A bit disappointing.

I've heard a lot of people rank this as the best in the series but I just can't agree. The game is practically the same as the first with an introduction of two new pikmin types, white and purple. The purple ones didn't really have any use the entire game other than carrying a very heavy optional treasure thanks to their increased carry limit. Other than that I never used them as there was no need, they do have this ability to shock enemies for like half a second when you throw them since they're heavy but I don't think its worth carrying them for just that. I did find myself using white Pikmin here and there, and found them to be a cool addition. One of my favorite things about this game that wasn't in the first is how the Pikmin occasionally sing when you travel with them, pretty adorable ngl. The story is fitting, very simple involving repaying a debt through collecting treasures that resemble real life objects that were polluted. Overall the game is very similar to the first with less Pikmin related puzzles.

The main thing that brings this game down for me, and it's a big negative, is the only other addition which were the caves. I have no clue why they added dungeon crawling to this and made it the prime focus. The caves have some randomness to it where floors have the same enemies and loot but the layout is rearranged every time you reload it. In theory it sounds cool and games have done this but this game does not cap the bullshit. I would go into a cave and the game would give me a layout where they put a big black bulborb right beside me that would commit genocide on my Pikmin before I can even react, then I'd have to restart the game, load back in and hope for a better layout, this is all without a restart checkpoint or last save button so I would have to manually close the game, boot it up, and wait every time. There were some pretty cool bosses in these caves but all the bullshit with the random spawning really ruined it for me, it isn't even a skill issue just luck. Also some of them would take way way too long to finish with over 15 floors. I am very glad they took this out of Pikmin 3, I heard they do return in Pikmin 4, and I wouldnt mind this as long as they fixed this kind of thing.

Not a bad game but definitely has it's flaws, I should have stopped once I finished the main story rather than collecting every treasure. Still looking forward to Pikmin 4

Pikmin is a truly delightful experience that blends real-time strategy with charming puzzle elements. You take command of Captain Olimar, a stranded astronaut who must work with tiny plant-like creatures called Pikmin to reclaim his ship's parts within a time limit. Growing, commanding, and utilizing the different Pikmin types is incredibly satisfying, and the lush environments teeming with curious creatures create a feeling of wonder and lighthearted exploration. While its short length might be a drawback to some, Pikmin is a unique and captivating game that leaves a lasting impression.

My opinion changed a lot the more I played this game.

When I first started it, I was completely hooked. The beginning sky island area is very well designed and gets you familiar with the new cool abilities that I used way more then the ones in BOTW. The graphics and size of the world are also super impressive for being a Switch title.

Once I finished the tutorial area which took around 5 hours, everything started going downhill. The game is almost an exact copy of BOTW. The enemies are identical the only new ones are really the small robots that have replaced guardians and some dragon mini boss which I didn't bother fighting. Armor is also the same, there are a few new sets which are okay but to get them is a real chore. The main bad thing is that the map and story are pretty much identical to BOTW. The whole sky island I found to be a really cool concept but there's almost none of that in the actual game. That tutorial sky island is the largest in the game and there's none that are as interesting as it anywhere. They are all very tiny with nothing on them and no reason to visit them except shrines. Another addition was an entire underground world which sounds cool and again is quite technically impressive but after 10 minutes I decided to never go there again unless I needed to progress the story. It's all empty copy pasted land with nothing special and no reason to explore it. This leaves the main land left and as I've repeatedly said, it is an exact copy of BOTW I have to say it over and over since I'm still amazed how little they decided to change. I played the shit out of BOTW in 2019 and even after 6 years so many things felt familiar, nothing surprised me. The story is very generic and worse then BOTW imo. Once again you find 4 sages then gain their powers to defeat Ganon. only this time the sages are younger kid versions who were made into anime personalities for some reason. The dungeons were a downgrade and made much easier than BOTW, that goes for the shrines as well. I really thought I'd spend a lot of time on this game especially with the increased price tag but that was not the case. In BOTW I spend around 150hrs and 100%ed it, in this game I did all 153 shrines, a few uninteresting side quests, and the story picking up whatever korok seeds I find on my way which brought me to around 65 hours with no urge to do anything else but put it back on the shelf. Why play anymore when I pretty much experienced all of it already in BOTW? I'm very tired of this new Zelda formula and would love to see it go back to its core.

The one thing I did quite enjoy was the ending. The Ganon boss fight was solid, one of the best in Zelda and a huge improvement from the BOTW final boss. The ending cinematic was also amazing. Seeing that caught me off guard, it made me wish they focused on story more as it showed they are capable. I was impressed that there could be such epic cinematics in a Zelda game and wish there was more of it throughout the story rather then copy pasting the most bare bones RPG story that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy on the NES. This game has no reason for existing. A sequel was not needed, this felt much more of a quality of life update with new sandbox stuff and that's about it. This was not a GOTY 2023 contender to me.

I don't think I'm ever going to get around to finishing this game, so now's as good a time as any to do a write-up.

Breath of the Wild is my favorite game. It got me back into gaming after putting it down after a few years, and back into Nintendo games after not caring for nearly a decade. I was excited as anyone for Tears of the Kingdom. The early marketing was excellent, presenting an ominous, Majora-esque asset flip of the more melancholic BotW. I imagined deep crevices carved into the ground, exhuming all sorts of long-dormant horrors, forever altering the Hyrule with which I was familiar. I had faith that the long development time would be used to add all sorts of interesting content and well-designed dungeons.

