Easily one of if not probably THE largest scope single-player game I've ever played, and somehow rarely unwavering in quality through the entire 100+ hours. Not only is there an incredible, nearly unmatched level of variability in the gameplay, from sidequests to minigames to main story content, but each of these pieces clearly has an equal amount of effort put into them. Nothing is left behind in favor of anything else; there is so much care put into the smallest minigames and sidequests and songs all the way up to the biggest scale story set pieces. I am truly in awe at the scale of this game and find it incomparable to nearly anything in this sense other than perhaps Elden Ring.

I was fully engrossed in this world, in every area, for just about the entirety of my playthrough, and really did not want my adventure to end. I was very motivated to do the majority of side content, simply because of how good it all was, with a random sidequest more than once leading to a completely unique minigame challenge I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. The combat evolves from the first game significantly; I loved the synergy abilities and additions to each of the original party members plus the new party members equally. Everyone is fun to use in their own way and I LOVED how the game separates the party in the story quite often, forcing you to try out different combinations of characters. Not only that, but each of the specified party sections typically will have enemies and/or a boss that is designed for the combat around the members you're using, whether it being aerial enemies with Barret/Yuffie, or perhaps physically aggressive enemies with Red to block and counter with, or fast enemies with Tifa, just as an example. I wish more RPGs with larger parties would do this, as deciding who to use while also wanting to use everyone somewhat equally is something I often struggle with.

I was a fan of FF7 Remake, but it was far from one of my favorite games of all time. Rebirth has more than lived up my greatest expectations and absolutely is one of the best games I've ever played. Any of its shortcomings, mostly in the form of a couple sub-par minigames or sidequests, or some world traversal issues, absolutely do not take away from the spectacle of the adventure and world. I did not even mention Queen's Blood, which is easily my favorite of the various evolving Final Fantasy side-games, and is a great game in and of itself. The soundtrack is also no question one of the greatest ever made, from beginning to end, with the massive quantity of tracks all of incredible quality. I really do love the Final Fantasy VII universe, and I would be shocked to see anyone that doesn't after playing this game. I cannot wait what is in store in the final part of this already legendary trilogy.

10/10

This game gave me the best possible first impression into the SMT/Persona universe, and an experience that I will cherish for a long time. I was so addicted to this game from beginning to end, to an extent that only has happened for me for a select few games. As my first Persona game, I was not sure what to expect when it came to the balance of the RPG/combat sections and social sections, particularly considering I'm not a big fan of visual novels, but I found that I loved both parts equally. The gameplay loop is what kept me hooked the entire time, and I really love how in-depth the social side of things is. Some RPGS can feel like there is entirely no gameplay apart from the battles themselves, and this isn't always a bad thing, but I really like how the social part of Persona feels like a whole other game that compliments the battle system, which itself I was a huge fan of.

Persona fusion is such a fun mechanic, especially for someone that hasn't ever done it before, discovering all the personas and skills for the first time. The combat is easily some of my favorite turn-based combat in anything I have played. Each aspect, from downing, to Theurgies, to the variety of elements, buffs and debuffs, and potential customization from the fusion system, all compliments each other excellently. While I did have certain characters I used most frequently, I liked how easy it felt to be able to use all of the party members throughout the game (due in part to the Grand Clocks), with the exception of maybe on. Particularly thanks to the Theurgies, which I’m aware are a new mechanic in Reload, each party member truly feels like they have a particular niche.

Not too many of the social links particularly moved me but I was invested in the vast majority of them regardless, and the payoff for completing as many as I could was absolutely worth it. Themes of life and death are easily some of my favorites in media, as I love existentialism, and this game memorably and successfully implements them in each of the main characters and overarching story as a whole. There's so many great moments and lines of dialogue throughout, particularly near the end of the game, and overall messages that I'm sure will continue to stick with me.

