JCPlays
Bio
Just some guy that loves video games and has a passion for game design.
Enormous fan of Pikmin, Majora's Mask, Metroid, Mario and indie games.
Favorite genres include Platformers, Metroidvainias and RPGs, but I try to play just about anything.
He/Him
Just some guy that loves video games and has a passion for game design.
Enormous fan of Pikmin, Majora's Mask, Metroid, Mario and indie games.
Favorite genres include Platformers, Metroidvainias and RPGs, but I try to play just about anything.
He/Him
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1 Years of Service
Being part of the Backloggd community for 1 year
Organized
Created a list folder with 5+ lists
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Gained 10+ total review likes
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Gained 10+ likes on a single review
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Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page
GOTY '23
Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event
Full-Time
Journaled games once a day for a month straight
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Journaled games once a day for a week straight
N00b
Played 100+ games
Favorite Games
236
Total Games Played
019
Played in 2024
202
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*Review in progress
Sparks of Hope is one of my favorite games, not even counting all of its expansions. I might review the standalone game some other time, but for now, I want to talk about all of its DLC packs in the order that I've been playing them, starting with the Rayman expansion.
This was so, so, so good man. Incredible even, I would say. The base game set such a high standard of quality in every regard, and I can at least say that this DLC meets that standard. It's hard for me to say if it surpasses it, because the base game and this DLC are both extremely similar but also very different beasts that can be hard to compare. Even if I can't really make a definitive statement on that, this was still an awesome expansion that met my expectations nearly effortlessly, while also going in a direction that I didn't envision for it.
Gameplay wise, the base game already was one of the most mechanically rich games I've ever played, and I can say the same thing here. The battle system might just be the strongest that I've seen in any game to date, but talking about that in detail here would take me forever, so I'll leave that for another day. I will instead start by addressing what Rayman's inclusion does for the game on a mechanical level.
The base game provides insane customization options through 9 party members, all with distinct abilities and a bunch of sparks that any character can equip at any time. This DLC scales that back by limiting the player to using 3 party members at any time, those being Rayman, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario. Rayman additionally can't equip any sparks, so that limits things further. The designers counterbalanced this by making Rayman the most versatile character in the game by a huge margin. This mainly comes through the inclusion of two costumes he can wear mid-battle: the Vortex and Rocket costumes.
These two costumes serve as brilliant mechanics that gives the player a million viable options through one single character, some of which are even analogue to what sparks allow. Each costume not only opens up a unique ability, but also alters the properties and parameters of Rayman's plunger gun and sentries. These can either pull enemies towards you, push them away from you, or deal AOE damage. All of them are very useful on their own, but even moreso while synergizing with other abilities. Part of the reason this entire game's combat system works so well is that even though every option you're given inside of battle is often still useful in a vacuum, you're always encouraged to see how each one can be used in conjunction with another one (or multiple other ones) to truly take advantage of them. Rayman's toolkit perfectly encapsulates this design philosophy, since every tool is versatile enough to synergize with Rayman's other tools, those of the other rabbids, or both at the same time. This here is a big element that makes this such a strategically rich and deep game, and it was well preserved in this DLC.
However, to address the main reason that I'm not sure if I prefer it to the main game, the fact that Rayman can't equip sparks is a bit of an problem. One small issue that I already had with the game was that you're given 30 sparks, all of which provide a huge array of buffs, debuffs, elemental properties and unique effects, but you can only equip 6 of them at most. To give credit, the game is well designed around the limitation and does do a good job of encouraging the player to equip different sparks through enemy weaknesses/resistances and the different map layouts. Despite this, there's times where this limitation can lead you to rely on a small amount of sparks that might seem more advantageous more often.
This maybe could've been remedied by allowing each character to equip 3 sparks instead of 2 around the endgame, but I'm not sure. That's the kind of design choice that could have serious repercussions on the game's design and throw all balance out of whack, so I can't really say. I'm not a professional game designer, so I'm sure there's something that would be ruined that I can't even conceive. It's not really a big deal, but it's something I always think about when playing this game.
Rayman in the Phantom Show unfortunately makes this a bigger problem. Since Rayman can't equip even a single one, and each of the rabbids still can only equip 2 of them, you can only use 4 sparks at once. It doesn't help that this expansion has 9 more sparks than the base game (though most of the new ones were added in previous DLC packs), which means you have even MORE options to choose from but less that you can actually pick. This made it so I relied on the some of the same sparks even more, and there's other ones that I picked way less, if ever. It still isn't a big issue in my opinion (and the fact that it's the worst thing I can say about it speaks volumes to how good it is), but it does give me pause for thought in regards to this being better than the main game.
To go back to talking about positives, this expansion's theming is awesome. The dev team came up with a very creative scenario here, even when they easily could've relied on Rayman to bring back areas from his series. It takes place in the Space Opera Network, which in other words is a TV studio. The story here is framed around the return of the Phantom, and how he wants the heroes to help his ratings go up. It's not only a funny premise, but also one that paves way for lots of other really cool things.
First off, exploring three movie sets that were built to actually look like sets is super cool. Everything you interact with is a prop or a piece of equipment, whether it's cardboard cutouts of creatures or background elements, cranes, stage lights or cameras. It's always fun in a meta sort of way when a piece of media replicates the production of a show or a movie to such an extent, and it requires very careful attention to detail to pull off well. It absolutely was pulled off well here. The game also takes advantage of the setting by making lots of jokes around the production pipeline of a series, some of which went deeper than I would've expected. They make jokes out of acting, scriptwriting, blocking, critics and even treatment of employees. It's funny stuff, even if it's also a bit depressing to think that some of the harsher jokes they make aren't even far off from reality. Still, it's a weirdly transparent look into this kind of environment that I never would've expected out of this game especially, but I appreciate it.
