collectibles that were worth seeking out for reasons other than increasing a "completion percentage".

3 places a huge focus on perfection and optimization, meaning that the level of control the player has over the Pikmin has been tightened up and enemies are simple to predict and deal with, and a new "charge" move replaces the strange C-stick rallying move to do a bunch of damage at once—Deluxe doubles down by letting you lock on and hold the button down to rapidly throw all your Pikmin (though I understand the accessibility benefits of this as opposed to requiring button mashing). Rather than a bunch of guys to wrangle and try to manage and direct, your Pikmin mostly function as A Number, an ammo count to keep maxed out and to unload on enemies or fruit—the ever-present numerical indicator next to the cursor reinforces this.

The levels in 3 are a bit open-ended, and in particular often require you to split off in a few different directions to progress, but they're so heavily focused on forward momentum and commitment to that particular level's "mission". The mission structure sidelines the collectibles that were the focus of the first two games in favor of linear progress toward a boss battle, then a move onto the next level. I actually think the fruit collectible system is really smart, but it's balanced in such a way that, arguably even in the Ultra-Spicy mode, there's no real incentive to seek any off the main path unless you're concerned with overall completion. In the first two games, almost every collectible, and thus almost any direction of exploration, is meaningful.

There's also no weird mysterious stuff like Mamuta or Goolix or the Smoky Progg or even the Waterwraith—I think strange, unpredictable stuff like that was a hallmark of games of the Gamecube era (I'll give the caveat that these were some of the first 3D games I played, so perhaps everything was mysterious then). The fact that there was rarely any dialogue within the individual days to give any context to those weirder bits (e.g. a massive ghost emerges from an egg and plows through you, instantly killing 60 Pikmin; at no point does the game stop for Olimar to say "My scanning device says that that's the Smoky Progg! Be careful, or he'll eat all your guys!") made them all the weirder and more magical.

Anyway, I'm not too worried about enjoying 4 if it ever emerges—they've mixed up the structure in each game so far, and, especially if they save it for their next platform, it'll probably be the best-looking game Nintendo's ever made. And again, I do like 3 a lot, Pikmin as a whole is probably my favorite Nintendo series, it just throws out a lot of what I loved in the first two games to make a slightly but fundamentally different kind of game.
 
Despite we know that game was in development, game was never officially announced,
If game is not announced this or next year latest, I would said that game does not exist any more.
 
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My ranking would be 2 > 3 > 1 but I've become more fond of 1 over the years. Also, Pikmin 3 dx is absolutely phenomenal. The amount of effort they put into that port gives me hope that they still care about the franchise. Well enough care to not just leave the switch era with one port, but we'll see.
 
My ranking would be 2 > 3 > 1 but I've become more fond of 1 over the years. Also, Pikmin 3 dx is absolutely phenomenal. The amount of effort they put into that port gives me hope that they still care about the franchise. Well enough care to not just leave the switch era with one port, but we'll see.
Miyamoto said that Pikmin 3 was his best game yet in 2013. As long as Miyamoto cares Nintendo cares.
 
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The 4's are my most anticipated Nintendo games personally... Prime 4 and Pikmin 4. My guess is that at this point they are absolutely making it with new hardware in mind. If it was rebooted in 2019ish then it might make sense to release in 2024 or so. It sucks though, because it felt like the franchise had some momentum with the rerelease of 3, Pikmin Go and the Pikmin shorts. I wish Pikmin would get a major release once per generation consistently, it sucks having to wait 10 years for new installments. I did enjoy Hey! Pikmin a lot for what it's worth.

For Pikmin 4, I'd like them to up the scale a bit. Whether that means larger levels or just more of them, I'm not too picky about. Pikmin 1 and 3 were far too short, and 2 was too bloated with all the caves. Ideally it'd be something in between. I was even thinking they could kinda do like Super Mario Odyssey style where you roam these sandbox type areas taking on different challenges. They could even do the challenge type levels that were more obstacle coursey, but in this case they could make challenges taylor made to utilizing certain Pikmin types, for example. I'd also like them to bring back a lot of the powerups from 2. It made for a better sense of progression. And Hey!, maybe even throw in some 2D style levels as well, the template is already there. But I'd want them to do it in a way that made it feel like a natural part of the world, like Odyssey did. I'd also like a more interesting story this time around, with more of the focus on the Pikmin themselves. And of course, a few new Pikmin types!

What is the best Pikmin game in your opinion?

For me it was 3 > 1 > 2 > Hey!. I love them all though.

I guess I am in the minority for loving the last area in Pikmin 3.

I think it was a really nice way of encapsulating what the series is all about. Namely making progress under pressure and getting more efficient while also testing everything you have learned. The boss fight was also a really fun way to end the whole thing.

This was an amazing sequence. It was a perfect example of a game making you use every mechanic you learned over the course of the game while putting you to the test in a high pressure situation. I hope they have more of this in Pikmin 4.
 
I was wondering... would you like Pikmin 4 with a similar style to Pikmin 1 and 2 or you'd rather play like Pikmin 3? I'm talking about the pointer. Since the Switch's pointer is not as good as the Wiimote (you need to calibrate it any minute), would you like to play as it was in Pikmin 1 and 2 from Gamecube?

For me, the pointer in WiiU was the best option to play. However, I must confess that I'd like to play Pikmin 1 or 2 on the Switch in handheld mode. And I absolutely hate the pointer in Switch. Well... not hate it, but I don't know. It's not as confortable as the Wii.
 
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Ideally it would control like Pikmin 3. I really enjoyed the combination of the gamepad along with Wiimote. But yeah, the joycons aren't nearly as good for pointing unfortunately.
 
2 is the best. Guess I can't help it since it's my favorite game, period, so indeed I am very biased, but I do think it is a very great game.

Something that I love about it is its huge enemy roster and the clever ways the devs used it to build the game's awe-inspiring atmosphere, something that I really missed in 3. You only have one single puffy blowhog in 3, for instance, but in 2 there are a couple of subfloors where they own the spotlight, making you feel that they're living in their own, small ecosystem. Same for Spotty Bulbears, there is only one in 3's campaign as well, curiously in a cavern, but it is very dark and you can barely see it. 3 feels like you're just traversing video game levels a lot of times, whereas 2 sells you better the idea that you're genuinely exploring a thriving alien world, if that makes sense.

Then there's 2's Piklopedia and Treasure Hoard. For the enemy section, you get egregiously improbable taxonomic descriptions but they're written well enough to be perceived as wondrous by children. Then the recipes jokes are a welcomed addition. On the other hand, the treasure section cements Olimar as Nintendo's most relatable character: a dude who wonders about the curiosities of life, finds his job and coworkers annoying sometimes but empathizes with them nonetheless, and occasionally has problems with the family, but is willing to do the impossible for them; all fleshed through very personal and witty text.

So you can imagine that 3's implementation was really underwhelming in my opinion. Many things were underwhelming in that game, but I still like it a lot (it has my favorite Challenge/Mission mode), it just isn't what I was expecting after almost a decade of waiting and the boldness the two previous entries brought to the table.
 
I’ll say my order goes Pikmin 3 Co-Op > Pikmin 2 > Pikmin 3 Single Player > Pikmin 1

I love them all, however. I think a Pikmin 1 remake could be genuinely incredible. I would love to see Olimar’s first adventure in HD… or maybe even 4K
 
3 > 1 >>> 2

2 went in a direction I wasn't very fond of, but honestly I love them all. Being able to control three captains in Pikmin 3 was a real game changer for me.
 


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