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Reviews Pikmin 4 | Review Thread

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CandypopBuddy said:
I feel like talking about difficulty in a vacuum without establishing context is not helpful. People are talking about different things when they say Pikmin 1 or 2 or even 3 is hardest. I find it helps to try and separate these out into distinct categories relevant to Pikmin:
1. Punishing fail-states (e.x. Doom counter/ Pikmin Extinction)
2. Difficult clear conditions (An environmental puzzle. Clearing campaign. Platinum medal condition. No Pikmin Death run)
3. Scaling of short-term risk (Wollyhop is about to kill 20 pikmin if I dont whistle)
4. Risk dynamics/kinetics ( "I made a small mistake, and it quickly spiraled into a disaster")
And what purpose they serve in design:
1. A punishing failstate like a campaign doom counter or difficult clear conditions like a platinum medal or no pikmin run increase satisfaction of achieving a goal. They also provide pressure which naturally pushes you to set your own optimal pace.
2. Managing risk should tote line between smooth operation and frantic chaos and provide an optimal overload that facilitates focus or flow.

In my opinion these are the important effects of difficulty. If the game tension is not modulated by skill then we call it cheap or random. If they stifle tactical or strategic depth it's overly punishing. If there is a muddy relationship between order/chaos or risk/reward the game is not as engaging. If the line is too tight it's exhausting. On the other hand if there is no tension, in other words if anything works it's braindead. Difficulty does not exist in a vacuum and if it did it would become absurdly irrelevant.

When people say a game is too easy, the takeaway is not that it offered too little resistance to completing the campaign. It's more that certain aspects of the difficulty detracted from the skill expression by making it less rewarding, or the scaling and pacing of the risk/reward made managing it less engaging.
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Dont know, probably well written, but for me "random bullshit or jank kills all my pikmin" is not dificult, its frustrating. I had that a handfull of times in 3, but that game gives you so many freaking pikmin that it never was a problem. Just a sad moment after 110 days without really loosing a significant amount.

My problem was: it was rarely hard to figure out what to do and how to get to that goal. Half of the time it was more of a question "how long does it take to do it, and can i risk some pikmin to reach that goal faster". essentially: the risk reward aspect was not well balanced in 3 for me, because taking slightly more time for an action was always more reasonable then splitting the team for efficiency and losing pikmin because i watched the others for a second, since then i again have to bring back the comander and send them out with new pikmin, making it take longer instead of shorter.

.And from the other side: it needs environmental puzzles that are less obvious.
 
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Lets see how it turns out but the demo gave me vibes of the kind of game that sets its goals in giving you small dopamine rush by seeing numbers going up and rushing through areas quickly. It's not a thing I'm into and I think doesn't feel right for a Pikmin game
 
Not that I had doubts,
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but sounds like it's voucher worthy.
 
TheSpaceBetween said:
Great reviews as expected. How many first party Switch titles are in the 85-89 range now haha.
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89
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Fire Emblem: Three Houses

88
Metroid Dread
Super Mario Maker 2
Pikmin 4
Astrial Chain (published, not developed)


87
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

86
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Bayonetta 3 (published, not developed)
Luigi's Mansion 3

85
Pikmin 3 Deluxe
Kirby and the Forgotten Land


Plenty of ports, but still, a darn good library!
 
Yeah, those are pretty damn good scores. Shame that it didn't reach 90 or so (which would have made this year ridiculous) but still another strong entry in the series and this is bound to sell great considering Pikmin 3 Deluxe sold really well for a port.
 
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SpaceGodzilla said:
crazy to think when reviews first started coming out it was in the 90's then the post-release reviews came in and knocked down 4 points
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With the exception of possibly a few minutes at the start, before all of the initial reviews came in, Bayo 3 started at 89
 
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Comic Obsessed said:
Yeah, those are pretty damn good scores. Shame that it didn't reach 90 or so (which would have been this year ridiculous) but still another strong entry in the series and this is bound to sell great considering Pikmin 3 Deluxe sold really well for a port.
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Pikmin in general feels more popular than ever, I think it has a fair shot at selling several million units, but we'll see. Another interesting thing is that the series' subreddit is mainly composed of quite young people, I was not expecting that given the fact that the latest mainline entry is 10 years old.
 
Síriocaz said:
Pikmin in general feels more popular than ever, I think it has a fair shot at selling several million units, but we'll see. Another interesting thing is that the series' subreddit is mainly composed of quite young people, I was not expecting that given the fact that the latest mainline entry is 10 years old.
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Pikmin does surprisingly well with a younger audience, at least in my experience
 
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bellydrum said:
I don't know what the deal is with people being concerned about difficulty levels.