This was such a great experience and I'm excited to play more Persona and SMT games in the future. I'm so glad this game was remade as to give myself motivation to experience it, and it has easily become one of my favorite games of all time. Any minor issues I might have with the game are nearly completely diminished for me by just how much fun I had and how memorable it has already become.

10/10

In Stars and Time is a unique story-based RPG-maker RPG that I am glad I was made aware of. This type of game is right up my alley and I very much enjoyed my time with this, learning more about the excellently written and designed characters and the world.

Besides being an RPG, if such a genre for games existed I would categorize this as a mystery, as learning why the main character, Siffrin, is looping in time, by gathering information around the game's small world is required for progression, and at times it can be quite confusing. The game is divided into acts, with major story points separating each. By the end of the game you will have "looped" dozens of times, and while going back through the same areas does get tedious after awhile, this is both (1) intentional as a method of storytelling (understanding what the main character is going through and becoming increasingly frustrated and hopeless as they are) and (2) done in a way that I believe respects your time as much as possible. Through the use of a pretty easily acquirable resource, you can loop not only back but forwards in time as well, taking you to the save point you choose that had the highest level you ever had had when previous saving there.

I was honestly pretty impressed by the combat, it’s a very simple weapon triangle turn-based system that manages to be deep enough to have some respectable difficulty in the first few loops when you are initially beating the game’s main content for the first time. As you grow stronger and you go through the acts, the combat ends up becoming a breeze, and so luckily you don’t have to really beat anything when it’s very difficult more than a couple times.

The main draw of this game is the main cast of characters, who I all learned to love pretty quickly. Siffrin does as well, and you understand each of the party members through his eyes, for better or for worse over time. I really loved the way that the perspective of Siffrin was so essential to the way the story was told, as you are going through the frustration of the loops right along-side him, questioning things and seeing character development of his friends through the same couple days just as he is. This is all implemented quite well and I can say that I really do love each of the characters in the game in different ways.

There are unfortunately a few plot threads that I felt did not get resolved in an entirely satisfying way by the end of the game, and mostly end up serving as mysterious sub-plot, when I was hoping we would get actual answers. It’s also very easy to miss very important information, and as I said previously it is very easy to get completely lost on how to progress at all. I still very much enjoyed my experience with this game and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone that feels this subject matter and style of game checks any boxes for them. I really do hope it gets more attention, as it I think it deserves to sit alongside many of the great indie RPG maker classics of the past decade or two.

8/10

Basically just more Blasphemous, which is absolutely a good thing. The weapons and new customization stuff definitely help differentiate the game from the first, although I'm not sure I'd say I enjoyed this anymore than the original, I had just as good of a time with it, which again is perfectly fine. Very competent Metroidvania level structure which one of my favorite soundtracks of the year, probably would be my #1 if it weren't for FF16. Boss design honestly wasn't my favorite, I think I might give the edge to the first game in that regard but everything else was about the same if not a minor improvement.

8/10

This is definitely one of my favorite extremely flawed games I've ever played. At its core, Lords of the Fallen is a more than competent souls-like that had me addicted like any other game in the genre would. There is a lot going on in this game, and it is very overwhelming at first, along with just being pretty slow to start, so I would understand why the first part of the game might turn a lot of people off. Once I got going though, getting stronger, building my character how I wanted and discovering some of the later areas, I very quickly got really into the game and pretty much marathon'd it to the end.

The areas are huge, and FULL of secrets, often entire separate areas that you could easily miss that have hours of content and several bosses of their own. The game does not direct you basically ever, with so little explained that I was forced to look up quite a bit due to how easily it is to get lost in progression and have no idea where to go next. The game does fall into the 'don't tell you anything' trap of souls-likes probably more than any I've played, but luckily already there are plenty of resources out there if you get stuck to where I can generally overlook it.