Sparks of Hope is one of my favorite games, not even counting all of its expansions. I might review the standalone game some other time, but for now, I want to talk about all of its DLC packs in the order that I've been playing them, starting with the Rayman expansion.
This was so, so, so good man. Incredible even, I would say. The base game set such a high standard of quality in every regard, and I can at least say that this DLC meets that standard. It's hard for me to say if it surpasses it, because the base game and this DLC are both extremely similar but also very different beasts that can be hard to compare. Even if I can't really make a definitive statement on that, this was still an awesome expansion that met my expectations nearly effortlessly, while also going in a direction that I didn't envision for it.
Gameplay wise, the base game already was one of the most mechanically rich games I've ever played, and I can say the same thing here. The battle system might just be the strongest that I've seen in any game to date, but talking about that in detail here would take me forever, so I'll leave that for another day. I will instead start by addressing what Rayman's inclusion does for the game on a mechanical level.
The base game provides insane customization options through 9 party members, all with distinct abilities and a bunch of sparks that any character can equip at any time. This DLC scales that back by limiting the player to using 3 party members at any time, those being Rayman, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario. Rayman additionally can't equip any sparks, so that limits things further. The designers counterbalanced this by making Rayman the most versatile character in the game by a huge margin. This mainly comes through the inclusion of two costumes he can wear mid-battle: the Vortex and Rocket costumes.
These two costumes serve as brilliant mechanics that gives the player a million viable options through one single character, some of which are even analogue to what sparks allow. Each costume not only opens up a unique ability, but also alters the properties and parameters of Rayman's plunger gun and sentries. These can either pull enemies towards you, push them away from you, or deal AOE damage. All of them are very useful on their own, but even moreso while synergizing with other abilities. Part of the reason this entire game's combat system works so well is that even though every option you're given inside of battle is often still useful in a vacuum, you're always encouraged to see how each one can be used in conjunction with another one (or multiple other ones) to truly take advantage of them. Rayman's toolkit perfectly encapsulates this design philosophy, since every tool is versatile enough to synergize with Rayman's other tools, those of the other rabbids, or both at the same time. This here is a big element that makes this such a strategically rich and deep game, and it was well preserved in this DLC.
However, to address the main reason that I'm not sure if I prefer it to the main game, the fact that Rayman can't equip sparks is a bit of an problem. One small issue that I already had with the game was that you're given 30 sparks, all of which provide a huge array of buffs, debuffs, elemental properties and unique effects, but you can only equip 6 of them at most. To give credit, the game is well designed around the limitation and does do a good job of encouraging the player to equip different sparks through enemy weaknesses/resistances and the different map layouts. Despite this, there's times where this limitation can lead you to rely on a small amount of sparks that might seem more advantageous more often.
This maybe could've been remedied by allowing each character to equip 3 sparks instead of 2 around the endgame, but I'm not sure. That's the kind of design choice that could have serious repercussions on the game's design and throw all balance out of whack, so I can't really say. I'm not a professional game designer, so I'm sure there's something that would be ruined that I can't even conceive. It's not really a big deal, but it's something I always think about when playing this game.
Rayman in the Phantom Show unfortunately makes this a bigger problem. Since Rayman can't equip even a single one, and each of the rabbids still can only equip 2 of them, you can only use 4 sparks at once. It doesn't help that this expansion has 9 more sparks than the base game (though most of the new ones were added in previous DLC packs), which means you have even MORE options to choose from but less that you can actually pick. This made it so I relied on the some of the same sparks even more, and there's other ones that I picked way less, if ever. It still isn't a big issue in my opinion (and the fact that it's the worst thing I can say about it speaks volumes to how good it is), but it does give me pause for thought in regards to this being better than the main game.
To go back to talking about positives, this expansion's theming is awesome. The dev team came up with a very creative scenario here, even when they easily could've relied on Rayman to bring back areas from his series. It takes place in the Space Opera Network, which in other words is a TV studio. The story here is framed around the return of the Phantom, and how he wants the heroes to help his ratings go up. It's not only a funny premise, but also one that paves way for lots of other really cool things.
First off, exploring three movie sets that were built to actually look like sets is super cool. Everything you interact with is a prop or a piece of equipment, whether it's cardboard cutouts of creatures or background elements, cranes, stage lights or cameras. It's always fun in a meta sort of way when a piece of media replicates the production of a show or a movie to such an extent, and it requires very careful attention to detail to pull off well. It absolutely was pulled off well here. The game also takes advantage of the setting by making lots of jokes around the production pipeline of a series, some of which went deeper than I would've expected. They make jokes out of acting, scriptwriting, blocking, critics and even treatment of employees. It's funny stuff, even if it's also a bit depressing to think that some of the harsher jokes they make aren't even far off from reality. Still, it's a weirdly transparent look into this kind of environment that I never would've expected out of this game especially, but I appreciate it.
This game is pretty good.
I played it for the first time through this remake, and it was very much worth my purchase. Before talking about the remake though, I want to talk about the game as is.
This game came to be because of the close relationship that Nintendo and Square Soft had in the late 80s and early 90s. It really shows in the final product, because it feels like Mario, early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest and lots of wacky stuff mixed into a blender. More than any other game in the series, this is a very traditional RPG fused with the Mario IP, giving it its own flavor. This game still has an extremely unique identity because of it, one that still stands on its own (even with the many Mario RPGs that have come out after it). There really isn't anything else quite like it.
