Link to completion stats
The Pikmin franchise is one of my personal favorites, and has been for over a decade. Each of the three prior mainline games mean a lot to me, and were one of my first forays into slightly more 'niche' games as a kid. The one thing about Pikmin 4 that I am most happy to report is that it feels just as special as every other game in the franchise, while simultaneously a love-letter to Pikmin 1 and 2, the latter of which being one of my favorite games of all time.
There is really nothing like the Pikmin franchise, even after two decades of its existence. There are some games that are slightly similar, but I do not believe there is anything that has fully captured what makes Pikmin so unique, something that makes it one of the more difficult franchises to attach a correct genre to. This very particular niche that the Pikmin games have is something that feels fully realized in Pikmin 4. This idea of 'dandori' that is pushed heavily throughout the game, most prominently in the various "Dandori Challenges," makes near full potential of the genuinely incredible strategic potential of these games, one that we started to see in Pikmin 3 with the Mission Mode. Implementing this idea into main game feels great, allowing you to utilize the skills you learn through progression of the main story into these challenges that are rewarding enough to be worth doing, but also just very fun on their own, and quite satisfying to master.
Caves, in all their glory, are back and much better than ever. As much as I will always love Pikmin 2 caves and appreciate how fucked up they were at times (in a charming way), sublevels no longer being procedurally generated makes them much better overall, allowing the always excellent level design of Pikmin to shine. As much as I adore Pikmin 3, I cannot imagine a future PIkmin game without caves. They are part of why 2 if my favorite, and should remain a core feature of the series. There's maybe 2-3 duds at most, but the vast majority of the Pikmin 4 caves are phenomenal, with many greatly appreciated references to 2's (including a certain something that is much better than the original) and plenty great fully original ones. The caves are generally not as long sublevel-wise as Pikmin 2's, but the individual sublevels are often a lot longer and intricately designed for you to spend a lot of time on, which I think is a better way to go.
This has been repeated by many already, but Pikmin 4's visuals are superb. The environments are beautiful, lighting noticeably fantastic, and enemy models new and old have never looked better. I spent a lot of time in the Piklopedia just observing how great so many returning enemies look now. Pikmin 3 is a very beautiful game as well but I think the overall art style of 4 fits the franchise much better. While I will always appreciate (and in some cases prefer) the original darker aesthetic of Pikmin 1 and 2, there is no denying that Pikmin has never looked better. By extension, Pikmin 4 is without a doubt one of the most beautiful Nintendo games to date.
The amount of content in this game is truly astounding. No other Pikmin game even comes close really, and it is all fantastic. Getting 100% will probably take anyone 35-40 hours on a first playthrough, if not longer, and as I played through the game and unlocked more things to do, I was marveling at just how much there was. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil anything but, the game really does just keep going and going, while never wavering in quality. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about night missions initially, but I absolutely became a fan of them over time. Glow Pikmin are super fun to use and work great with the format of the night missions, which are essentially survival tower-defense games that are much shorter than a regular day. I spaced them out evenly throughout my playthrough and thus never really got tired of them. If anything, they were a nice way to break the pace a bit if I felt like I was going too fast in the main story.
As a massive fan of the series, I had a good point of reference for just about every part of the game and do certainly have some criticisms that keep it from being perfect. On a more objective game level, there is very little negative I have to say, but the main issue is the auto-lock on, which became quite problematic at times. Overall there are a lot of accessibility issues with the game, which is nothing new for Nintendo, but the lack of control customization and other missing settings was quite disappointing nonetheless. The lack of an ability to turn off the auto-lock on is pretty frustrating and hard to excuse, and as someone who’s preferred method of control for Pikmin in the past was with Wii remote + nunchuck, the controls for this game felt like a major downgrade. A similar issue is in regards to the Pikmin throwing limit, which prevents you from throwing more at a target than is required for a second or two, which again absolutely needs to be optional.
A more personal issue, although one I’m probably not alone in, is in regards to Oatchi, which I think changes up some of the core gameplay a bit too much. I don’t really hate Oatchi as a mechanic and he is implemented pretty well in the game overall, but it is not something that I would like to see return really. The concept of a second captain having different abilities than the main one is interesting, forcing you to think about who you have do what. However, I am not a fan of having a lot of the game balanced around Oatchi. One of the core things that has always made Pikmin somewhat difficult is having to manage your full army of Pikmin in combat, which is spread out beyond just where your captain is. Being able to condense your entire army onto the back of Oatchi is just, not the Pikmin I’m accustomed to, and not what I really want it to be. It ends up making a lot of boss fights and enemies in general complete jokes, especially enemies returning from previous games that were never balanced around this. Oatchi’s upgraded stun is also extremely strong, and probably a bit too much so. Of course there’s the reliable “just don’t use it” mindset but a lot of the game is in fact designed for you to just run around on Oatchi, particularly the final boss, and this just is not something I’m personally a fan of; it doesn’t really feel like Pikmin as much to me, and takes a lot of the difficulty in the combat. My only other issue really is with the insistent dialogue hints of the crew members throughout the entire game, yet another thing that frustratingly cannot be toggled on or off.
Pikmin 4 is a phenomenal game and another masterpiece added to both the Switch’s lineup and the Pikmin franchise. It is an excellent experience that was in fact worth the decade long wait. I can only hope for some future updates to settings and maybe some sort of “Hard” mode akin to what was added in Pikmin 3 Deluxe to be able to find it near-perfect. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to wait another decade the next game.