My initial impression of the game was good. I enjoyed the tutorial island. Helping the overpacked Korok get to his friend was cute. On the surface, one of the first caves I found was the Majora tree stump cave. I remember feeling excited by the Japanese aesthetic for the shrine housing the piece of Fierce Deity armor, and wondered what other kinds of ancient architecture I'd find. Diving into The Depths for the first time was thrilling.

Disappointments, however, quickly crept in. The oddly specific over-packed Korok scenario quickly became contrived as I found dozens more. The tutorial island turned out to be the most interesting sky island by far, as the others were sparse and often copied multiple times. The tree stump cave turned out to be one of the few interesting caves, with most of the others largely using the same mossy aesthetic, with the same Horriblins and the same Japanese architecture housing the same BotW DLC armor. The Depths turned out to have a dearth of interesting content, my time largely spent stumbling around in the dark, avoiding the same enemy camps that absolutely litter the surface.

My biggest problem with TotK is how much it mindlessly copies from BotW. For BotW, the developers went back to the drawing board, and thoughtfully reconsidered all of the rote Zelda tropes that had accumulated in the series since Majora's Mask, like so many fleas. All of the pieces fit together. Take the memory system, for example. For BotW, the developers smartly crafted a smattering of nonessential vignettes, where the order in which you found them was not important, because it suited the open world structure of the game. Anyone with a brain can see that this structure does not fit the essential, linear story that TotK wants to tell. It felt like watching a movie with its scenes out of order. It also leads to big problems like Link spending all his time "trying to find Zelda," when he already knows exactly where she is, but doesn't bother letting anyone else know.

No one held a gun to Aonuma's head and said he had to use the same damn Korok seed inventory system, or shrine health and stamina system, or combat durability system, or memory-based narrative, or music. BotW was great in part because of how new everything felt. But Aonuma's team is already resting on its laurels, and I fear BotW's revolutionary template is already ossified convention.

The worst is how TotK handles BotW's map. Many previous points of interest are utterly devoid of content, including Thundra Plateau, Gut Check Rock, Hyrule Castle Ruins, and The Forgotten Temple. Areas with affecting environmental storytelling in BotW like Fort Hateno are downgraded to dumps littered with ugly brown-gray sky island slabs. I was baffled and offended when I made my way to Akkala Citadel, only to find an inexplicably generic monster cave where the citadel entrance should have been exposed. They really should have made sure there was enough to do on the surface before bothering with the dull-as-dishwater Depths.

Speaking of environmental storytelling, how bad is TotK's? What's the point of introducing another heretofore unmentioned technologically advanced ancient civilization? What happened to the Shiekah tech from BotW, including the army of laser-spewing spider robots and Divine Beasts that devastated the countryside for 100 years? I don't think they're even mentioned once. It almost feels like The Calamity didn't even happen. This created a huge disconnect from the world for me. All the ruins that felt so meaningful to explore in BotW felt like they belonged in a different game in TotK.

I haven't mentioned Ultrahand until now, because it felt largely superfluous to my experience with the game. On the tutorial island, I learned to my great disappointment that walking more than 50 yards from a boat I'd built to cross the first lake caused it to despawn. I was further let down after my first exhilarating flight on a wing part was cut short by the extremely stingy 30-second use time limit.

Ultrahand is barely integrated into the game. It feels like someone took the building mechanic from Garry's Mod, shoved it into BotW, and dumped a bunch of Lego parts everywhere. The game almost never requires its use outside of scripted events like the Death Mountain approach or boring green crystal sky island shrines; it's often faster and more effective to deal with the game's many enemies using the vanilla BotW combat.

So many elements of the game disincentivize its use. The building mechanic itself is finicky and time-consuming, and the distance and time limits are even more demoralizing. I was lucky to find auto-build early in the game, but the heavy Zonaite cost kept me from using it much. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered if going in to The Depths was fun, but mindlessly mining Zonaite felt like the worst kind of grindy MMO filler. I think the biggest tell is how many people complained when Nintendo removed the duplication glitch from the first build of the game. I normally side with Nintendo in these instances, but here, I think it exposes just how unfun and stingy the game is with resources.

I'm just scratching the surface of TotK's serious flaws. The "dungeons" are lackluster, and their "press these 5 or so buttons in any order" design uninspired. The repetitive sage cutscenes after the fairly enjoyable but too-easy boss fights are pathetic. Shrines are often just tutorials for Zonai parts, and can often be cheesed in unsatisfying ways. Sage powers are horribly implemented.

I'll balance all the negativity I just wrote by saying that I recognize that TotK isn't a bad game. If I hadn't played BotW, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more. Maybe my expectations for the sequel of my favorite game were too high. And there are truly excellent moments that incentivized me to push through all the middling content, like launching off the roofs of sky ships into the eye of a snow storm, or exploring the super interesting Gerudo underground shelter, or fighting a Boss Bokoblin squad for the first time. But I can't deny that I resented most of the 100+ hour grind I put into this game, and I regret ever buying it.

Might be one of the best free updates I've ever seen to a game. It goes all-in on the perspective shift of playing as the Noise and it's honestly hilarious. Of course the Noise doesn't play by the game's rules - he's the Noise!

The moveset will absolutely feel jarring at first but gradually becomes as second nature as Peppino's. I do think it would have been cool to see at least one level designed for it, but it honestly mixes up things enough to make all the levels feel completely different already. It's much faster too, which is really neat!