There are several pretty massive flaws with this game, the most obvious and game-ruining being the technical issues that are pretty much always present, at times so bad that it will get you killed in-game. I played on Performance Mode on PS5, and have got to say it's one of the worst optimized games I've ever played on this console. Frame drops happen extremely often, textures do not load currently, sounds cut out, load times are weird, and there are a plethora of glitches and bugs throughout that are very unfortunately noticeable. Frame drops in boss fights were particularly awful, often causing me to miss-time a dodge or parry and get hit or worse. If these technical issues were not present, I can confidently say that the overall opinion on this game would be much more positive.

The game's boss fights are all pretty mediocre as well, with far too many that are just defeating regular enemies but with more health (like Elden Ring mini-bosses but less forgivable), and many that are just either boring are extremely obnoxious to fight. Hexworks also managed to make some of the most obnoxious enemy placements I've ever seen, making me absolutely lose my mind in some areas, particularly due to the seemingly infinite follow range and perfect accuracy from way too far that so many enemies have. The area design itself is really great, and the environments area beautiful, albeit a bit spoiled by the aforementioned technical issues.

Overall, though, Lords of the Fallen kept me extremely engaged from about 25% in to the end. Character upgrades are very satisfying, and once you figure out what everything does you'll see how great and in-depth it can be. Like I said earlier, there is a lot going on in this game, for better or for worse, but for the most part I found the depth to be quite positive and had a ton of fun with the Strength/Inferno build I decided to go for, particularly with the spell that is more or less just Blasphemous Blade's Taker's Flames from Elden Ring. I would very much look forward to playing a sequel or DLC to this game, and hope that as the developers work so hard on patches as they already have, people in the future will be able to enjoy the game even more. I would definitely recommend this to Souls-fans, if you think you'll be able to forgive some of the flaws.

8/10 (very generously, I just had a ton of fun with this game so I can't help it)

Cocoon is a phenomenal achievement of a game, not to mention a debut game. Geometric Interactive manages to execute an incredibly unique and complex concept nearly perfectly, easily making this one of if not my favorite puzzle games of all time. Perhaps the most impressive part is that there is not one singular word uttered or written at any point in the entire experience, making Cocoon a showcase example of "show, don't tell" that deserves to be studied by aspiring game designers. The developers managed to teach the player how to solve the variety of puzzles all through straightforward logic, and there was only one single puzzle that I needed extra help on. The logical difficulty of this game is balanced just so as to allow for a high level of satisfaction when solving each intricately crafted encounter, while still being entirely possible for I'd say the vast majority of players to play from beginning to end without any use of any kind of walkthrough, again, let me reiterate, without a single piece of text to be found.

The final third of this game genuinely left me speechless at points, something I cannot say I've experienced in this genre. The technical genius of Cocoon is backed all by a gorgeous art-style, animations, soundtrack, and general vibe that reminded me of Hyper Light Drifter, one of my favorite indie games of all time, and one that I think understands the importance and execution of a mesmerizing atmosphere as much as one can. The biological, somewhat Giger-inspired environments and creatures in Cocoon are also noteworthy, an at-times-gross but beautiful aesthetic that contributes to the game's minimal but intriguing storytelling. This game made me really happy, and I very much look forward to the developer's next project.

9/10

Enjoyable condensed version of RE4. Not quite as engaging as the original game due to the rushed nature of the upgrades and such but just as good gameplay if not slightly better.

Lies of P is an astonishingly spectacular, polished Souls-like experience has become, much to my surprise, one of my favorite all-time games. This game truly blew me away; NEOWIZ understands the Souls-like genre to a T, mastering what makes it so successful to a deeper capacity than any non-FROMSoft developer I believe ever has. Lies of P to Souls-likes is what Hollow Knight is to Metroidvanias—an entry outside of a genre's source franchise that checks every box, (hot take incoming) arguably even better than some, or most, of those original games. Barring perhaps the flawlessness of Sekiro, Lies of P not only has the greatest combat system in the genre, but also some of the best and most accessible customization options.