It's super interesting to me that despite it kind of feeling like a lite crossover of sorts, it doesn't overly rely on Mario or Square's franchises to form its identity. It obviously is a Mario game first and foremost, but a Mario game that doesn't rely on tropes or overly familiar scenarios. This fact is even spoofed at the very beginning of the game, where Bowser does kidnap Peach and Mario goes to save her like always. After leading us to believe that that's the story of the game, a bait and switch is enacted and the real plot of the game begins after Exor lands in Bowser's Keep. This kind of summarizes what the game is like in general. You constantly encounter the weirdest and most bizarre NPCs and enemies in this game (some of which border on being nonsensical) that don't resemble anything else seen in the Mario franchise, before or since. The scenarios that the party goes through are also extremely creative, strange and often funny. It's pretty astounding how creative of a game it is, especially keeping in mind that the Mario franchise still hadn't spread its wings that much when it came out. It easily could've relied on what Mario had already established with the NES and SNES platformers, but it went out of its way to not do that. At least for that, it's a game that I do admire.
Even with all of this, it still manages to feel enough like a Mario game. It obviously features lots of Mario characters (at least that had already been established), characteristics of Mario's world like mushrooms, stars, floating blocks and pipes, and more. Where the game evokes more of an early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest vibe is in the game's overall design ethos. It features basic turn based combat where you juggle multiple party members, basic level up and progression systems, items that work like in those games, basic towns that feature shops and inns (that are also almost kind of themed like Medieval towns), etc. It's pretty much as basic as RPGs get in this regard, but it works. This game treads the line well between being derivative and unique.
The gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't really say that it's too great. After all, it's a late 90s RPG at heart, and it somewhat shows. The game did innovate with its battle system through the addition of action commands, which were a brilliant idea, but other than that, it's a very by the numbers RPG that is also super easy for the most part. I usually don't complain about difficulty when I play a game, because as long as a game demands enough from me to actually make me put in some effort, it can keep me engaged. That isn't really the case with this game, though. Most enemy encounters can be rushed through after like 1 or 2 turns with the most basic of attacks in your arsenal, particularly if you time action commands well. Even most bosses around the first half of the game demand very little from you, and can be defeated super easily by exploiting weaknesses and using buffs.
The remake doesn't help in this regard either, because some of its additions like triple moves, chain buffs, perfect attacks/blocks and switching party members make it even more of a breeze. The game wasn't rebalanced around these new mechanics, so it's objectively easier. I will talk more about these mechanics later, however. Still, even with how little this game demands from you, I still had fun with it because timing action commands is intrinsically very engaging. The story isn't really great either, and it times it barely even makes sense, but it also kept me engaged because of how weird, funny and charming it is.
I really don't have much more to say on the game itself, but I have more to say on the remake. ArtePiazza did about as good of a job as they could've while keeping the game as faithful as possible. I'll go out on a limb and say that it isn't quite among the best remakes that I've seen because of how faithful it is, but with the great legacy that it carries, I understand that they wanted to respect it as much as possible, with warts and all. In my ideal world, this remake would've reworked and redesigned the core game to improve on it while keeping its identity, but leaving the game as is probably was the best choice that ArtePiazza could've made. They still did really great work where they could.
The game looks gorgeous, for one. Videos and screenshots really don't do it justice, because I didnt realize how truly pretty it looks until I got my hands on it. Even though character models and environments are mostly kept very simple, texture work is really good in general. Also, the lightning engine here in particular looks stunning, and does a lot of heavy lifting to make it look as good as it does. The addition of the new battle mechanics, if a little unnecesarry, are also really cool to me. I want to give a special shoutout to the chain mechanic, because it does a good job of encouraging you to keep timing action commands and getting skilled enough to do multiple in a row. It doesn't really matter most of the time, but just seeing the chain number go higher and higher feels is intrinsically super satisfying. More than anything however, I would really like to see some of these mechanics make an appearance in a game that's actually designed around them. They all have awesome potential that could be realized if they synergized more with the battle system.
Here's also a rapidfire list of some quality of life changes and random extras that were included:
- The Scrapbook was added (essentially a journal for what happens in the game, mostly following the main story). Really cool addition that frames the events from Mallow's and Geno's perspectives, and also serves as a good refresher for the game's events if you stopped playing for a while.
- The Monster List was added. Having some form of bestiary in this game is awesome. Some monster descriptions are pretty random and don't really serve any worldbuilding purpose, but they're all really charming and funny (especially ones that blatantly break the fourth wall). Viewing all enemy stats is very convenient, too.
- A post game with super bosses was added, which has some of the most well designed encounters in the whole game. These actually do a great job encouraging you to use the new mechanics and taking advantage of all party members and their abilities.
- A music player was added, which unlocks after you beat the game. Really great feature to have in any game.
- An exclamation mark shows up to indicate the precise timing required for action commands, which is a great feature because not every timing is super well communicated without it.
- You can now fast travel anywhere from any location, which saves time from exiting and area and traversing the whole world map to get somewhere.
There's more that I didn't mention here, but these are the most notable ones to me. They all serve to make this the best version of the game by themselves. However, nothing compares to the single best thing that this remake brought to the table: the reorchestrated soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Oh. My. God.