9/10
The Pikmin franchise is one of my personal favorites, and has been for over a decade. Each of the three prior mainline games mean a lot to me, and were one of my first forays into slightly more 'niche' games as a kid. The one thing about Pikmin 4 that I am most happy to report is that it feels just as special as every other game in the franchise, while simultaneously a love-letter to Pikmin 1 and 2, the latter of which being one of my favorite games of all time.
There is really nothing like the Pikmin franchise, even after two decades of its existence. There are some games that are slightly similar, but I do not believe there is anything that has fully captured what makes Pikmin so unique, something that makes it one of the more difficult franchises to attach a correct genre to. This very particular niche that the Pikmin games have is something that feels fully realized in Pikmin 4. This idea of 'dandori' that is pushed heavily throughout the game, most prominently in the various "Dandori Challenges," makes near full potential of the genuinely incredible strategic potential of these games, one that we started to see in Pikmin 3 with the Mission Mode. Implementing this idea into main game feels great, allowing you to utilize the skills you learn through progression of the main story into these challenges that are rewarding enough to be worth doing, but also just very fun on their own, and quite satisfying to master.
Caves, in all their glory, are back and much better than ever. As much as I will always love Pikmin 2 caves and appreciate how fucked up they were at times (in a charming way), sublevels no longer being procedurally generated makes them much better overall, allowing the always excellent level design of Pikmin to shine. As much as I adore Pikmin 3, I cannot imagine a future PIkmin game without caves. They are part of why 2 if my favorite, and should remain a core feature of the series. There's maybe 2-3 duds at most, but the vast majority of the Pikmin 4 caves are phenomenal, with many greatly appreciated references to 2's (including a certain something that is much better than the original) and plenty great fully original ones. The caves are generally not as long sublevel-wise as Pikmin 2's, but the individual sublevels are often a lot longer and intricately designed for you to spend a lot of time on, which I think is a better way to go.
This has been repeated by many already, but Pikmin 4's visuals are superb. The environments are beautiful, lighting noticeably fantastic, and enemy models new and old have never looked better. I spent a lot of time in the Piklopedia just observing how great so many returning enemies look now. Pikmin 3 is a very beautiful game as well but I think the overall art style of 4 fits the franchise much better. While I will always appreciate (and in some cases prefer) the original darker aesthetic of Pikmin 1 and 2, there is no denying that Pikmin has never looked better. By extension, Pikmin 4 is without a doubt one of the most beautiful Nintendo games to date.
The amount of content in this game is truly astounding. No other Pikmin game even comes close really, and it is all fantastic. Getting 100% will probably take anyone 35-40 hours on a first playthrough, if not longer, and as I played through the game and unlocked more things to do, I was marveling at just how much there was. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil anything but, the game really does just keep going and going, while never wavering in quality. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about night missions initially, but I absolutely became a fan of them over time. Glow Pikmin are super fun to use and work great with the format of the night missions, which are essentially survival tower-defense games that are much shorter than a regular day. I spaced them out evenly throughout my playthrough and thus never really got tired of them. If anything, they were a nice way to break the pace a bit if I felt like I was going too fast in the main story.
As a massive fan of the series, I had a good point of reference for just about every part of the game and do certainly have some criticisms that keep it from being perfect. On a more objective game level, there is very little negative I have to say, but the main issue is the auto-lock on, which became quite problematic at times. Overall there are a lot of accessibility issues with the game, which is nothing new for Nintendo, but the lack of control customization and other missing settings was quite disappointing nonetheless. The lack of an ability to turn off the auto-lock on is pretty frustrating and hard to excuse, and as someone who’s preferred method of control for Pikmin in the past was with Wii remote + nunchuck, the controls for this game felt like a major downgrade. A similar issue is in regards to the Pikmin throwing limit, which prevents you from throwing more at a target than is required for a second or two, which again absolutely needs to be optional.
A more personal issue, although one I’m probably not alone in, is in regards to Oatchi, which I think changes up some of the core gameplay a bit too much. I don’t really hate Oatchi as a mechanic and he is implemented pretty well in the game overall, but it is not something that I would like to see return really. The concept of a second captain having different abilities than the main one is interesting, forcing you to think about who you have do what. However, I am not a fan of having a lot of the game balanced around Oatchi. One of the core things that has always made Pikmin somewhat difficult is having to manage your full army of Pikmin in combat, which is spread out beyond just where your captain is. Being able to condense your entire army onto the back of Oatchi is just, not the Pikmin I’m accustomed to, and not what I really want it to be. It ends up making a lot of boss fights and enemies in general complete jokes, especially enemies returning from previous games that were never balanced around this. Oatchi’s upgraded stun is also extremely strong, and probably a bit too much so. Of course there’s the reliable “just don’t use it” mindset but a lot of the game is in fact designed for you to just run around on Oatchi, particularly the final boss, and this just is not something I’m personally a fan of; it doesn’t really feel like Pikmin as much to me, and takes a lot of the difficulty in the combat. My only other issue really is with the insistent dialogue hints of the crew members throughout the entire game, yet another thing that frustratingly cannot be toggled on or off.
Pikmin 4 is a phenomenal game and another masterpiece added to both the Switch’s lineup and the Pikmin franchise. It is an excellent experience that was in fact worth the decade long wait. I can only hope for some future updates to settings and maybe some sort of “Hard” mode akin to what was added in Pikmin 3 Deluxe to be able to find it near-perfect. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to wait another decade the next game.
9/10
NOWITSREYNTIME17
9 months ago