One of the most noticeable comparisons in Lies of P compared to other Souls-likes is the number of small QoL improvements that make the overall game a better experience without disrupting the subtly that should be expected in a Souls-like. For example, while there is still not quest-log or waypoints or maps, if you have a quest item in your possession or follow-up dialogue from an NPC, the closest bonfire-equivalent is highlighted with a little icon next to it, as so you do not forget about it or have to look up where to go. There are also a number of other small things that add up, such as your lost Ergo (souls) spawn outside of the boss arena instead of in it after death, throwable items are actually all very useful, and there are generous yet reasonable checkpoints and shortcuts as to avoid almost any annoying runbacks after a death at any given point.

My favorite part of this game is easily the combat, which is accentuated by the excellent customization system that still will be familiar to any Souls-like fan (particularly those who have played Bloodborne), but adds even more layers that allow you to use almost any weapon with any build. Every weapon is divided by both it's main attacking part and the handle, and apart from special boss weapons which cannot be disassembled, every weapon can be mixed and matched with different handles, to completely change the scaling and also swap which Fable Arts (a weapon's special ability that requires charged meter to use). A weapon head that is normally on a long, slow swinging greatsword could instead be placed on a short handle and swung around as such. Weapon scaling is tied completely to the handle as well, so if there is a weapon head you are a big fan of that does not match your build, you can cheaply and easily swap it, and then even further change the scaling of that handle with a 'Crank' (which you get plenty of throughout the game) for the specific stat your build is focused on. It is also quite easy to respec in this game if you so choose, unlocked about halfway through and relatively cheap to do several times per playthrough.

The combat itself is nearly perfect, and is also as excellently made as what is likely the greatest action combat system ever in Sekiro. The combination of a parry-focused system and Bloodborne dodge speed (although with less i-frames) feels amazing; NEOWIZ balanced parrrying to be the perfect difficulty, forgiving in that blocking and mis-timing it will simply make you take chip damage, but there are plenty of opportunities where you do need to learn the perfect parry timing for an attack or series of attacks to effectively beat a boss or mini-boss. The window is a bit less forgiving than Sekiro, but much moreso than shield-parries in Dark Souls. This system is what initially made me fall in love with the game when I played the demo back in July, and only did moreso throughout the game. I probably used more weapons in my first playthrough than I have in any Soulslike, even Elden Ring, just because of how easy it was to customize them to my specific build, along with how many great, unique weapon designs there are, for both boss and regular weapons. The Legion arm, your left hand weapon that can be swapped out for a number of different unique tools, tops off the combat quite well, letting you build into element, defense, ranged attack, etc., all of which are genuinely quite strong and not just forgettable gimmicks, which themselves can also be upgraded.

The final piece of the customization puzzle in Lies of P is the P-Organ, which is essentially a multi-layered skill tree. Use 'Quartz', a rare material found in different ways throughout the game, to build into various upgrades, each requiring 2-4 slots to finally unlock. Each of these slots though can be customized with an upgrade in and of itself, from extra healing to doing more stagger damage to decreasing item prices, basically letting giving you two additional customization layers that help you to feel even more powerful as the game progresses.

The boss design, one of the most important aspects of a Souls-like, was easily the best I've seen outside of FROMSoft games, and in many ways surpasses them in consistency of quality in some games. There are a few bosses that, on a first playthrough, were easily the hardest I have ever fought within the genre, with one in particular taking me nearly eight hours of attempts. Throughout that entire time, plus the countless hours spent on the rest of the game's fights, I rarely if ever felt as though the game was being 'unfair', as the fights are all designed quite well to be long endurance battles, where one or two hits where rarely kill you, but instead you will slowly get your health chipped away if you aren't careful and don't memorize parry patterns. The boss formula is excellent, and with one or two exceptions remains extremely high throughout the entire game.

Lies of P also understands the importance of atmosphere within the genre. The environments are all quite beautiful, and this is certainly one of the best-looking games in the genre graphically, still with a generally dark, unnerving tone. Additionally, the NPCs and overarching story is written quite well, and while the world-building does not necessary reach the heights of FROMSoft's ability, it is very effective in the game regardless.