It seriously left me in awe multiple times. It's the one aspect of this game that I'm extremely passionate about. Yoko Shimomura is one of, if not my very favorite game composer of all time. Her works on the Mario RPGs, especially Mario & Luigi Dream Team, are among my favorites for any game I've played. After that series fell through the wayside because of AlphaDream's bankruptcy, I didn't think she would compose for any Mario RPGs anymore. This was heartbreaking to me. However, I'm now unbelievably ecstatic to say that she came back, composing for both Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and this game across the span of two years in a row. The goddess is actually back.
The original game's ost already was great, but Jesus Christ. Yoko's work here for nearly every single song is leagues better than in the original. I could shoutout the entire soundtrack here, and I kind of want to, but for the sake of some brevity, I will instead highlight some of my absolute favorites. Fight Against Bowser, Battle Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster, Hello Happy Kingdom, Danger Aplenty on the Journey, Let's take the Midas River, Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, Nimbus Land and Battling Culex are all absolutely incredible. They're all up there among some of my favorite songs across all of the Mario RPGs, even rivaling Dream Team's songs for me. They effortlessly preserve the game's original compositions and tone while adding whimsy and gravity to it through the reorchestration.
Even better, there's two other songs that I want to give an even more special highlight to. The world map theme seriously left me speechless when I first heard it. Yoko grabbed what was previously a super simple and repetitive melody, and literally added a whole new melody on top of the preexisting song. It wordlessly conveys the spirit of adventure that the game flaunts, as well as the idea that there's a long journey ahead. All through a super whimsical and cheery tone. The trademark Shimomura flutes and violins shine super bright here. It's so beautiful.
Even better than that one though, the Marrymore theme is unbelievable. My god. What I believe to be the single best and most underrated song in this game. It was already a beautiful composition in the original version, but here it's actually hard for me to describe how beautiful it is. A theme that effortlessly conveys supreme joy and delight. The violins here elevate the song to the extent that I really don't think it could've been better rearranged. Perfectly fitting for a town fully themed around marriage, perfectly capturing that vibe. Honestly, this is now high on my list of favorite songs out of any game I have ever played. I had high hopes for what Shimomura would accomplish here, and those hopes were blown out of the water. She really never dissapoints, man.
Yeah, this review just kind of gave me an excuse to gush over the soundtrack more than anything. That's the main reason I wanted to write it. Anyway, this probably amounts to being my least favorite Mario RPG overall, but it's still good. Props to ArtePiazza for their great work on the remake. Also, I'm really glad that Nintendo and Square's relationship got rekindled during the switch era. This remake likely would have never happened otherwise.
I played it for the first time through this remake, and it was very much worth my purchase. Before talking about the remake though, I want to talk about the game as is.
This game came to be because of the close relationship that Nintendo and Square Soft had in the late 80s and early 90s. It really shows in the final product, because it feels like Mario, early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest and lots of wacky stuff mixed into a blender. More than any other game in the series, this is a very traditional RPG fused with the Mario IP, giving it its own flavor. This game still has an extremely unique identity because of it, one that still stands on its own (even with the many Mario RPGs that have come out after it). There really isn't anything else quite like it.
It's super interesting to me that despite it kind of feeling like a lite crossover of sorts, it doesn't overly rely on Mario or Square's franchises to form its identity. It obviously is a Mario game first and foremost, but a Mario game that doesn't rely on tropes or overly familiar scenarios. This fact is even spoofed at the very beginning of the game, where Bowser does kidnap Peach and Mario goes to save her like always. After leading us to believe that that's the story of the game, a bait and switch is enacted and the real plot of the game begins after Exor lands in Bowser's Keep. This kind of summarizes what the game is like in general. You constantly encounter the weirdest and most bizarre NPCs and enemies in this game (some of which border on being nonsensical) that don't resemble anything else seen in the Mario franchise, before or since. The scenarios that the party goes through are also extremely creative, strange and often funny. It's pretty astounding how creative of a game it is, especially keeping in mind that the Mario franchise still hadn't spread its wings that much when it came out. It easily could've relied on what Mario had already established with the NES and SNES platformers, but it went out of its way to not do that. At least for that, it's a game that I do admire.
Even with all of this, it still manages to feel enough like a Mario game. It obviously features lots of Mario characters (at least that had already been established), characteristics of Mario's world like mushrooms, stars, floating blocks and pipes, and more. Where the game evokes more of an early Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest vibe is in the game's overall design ethos. It features basic turn based combat where you juggle multiple party members, basic level up and progression systems, items that work like in those games, basic towns that feature shops and inns (that are also almost kind of themed like Medieval towns), etc. It's pretty much as basic as RPGs get in this regard, but it works. This game treads the line well between being derivative and unique.
The gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't really say that it's too great. After all, it's a late 90s RPG at heart, and it somewhat shows. The game did innovate with its battle system through the addition of action commands, which were a brilliant idea, but other than that, it's a very by the numbers RPG that is also super easy for the most part. I usually don't complain about difficulty when I play a game, because as long as a game demands enough from me to actually make me put in some effort, it can keep me engaged. That isn't really the case with this game, though. Most enemy encounters can be rushed through after like 1 or 2 turns with the most basic of attacks in your arsenal, particularly if you time action commands well. Even most bosses around the first half of the game demand very little from you, and can be defeated super easily by exploiting weaknesses and using buffs.
The remake doesn't help in this regard either, because some of its additions like triple moves, chain buffs, perfect attacks/blocks and switching party members make it even more of a breeze. The game wasn't rebalanced around these new mechanics, so it's objectively easier. I will talk more about these mechanics later, however. Still, even with how little this game demands from you, I still had fun with it because timing action commands is intrinsically very engaging. The story isn't really great either, and it times it barely even makes sense, but it also kept me engaged because of how weird, funny and charming it is.