This isn't the kind of game where you beeline to the credits. Of course it's going to be "easy" if you play that way.

The game is about optimization through iteration. The first area, playable in the demo, already has a "hard" difficulty - try to 100% it in only two days. Now that is hard mode.
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Exactly, and besides, Pikmin games are often perfect for challenge runs. For example, I'll be looking into a dogless run and no flarlic one (no clue how possible they'll be but they sound fun to me)
 
DenkeyKong said:
Exactly, and besides, Pikmin games are often perfect for challenge runs. For example, I'll be looking into a dogless run and no flarlic one (no clue how possible they'll be but they sound fun to me)
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I'm not going to do it since I'm not a huge challenge run person, but given how you can get Wild Pikmin from caves I wonder if a "Picklocke" run is possible where you only use Wild Pikmin and can't grow any reinforcements from Onions (and obviously can't just farm them by repeating caves either)
 
Mellifluus said:
Lets see how it turns out but the demo gave me vibes of the kind of game that sets its goals in giving you small dopamine rush by seeing numbers going up and rushing through areas quickly. It's not a thing I'm into and I think doesn't feel right for a Pikmin game
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Yeah this is my concern as well. Nintendo's emphasis on making a lot of their IPs about collecting / crafting stuff doesn't really seem like a good fit for Pikmin.
 
I've been playing Pikmin 2 for awhile now and I can abide by a type limit. Trying to switch to the right type in the heat of battle can be pretty frustrating.

I can't wait for Friday!
 
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Mellifluus said:
Lets see how it turns out but the demo gave me vibes of the kind of game that sets its goals in giving you small dopamine rush by seeing numbers going up and rushing through areas quickly. It's not a thing I'm into and I think doesn't feel right for a Pikmin game
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AngryAlchemist said:
Yeah this is my concern as well. Nintendo's emphasis on making a lot of their IPs about collecting / crafting stuff doesn't really seem like a good fit for Pikmin.
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How is a game series primarily concerned with collecting things (like, it's the primary objective of 1 and 2 and still a primary objective in 3) somehow not a good fit for a collection focus?
 
Síriocaz said:
Pikmin in general feels more popular than ever, I think it has a fair shot at selling several million units, but we'll see. Another interesting thing is that the series' subreddit is mainly composed of quite young people, I was not expecting that given the fact that the latest mainline entry is 10 years old.
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Yeah, I could see this hitting 3 million
 
NabiscoFelt said:
How is a game series primarily concerned with collecting things (like, it's the primary objective of 1 and 2 and still a primary objective in 3) somehow not a good fit for a collection focus?
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I was referring to those crystal things that are laying around and the new focus on upgrading abilities. Despite that, I just feel like the series should evolve in that regard or at least leave things as they already were and focus on other things that are more valuable to the experience.

If the game consists on having a deadly army that just stomps on the all the poor enemies in it's way to leisurely collect more and more things, I see myself forgetting about the game's existence in just a couple of months, and that will sadden me. I think having larger overworlds and interconnected caves are a good thing, but only if there is weight to the journey and you feel the mix of tension and being surrounded by beautiful nature inhabited by weird and powerful (for you and the pikmin) insects. That was kind of lost for me in 3 and it seems it will be also be the case for 4.
 
hologram said:
Yeah, I could see this hitting 3 million
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That's the minimum I'd expect. Japan by itself will clear 1.5M lifetime if not more. Pikmin 3D is probably already a million seller in Japan (we'll know for sure when the next CESA sales report is published).
 
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bellydrum said:
I don't know what the deal is with people being concerned about difficulty levels.

This isn't the kind of game where you beeline to the credits. Of course it's going to be "easy" if you play that way.

The game is about optimization through iteration. The first area, playable in the demo, already has a "hard" difficulty - try to 100% it in only two days. Now that is hard mode.
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I haven’t read the discourse but generally I’m all for options, or built in challenges. It’s easy to say “just give yourself a hard constraint” but unless the game enforces this constraint it’s often hard to follow through.


And yes I know this is almost literally an argument that From nerds use to say why difficulty levels shouldn’t be added now I’m not sure what side I’m on because fuck I want an easy mode in From games.
 
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NabiscoFelt said:
How is a game series primarily concerned with collecting things (like, it's the primary objective of 1 and 2 and still a primary objective in 3) somehow not a good fit for a collection focus?
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I feel it's pretty self-evident that the collecting in the previous games was different. They were always main objectives or optional upgrades that were pretty neat. It felt more like you were just completing the main game or collecting cool gear, and in 3 it was basically entirely optional because the game was so easy (which wasnt a good design choice either, but a more compelling fit than what I've played of 4). In Pikmin 4, it feels more like it's about facilitating a crafting/upgrade system, which could be cool but the demo didn't convince me at all.