I really don't have much more to say on the game itself, but I have more to say on the remake. ArtePiazza did about as good of a job as they could've while keeping the game as faithful as possible. I'll go out on a limb and say that it isn't quite among the best remakes that I've seen because of how faithful it is, but with the great legacy that it carries, I understand that they wanted to respect it as much as possible, with warts and all. In my ideal world, this remake would've reworked and redesigned the core game to improve on it while keeping its identity, but leaving the game as is probably was the best choice that ArtePiazza could've made. They still did really great work where they could.
The game looks gorgeous, for one. Videos and screenshots really don't do it justice, because I didnt realize how truly pretty it looks until I got my hands on it. Even though character models and environments are mostly kept very simple, texture work is really good in general. Also, the lightning engine here in particular looks stunning, and does a lot of heavy lifting to make it look as good as it does. The addition of the new battle mechanics, if a little unnecesarry, are also really cool to me. I want to give a special shoutout to the chain mechanic, because it does a good job of encouraging you to keep timing action commands and getting skilled enough to do multiple in a row. It doesn't really matter most of the time, but just seeing the chain number go higher and higher feels is intrinsically super satisfying. More than anything however, I would really like to see some of these mechanics make an appearance in a game that's actually designed around them. They all have awesome potential that could be realized if they synergized more with the battle system.
Here's also a rapidfire list of some quality of life changes and random extras that were included:
- The Scrapbook was added (essentially a journal for what happens in the game, mostly following the main story). Really cool addition that frames the events from Mallow's and Geno's perspectives, and also serves as a good refresher for the game's events if you stopped playing for a while.
- The Monster List was added. Having some form of bestiary in this game is awesome. Some monster descriptions are pretty random and don't really serve any worldbuilding purpose, but they're all really charming and funny (especially ones that blatantly break the fourth wall). Viewing all enemy stats is very convenient, too.
- A post game with super bosses was added, which has some of the most well designed encounters in the whole game. These actually do a great job encouraging you to use the new mechanics and taking advantage of all party members and their abilities.
- A music player was added, which unlocks after you beat the game. Really great feature to have in any game.
- An exclamation mark shows up to indicate the precise timing required for action commands, which is a great feature because not every timing is super well communicated without it.
- You can now fast travel anywhere from any location, which saves time from exiting and area and traversing the whole world map to get somewhere.
There's more that I didn't mention here, but these are the most notable ones to me. They all serve to make this the best version of the game by themselves. However, nothing compares to the single best thing that this remake brought to the table: the reorchestrated soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Oh. My. God.
It seriously left me in awe multiple times. It's the one aspect of this game that I'm extremely passionate about. Yoko Shimomura is one of, if not my very favorite game composer of all time. Her works on the Mario RPGs, especially Mario & Luigi Dream Team, are among my favorites for any game I've played. After that series fell through the wayside because of AlphaDream's bankruptcy, I didn't think she would compose for any Mario RPGs anymore. This was heartbreaking to me. However, I'm now unbelievably ecstatic to say that she came back, composing for both Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and this game across the span of two years in a row. The goddess is actually back.
The original game's ost already was great, but Jesus Christ. Yoko's work here for nearly every single song is leagues better than in the original. I could shoutout the entire soundtrack here, and I kind of want to, but for the sake of some brevity, I will instead highlight some of my absolute favorites. Fight Against Bowser, Battle Against a Somewhat Stronger Monster, Hello Happy Kingdom, Danger Aplenty on the Journey, Let's take the Midas River, Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, Nimbus Land and Battling Culex are all absolutely incredible. They're all up there among some of my favorite songs across all of the Mario RPGs, even rivaling Dream Team's songs for me. They effortlessly preserve the game's original compositions and tone while adding whimsy and gravity to it through the reorchestration.
Even better, there's two other songs that I want to give an even more special highlight to. The world map theme seriously left me speechless when I first heard it. Yoko grabbed what was previously a super simple and repetitive melody, and literally added a whole new melody on top of the preexisting song. It wordlessly conveys the spirit of adventure that the game flaunts, as well as the idea that there's a long journey ahead. All through a super whimsical and cheery tone. The trademark Shimomura flutes and violins shine super bright here. It's so beautiful.
Even better than that one though, the Marrymore theme is unbelievable. My god. What I believe to be the single best and most underrated song in this game. It was already a beautiful composition in the original version, but here it's actually hard for me to describe how beautiful it is. A theme that effortlessly conveys supreme joy and delight. The violins here elevate the song to the extent that I really don't think it could've been better rearranged. Perfectly fitting for a town fully themed around marriage, perfectly capturing that vibe. Honestly, this is now high on my list of favorite songs out of any game I have ever played. I had high hopes for what Shimomura would accomplish here, and those hopes were blown out of the water. She really never dissapoints, man.
Yeah, this review just kind of gave me an excuse to gush over the soundtrack more than anything. That's the main reason I wanted to write it. Anyway, this probably amounts to being my least favorite Mario RPG overall, but it's still good. Props to ArtePiazza for their great work on the remake. Also, I'm really glad that Nintendo and Square's relationship got rekindled during the switch era. This remake likely would have never happened otherwise.
This review contains spoilers
It still feels unreal to me that this game exists. I can barely believe that I'm here writing a review about it, let alone that I played it.
Ever since I played Pikmin 3 Deluxe in 2020 and loved it to pieces, I've been craving more Pikmin in my life so, so bad. I wanted to get my hands on as many of these games as I could. However, things weren't looking great for the series at that point. Series sales were always underwhelming for Nintendo, and even the Switch port for 3 wasn't a big success (it sold pretty well from what I gather, but not super well). Pikmin's future was still not certain. Miyamoto's infamous Pikmin 4 interview all the way back in 2015 poured salt in the wound of said future. That's a really big rabbid hole that I would rather not get into, but safe to say, no one had any idea if the game was still in development, had been cancelled, or if anything in between had happened. This was the case for about 8 years. As much as I deeply wanted it, I never really expected to play a new Pikmin game in my life.
But then, the September 2022 Nintendo Direct aired. That was one of the best days of my life. Pikmin 4 was actually real, and it was coming out soon. The joy I felt after receiving those news is honestly hard to describe. I probably looked like a maniac to anyone that witnessed my reaction to the reveal while we were in high school, but I didn't care. One of my favorite games ever made was finally receiving a follow up, and I thought I couldn't be happier.
Fast forward to 2023, and not only was the series finally getting a new mainline entry, but the first two games were also getting ports for the Switch. At that moment, I realized that Pikmin was undergoing a comeback the likes of which I haven't seen often. The series was truly coming back, and with a bang. As I said, I thought before that I couldn't be happier, but at that moment, I was. Later on, seeing that Pikmin 4 became the best selling game in the series by a good margin after just a few months was immensely relieving. This series that I love so much, that I feared was close to extinction, actually had a future now. Good time to be alive.
To actually talk about the game though: surprise, surprise, I adored it. However, what was surprising was that the game didn't come out how I expected it to. What I thought I wanted more than anything was a faithful sequel to Pikmin 3 that possibly expanded on some of its ideas, and maybe also expanded on that game's multitasking potential. Instead of controlling 3 Captains all at once, maybe we could be in charge of 4. This is absolutely not what happenned. In fact, Pikmin 4 really doesn't play it safe, and instead is arguably the most experimental game in the whole series. This could've turned out bad, but it didn't. What this game accomplished is incredible, actually. It somehow managed to combine ideas from ALL previous Pikmin games, maintain what was so good about many ideas and improved on those that were more flawed. It did all of this while ALSO adding a bunch of new and exciting ideas onto the mix. Somehow, a cohesive game came out of that. It blows me away.
I'll start by addressing Oatchi, my boy. Not only is he adorable, but he alone completely changes the dymanic that existed between Captains and Pikmin in previous games. He is like a Captain and a really powerful Pikmin at the same time. He can either command Pikmin by himself, or act like a Pikmin by fighting enemies, interacting with obstacles or carrying treasure. He sounds broken in theory, and some people have said that he is, but I don't think so. The fact that Oatchi is this versatile works because even if he can do a lot, he can only perform one task at a time. The game's strategic potential rears its head when you have to choose if you want Oatchi to dig a patch of dirt, work towards breaking a wall, carry a really heavy treasure or command a group of Pikmin on his own while you do other stuff. This all synergizes with the usual Pikmin dynamic, because not only do you have to manage regular Pikmin like always, but Oatchi too. In theory, you can overcome most obstacles with Oatchi by himself, but that would be a colossal waste of time. You need to take advantage of both to play as efficiently as possible.
This becomes even more interesting through the fact that the main captain can ride Oatchi, or jump out of him. This is also really smart because while riding Oatchi, your whole army is with you and you're more versatile. However, this limits your multitasking options, so if you want to keep being more efficient, it's often ideal to split them up. This brings a cool risk vs. reward system to the mix, because the game can be more of a breeze when you're together, but playing better also makes things tougher.
It becomes even better when we take into account the fact that Oatchi can jump. This is crazy. Not only does this add more light platforming elements, and levels that can be designed with more verticality in mind, but it also serves to differentiate Oatchi from the regular Captain more. Since only Oatchi has this ability, you also have to keep track of which Captain has to take which path to maximize efficiency. Levels are well designed around the ability, so it's something that often has to be considered. Even where there's level elements that might not have been explicitly designed around the jump, if there's a tiny bump in the road or a small wall blocking the way, he can jump over it. It seriously elevates the depth of pathfinding to new heights for the series. It's genius.
Having this many interesting options to multitask wouldn't serve much of a purpose if the game didn't encourage you to multitask, but it does. There isn't a day limit like in Pikmin 1 or 3, so I feared that the game would run into the same problem that Pikmin 2 did, being that time management just really isn't important. However, this issue is circumvented through lots of smart design choices and additions.
To start somewhere, I will first address Dandori challenges and battles. These are beyond genius. They manage to integrate a mode akin to Pikmin 3's incredible mission mode into the main campaign by adding caves with missions. I could go on for hours about how both 3's mission mode and 4's Dandori challenges are incredible, but I will have to summarize. In essence, they instill the mere essence of Pikmin multitasking into more bite-sized challenges that do a great job of encouraging you to be more efficient through a ranking system. Having to put the work in to manage so much under a time limit to obtain a high rank is unbelievably engaging and addicting.