I feel like this should be pretty self-evident, to be honest? Yes you can use the same verb to describe the method of play for all the games, but it's obviously done very differently in previous games. I'm still going to keep an open mind because it's Pikmin but nothing I've seen or played is convincing.
 
AngryAlchemist said:
I feel it's pretty self-evident that the collecting in the previous games was different. They were always main objectives or optional upgrades that were pretty neat. It felt more like you were just completing the main game or collecting cool gear, and in 3 it was basically entirely optional because the game was so easy (which wasnt a good design choice either, but a more compelling fit than what I've played of 4). In Pikmin 4, it feels more like it's about facilitating a crafting/upgrade system, which could be cool but the demo didn't convince me at all.

I feel like this should be pretty self-evident, to be honest? Yes you can use the same verb to describe the method of play for all the games, but it's obviously done very differently in previous games. I'm still going to keep an open mind because it's Pikmin but nothing I've seen or played is convincing.
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I just don't really see how the collecting is different, honestly

Like, sure, you could say that two out of the 3 types of collectibles, the castaways and the Raw Materials, are tied to a crafting/upgrade system. But they're both also tied to main objectives or exploration in general, and it's not like the gameplay loop differs all that much from their inclusion.

I mean, maybe it is super self evident and I'm just blind but besides the mere existence of a crafting/upgrade system as a secondary use of collectibles I'm not sure what the practical difference is

Mellifluus said:
I was referring to those crystal things that are laying around and the new focus on upgrading abilities. Despite that, I just feel like the series should evolve in that regard or at least leave things as they already were and focus on other things that are more valuable to the experience.

If the game consists on having a deadly army that just stomps on the all the poor enemies in it's way to leisurely collect more and more things, I see myself forgetting about the game's existence in just a couple of months, and that will sadden me. I think having larger overworlds and interconnected caves are a good thing, but only if there is weight to the journey and you feel the mix of tension and being surrounded by beautiful nature inhabited by weird and powerful (for you and the pikmin) insects. That was kind of lost for me in 3 and it seems it will be also be the case for 4.
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And this feels like it's just a lot of words to say you're worried about the difficulty, which feels like an entirely different complaint (not that it isn't a valid one given reviews, just different from the original)
 
NabiscoFelt said:
I mean, maybe it is super self evident and I'm just blind but besides the mere existence of a crafting/upgrade system as a secondary use of collectibles I'm not sure what the practical difference is
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A lot of the gameplay structure felt pretty different to me as a result of making the game about completing smaller objectives like collecting resources or upgrading perks (which are just a vessel for a design methodology) rather than chasing big objectives in the most efficient way possible. People in this thread keep talking about the Dandori aspect but the earlier games (even 3, for how easy it was) did a great job of just making you want to things efficiently by emphasizing Pikmin so much and how much it sucks to lose them. Yet in the 3-4 hour demo I played, Pikmin never felt like they were in any real threat and the importance of them was even more situational than usual thanks to Oatchi. It felt like a game about slowly progressing in a world with puzzle like objectives (which has always been somewhat the appeal to some extent, but usually it's more multi-faceted) and upgrading things, rather than doing things efficiently and managing Pikmin. More like a game about finding different types of shiny things to collect rather than doing main objectives efficiently. You can't just add stuff into Pikmin willynilly, so there's obviously some changes to the formula that accomadate those new systems. But I'll hold my tongue since maybe the final game puts it all into perspective, I just didn't think I'd have to overexplain why making Pikmin's gameplay loop about upgrades and crafting is different. It's just kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation because now people will be saying I'm overanalyzing a 3-4 hour demo, after only doing it when someone asks for clarification.
 
AngryAlchemist said:
A lot of the gameplay structure felt pretty different to me as a result of making the game about completing smaller objectives like collecting resources or upgrading perks (which are just a vessel for a design methodology) rather than chasing big objectives in the most efficient way possible. People in this thread keep talking about the Dandori aspect but the earlier games (even 3, for how easy it was) did a great job of just making you want to things efficiently by emphasizing Pikmin so much and how much it sucks to lose them. Yet in the 3-4 hour demo I played, Pikmin never felt like they were in any real threat and the importance of them was even more situational than usual thanks to Oatchi. It felt like a game about slowly progressing in a world with puzzle like objectives (which has always been somewhat the appeal to some extent, but usually it's more multi-faceted) and upgrading things, rather than doing things efficiently and managing Pikmin. More like a game about finding different types of shiny things to collect rather than doing main objectives efficiently. You can't just add stuff into Pikmin willynilly, so there's obviously some changes to the formula that accomadate those new systems. But I'll hold my tongue since maybe the final game puts it all into perspective, I just didn't think I'd have to overexplain why making Pikmin's gameplay loop about upgrades and crafting is different. It's just kind of a damned if you do damned if you don't situation because now people will be saying I'm overanalyzing a 3-4 hour demo, after only doing it when someone asks for clarification.
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Hm I think I can see where you're coming from, and it's definitely a valid concern. Think I just misunderstood the initial complaint