Also helping to encourage time management is the huge improvement the caves received from Pikmin 2. It's tough to know where to even begin here. I really didn't like Pikmin 2's caves because they completely stopped the time limit, had randomized level design, and you couldn't regrow Pikmin if you lost them. I understand that the time limit was stopped to allow players to take their time, but I frankly think that kind of misses the point. Pikmin is at its most engaging to me when I have to manage my time, and discarding that whole aspect makes things kind of boring. To be honest, I do think people give the randomization elements a bit of a hard time. Sometimes people say there just isn't any level design at play, when there is. Specific units of a cave were hand-crafted and the enemies that occupate each cave were also picked by hand. It's just that these elements are randomly placed and rearranged. I still don't like this or think that it works, but I have to be fair. Lastly, I also understand that you can't regrow Pikmin because the game wants to instill tension, and it at least kind of succeeds at doing that, but it also kind of sucks. This can lead you to get softlocked out of collecting treasure if you don't have enough Pikmin for it, leading you to exit a cave and come back in, backtracking floor by floor to retrieve the treasure. It sucks.
I'm super happy to say that literally every single one of these issues was fixed in 4. For one, even though time still doesn't progress in caves at the same speed than it does in the surface, it does move very slowly. Every single cave is also 100% designed by hand now, and every enemy and obstacle is deliberately placed. These two changes by themselves save caves for me. Even if time moves at a snails pace, just knowing that it moves at all re-engages my brain and continues to encourage me to play quickly. This is also helped because caves are designed with shortcuts in mind, unlike in Pikmin 2, which makes it satisfying by itself to go through them quickly. However, they become even better because of the addition of Glow Pikmin. After obtaining glow seeds from night expeditions, you can take them out inside of caves to grow your squad. This means you essentially have a reserve squad of Pikmin, which nullifies the softlock issue. It's great.
I already spent most of this essay talking about like, three things, so I'll summarize whatever is left with bullet points. This is both for your sake and mine.
- Night expeditions were an awesome new tower defense-like mode, which did a great job of spinning the usual Pikmin day timer on its head and encouraging you to split Oatchi from the Captain to defend bases.
- Raw materials are a great form of currency that can be obtained through lots of means. They're really fun to obtain, and having to choose whether you want to spend them on building a bridge or buying items/upgrades added another extra layer of depth to the game.
- NPC sidequests are a brilliant recontextualization of the achievements introduced in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Instead of being separate achievements, they're integrated into the main campaign by rewarding raw materials when you complete one. This really drives you to complete as many of them as possible.
- The fact that they decided to add a mini campaign with Olimar that serves as a reimagining to Pikmin 1, which does have a day limit, blew my mind. This really didn't need to be in the game, but I'm still ecstatic that it is. It's also a really great side mode.
- Character customization was another really cool innovation on the Pikmin formula, even if customization options are pretty limited.
I'm sure there's even more that I could've said here, but I need to draw the line somewhere. All in all, Pikmin 4 is a tremendous game. It managed to meet my extremely high expectations while being very different than what I was expecting. It didn't exactly give me what I wanted, but what it gave me satisfied me just as much. Also one of my favorite games ever made. Please play Pikmin 4.
Ever since I played Pikmin 3 Deluxe in 2020 and loved it to pieces, I've been craving more Pikmin in my life so, so bad. I wanted to get my hands on as many of these games as I could. However, things weren't looking great for the series at that point. Series sales were always underwhelming for Nintendo, and even the Switch port for 3 wasn't a big success (it sold pretty well from what I gather, but not super well). Pikmin's future was still not certain. Miyamoto's infamous Pikmin 4 interview all the way back in 2015 poured salt in the wound of said future. That's a really big rabbid hole that I would rather not get into, but safe to say, no one had any idea if the game was still in development, had been cancelled, or if anything in between had happened. This was the case for about 8 years. As much as I deeply wanted it, I never really expected to play a new Pikmin game in my life.
But then, the September 2022 Nintendo Direct aired. That was one of the best days of my life. Pikmin 4 was actually real, and it was coming out soon. The joy I felt after receiving those news is honestly hard to describe. I probably looked like a maniac to anyone that witnessed my reaction to the reveal while we were in high school, but I didn't care. One of my favorite games ever made was finally receiving a follow up, and I thought I couldn't be happier.
Fast forward to 2023, and not only was the series finally getting a new mainline entry, but the first two games were also getting ports for the Switch. At that moment, I realized that Pikmin was undergoing a comeback the likes of which I haven't seen often. The series was truly coming back, and with a bang. As I said, I thought before that I couldn't be happier, but at that moment, I was. Later on, seeing that Pikmin 4 became the best selling game in the series by a good margin after just a few months was immensely relieving. This series that I love so much, that I feared was close to extinction, actually had a future now. Good time to be alive.
To actually talk about the game though: surprise, surprise, I adored it. However, what was surprising was that the game didn't come out how I expected it to. What I thought I wanted more than anything was a faithful sequel to Pikmin 3 that possibly expanded on some of its ideas, and maybe also expanded on that game's multitasking potential. Instead of controlling 3 Captains all at once, maybe we could be in charge of 4. This is absolutely not what happenned. In fact, Pikmin 4 really doesn't play it safe, and instead is arguably the most experimental game in the whole series. This could've turned out bad, but it didn't. What this game accomplished is incredible, actually. It somehow managed to combine ideas from ALL previous Pikmin games, maintain what was so good about many ideas and improved on those that were more flawed. It did all of this while ALSO adding a bunch of new and exciting ideas onto the mix. Somehow, a cohesive game came out of that. It blows me away.