Though, personally, it seems to me the issue is less related to the presence of upgrades/smaller objectives and more due to a lack of strict limits or a reason to engage in efficient gameplay (outside of something like a Dandori Challenge). Like, I don't think the upgrades and crafting are actually the root cause of the issue you're describing, more of a side effect of a changing design philosophy. Which, granted, could be because I didn't really see the upgrades or crafting as that important from the demo, they were just a thing that happened as I focused on gathering treasures or castaways, so I may be misattributing the reason behind the more relaxed design of Pikmin 4

I also did end up engaging in the more efficient aspects of Pikmin since I 100% the demo, which involved more careful management on the last day to get every treasure before the day ended. But it's not necessarily what the game's going for in a main playthrough, so the concern is still valid
 
The game is definitely more dangerous than 3. I lost some Pikmin in the demo to that weird-ass hamburger patty thing, which still seems like it would be tricky to deal with even without the element of surprise due to the combination of having to risk fire and crushing to fight it. And the footage we have of the second area shows a lot more threatening stuff than 3 ever had. Those baby Snagret enemies seem nearly as bad as Bulborb Larva, and enemies falling from the ceiling to surround you are back.

I didn't feel like the crafting aspect itself had any major impact on the game, you had a slight element of strategic choice in what you spend your materials on, it was pretty minor and fit in nicely with the usual "what are you going to devote your time to?" decision making of Pikmin. I did notice a major structural shift to the game, however.

There's way more focus on limitations now, and constantly surpassing to them to unlock new parts of the map. Sure, the old games had you unlock new Pikmin types to progress a few times, but this was like Metroid: Zero Mission. You can only have three types of Pikmin out at once, and you're capped at 20 total to start. Now, here's a new Pikmin type, but you can't make more yet, so you can do X but you're still locked out of Y until you find an onion or get more of them from somewhere. There's way more of an emphasis on incremental upgrades to your capabilities as a core part of the gameplay loop, whereas it was mostly an optional side thing in 2 and 3.

Which, to be fair, is kind of also the case here? Progression seems pretty open, with a lot of choice in what abilities to acquire and when, what to do, and how exactly you get past certain obstacles. We went from "Blue Pikmin are for water" to a game where there are like five potential ways you could deal with a body of water which all may or may not work depending on the exact situation and what you're trying to accomplish there.

I think it seems really cool, but I'm skeptical if they're going to actually somehow keep this up for the whole campaign or if it'll soon open up into something a bit more traditional and slow-paced, and this is more just a new way of quickly introducing as much as possible (the first area having four Pikmin types is pretty unprecedented, to say the least).
 
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Marce-chan said:
Will DF make a tech analysis?
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They definitely should imo, it's a mainline Pikmin game using unreal 4 with heavy involvement from EPD (tho it's unclear where the meat of development was but it looks like Eighting did a lot of the work) and it looks quite nice. Maybe they could also right the wrong of calling Link's Awakening an unreal game since there has never been any evidence of it being the case either through official sources or datamining.
 
mazi said:
their yearly hall of fame lists don't include remasters, ports, expansions, dlc, etc. only new games and full blown remakes count.
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It’s still weird to me that Future Connected (a 20+ hour adventure with new and unique story/locations/characters/etc packed full of content) doesn’t count, but RE4 (A well-made remake) does.
 
Jbone916 said:
It’s still weird to me that Future Connected (a 20+ hour adventure with new and unique story/locations/characters/etc packed full of content) doesn’t count, but RE4 (A well-made remake) does.
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I think the big issue for Future Connected is (correct me if I'm wrong) it didn't get a standalone release like Torna did. If it had, especially a "boxed, on store shelves" release, then I think there'd be a stronger argument for counting it.
 
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Jbone916 said:
It’s still weird to me that Future Connected (a 20+ hour adventure with new and unique story/locations/characters/etc packed full of content) doesn’t count, but RE4 (A well-made remake) does.
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Future Connected isn't standalone IIRC.
 
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Per the Review Thread Conduct Policy, we're locking the thread because it's been a week since release. Hope everyone is enjoying Pikmin 4!
 
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