I'll start by addressing Oatchi, my boy. Not only is he adorable, but he alone completely changes the dymanic that existed between Captains and Pikmin in previous games. He is like a Captain and a really powerful Pikmin at the same time. He can either command Pikmin by himself, or act like a Pikmin by fighting enemies, interacting with obstacles or carrying treasure. He sounds broken in theory, and some people have said that he is, but I don't think so. The fact that Oatchi is this versatile works because even if he can do a lot, he can only perform one task at a time. The game's strategic potential rears its head when you have to choose if you want Oatchi to dig a patch of dirt, work towards breaking a wall, carry a really heavy treasure or command a group of Pikmin on his own while you do other stuff. This all synergizes with the usual Pikmin dynamic, because not only do you have to manage regular Pikmin like always, but Oatchi too. In theory, you can overcome most obstacles with Oatchi by himself, but that would be a colossal waste of time. You need to take advantage of both to play as efficiently as possible.
This becomes even more interesting through the fact that the main captain can ride Oatchi, or jump out of him. This is also really smart because while riding Oatchi, your whole army is with you and you're more versatile. However, this limits your multitasking options, so if you want to keep being more efficient, it's often ideal to split them up. This brings a cool risk vs. reward system to the mix, because the game can be more of a breeze when you're together, but playing better also makes things tougher.
It becomes even better when we take into account the fact that Oatchi can jump. This is crazy. Not only does this add more light platforming elements, and levels that can be designed with more verticality in mind, but it also serves to differentiate Oatchi from the regular Captain more. Since only Oatchi has this ability, you also have to keep track of which Captain has to take which path to maximize efficiency. Levels are well designed around the ability, so it's something that often has to be considered. Even where there's level elements that might not have been explicitly designed around the jump, if there's a tiny bump in the road or a small wall blocking the way, he can jump over it. It seriously elevates the depth of pathfinding to new heights for the series. It's genius.
Having this many interesting options to multitask wouldn't serve much of a purpose if the game didn't encourage you to multitask, but it does. There isn't a day limit like in Pikmin 1 or 3, so I feared that the game would run into the same problem that Pikmin 2 did, being that time management just really isn't important. However, this issue is circumvented through lots of smart design choices and additions.
To start somewhere, I will first address Dandori challenges and battles. These are beyond genius. They manage to integrate a mode akin to Pikmin 3's incredible mission mode into the main campaign by adding caves with missions. I could go on for hours about how both 3's mission mode and 4's Dandori challenges are incredible, but I will have to summarize. In essence, they instill the mere essence of Pikmin multitasking into more bite-sized challenges that do a great job of encouraging you to be more efficient through a ranking system. Having to put the work in to manage so much under a time limit to obtain a high rank is unbelievably engaging and addicting.
Also helping to encourage time management is the huge improvement the caves received from Pikmin 2. It's tough to know where to even begin here. I really didn't like Pikmin 2's caves because they completely stopped the time limit, had randomized level design, and you couldn't regrow Pikmin if you lost them. I understand that the time limit was stopped to allow players to take their time, but I frankly think that kind of misses the point. Pikmin is at its most engaging to me when I have to manage my time, and discarding that whole aspect makes things kind of boring. To be honest, I do think people give the randomization elements a bit of a hard time. Sometimes people say there just isn't any level design at play, when there is. Specific units of a cave were hand-crafted and the enemies that occupate each cave were also picked by hand. It's just that these elements are randomly placed and rearranged. I still don't like this or think that it works, but I have to be fair. Lastly, I also understand that you can't regrow Pikmin because the game wants to instill tension, and it at least kind of succeeds at doing that, but it also kind of sucks. This can lead you to get softlocked out of collecting treasure if you don't have enough Pikmin for it, leading you to exit a cave and come back in, backtracking floor by floor to retrieve the treasure. It sucks.
I'm super happy to say that literally every single one of these issues was fixed in 4. For one, even though time still doesn't progress in caves at the same speed than it does in the surface, it does move very slowly. Every single cave is also 100% designed by hand now, and every enemy and obstacle is deliberately placed. These two changes by themselves save caves for me. Even if time moves at a snails pace, just knowing that it moves at all re-engages my brain and continues to encourage me to play quickly. This is also helped because caves are designed with shortcuts in mind, unlike in Pikmin 2, which makes it satisfying by itself to go through them quickly. However, they become even better because of the addition of Glow Pikmin. After obtaining glow seeds from night expeditions, you can take them out inside of caves to grow your squad. This means you essentially have a reserve squad of Pikmin, which nullifies the softlock issue. It's great.
I already spent most of this essay talking about like, three things, so I'll summarize whatever is left with bullet points. This is both for your sake and mine.
- Night expeditions were an awesome new tower defense-like mode, which did a great job of spinning the usual Pikmin day timer on its head and encouraging you to split Oatchi from the Captain to defend bases.
- Raw materials are a great form of currency that can be obtained through lots of means. They're really fun to obtain, and having to choose whether you want to spend them on building a bridge or buying items/upgrades added another extra layer of depth to the game.
- NPC sidequests are a brilliant recontextualization of the achievements introduced in Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Instead of being separate achievements, they're integrated into the main campaign by rewarding raw materials when you complete one. This really drives you to complete as many of them as possible.
- The fact that they decided to add a mini campaign with Olimar that serves as a reimagining to Pikmin 1, which does have a day limit, blew my mind. This really didn't need to be in the game, but I'm still ecstatic that it is. It's also a really great side mode.
- Character customization was another really cool innovation on the Pikmin formula, even if customization options are pretty limited.
I'm sure there's even more that I could've said here, but I need to draw the line somewhere. All in all, Pikmin 4 is a tremendous game. It managed to meet my extremely high expectations while being very different than what I was expecting. It didn't exactly give me what I wanted, but what it gave me satisfied me just as much. Also one of my favorite games ever made. Please play Pikmin 4.