I really could not believe just how incredible Lies of P was. Anyone that is a fan of this genre I truly believe should and would find this game to be fantastic, at the very least appreciating the achievement in the combat system. I am excited for the future of this IP, and hope/believe that DLC/a sequel is surely in the works, especially based on the game's ending. It truly deserves to be put in the highest regard of the Souls-like genre.

10/10

Sea of Stars surpassed my expectations. I had a fantastic time playing this game, and although the main ending is a bit abrupt and anti-climactic, journey there is one that does not miss many marks. The combat system is great, and the action-commands, while not important to hit every time as the game makes sure you understand, do make the system overall much more engaging, especially when combined with the lock system. The game is very easy, perhaps one of the easiest turn-based games I've ever played, even without any of the optional 'Amulets' that can make the game significantly easier, and while I definitely understand if people become disinterested after awhile because of this, I really did not mind at all. I really appreciated the very straightforward mechanics; I play plenty of very difficult and often very complex games, and while I can absolutely love those to death if done well, the simplicity of Sea of Stars various mechanics was a nice change of pace from what I often expect from RPGs. I particularly enjoyed the lack of an overwhelming amount of side quests, which is a major complaint I have with some other current RPGs, such as the Octopath games.

The most universal complaints about Sea of Stars revolve around its story, and I can agree with a lot of what is said but I don't think it's as bad as some say. The story isn't anything revolutionary and likely won't be very memorable for me, but it is a net positive, despite some missteps with character development (particularly with the two main characters). The ending, as I mentioned in the opening, was extremely lackluster, and the 'true ending' being locked behind the completion of essentially all side content is an odd and disappointing decision, but personally I don't think it ruined the game, even if sticking the landing is often quite important in RPGs; the game does absolutely lack a satisfying pay-off unless you do all the extra content, which may be a bigger deal for some than others.

Sea of Star's aesthetics and non-gameplay elements are all passable, although certainly not my favorite part of the game and a bit unpolished at times. The UI isn't great (although it's clearly trying to emulate older SNES RPG UI), and there are a number of spelling/grammatical mistakes in the English dialogue and text that are quite noticeable throughout the game. The environmental diversity I thought was great; I really enjoyed running through the different areas and finding secrets in the gorgeously created pixel-art landscapes. Sea of Stars certainly does not have my favorite pixel-art style ever, particularly for the character sprites, but the environments are definitely the highlight of the art style. The music is fun and catchy; I wouldn't say there's really any masterpieces in the soundtrack, but it all fits quite well and there are at least a few memorable tracks.

Finally, I appreciated the developer's attempts to vary the type of gameplay in a genre where the combat is often the only actual 'gameplay' there is. There's lots of puzzles and little mini-game encounters that I enjoyed, and combined with the varied types of environmental traversal and overworld mechanics, I never felt like the linear segments of the game became monotonous.

Overall I had a ton of fun with Sea of Stars, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. There are a number of small (and occasionally larger) issues that keep it from reaching the upper echelon of turn-based RPGs, but I found this game very engaging and lots of fun, consistently. I absolutely believe that Sea of Stars lived up to the the hype.

8.5/10

This was my introduction to the Armored Core franchise, as it was for many, and I really had a great time. As I've come to expect from any FROMSoft game, AC6 is extremely polished in nearly all aspects, and has tons of content and replayability. I have certainly not played a game with a structure like this before, and while it took some getting used to (very short individual missions, mostly focused on customization), I came to appreciate it, especially considering how formulaic some current releases can be.

Even though I didn't understand a lot of it, I did quite enjoy the story in this game, particularly the last couple chapters where it really ramped up and there were several important decisions to make. The voice acting and characters were all fantastic, especially considering you never actually see a single human face throughout the game (which was another sort of nice change of pace I think).

I loved how many different weapons and such became available throughout the game, with each one is pretty drastically different from any other, and you unlock almost all of them just naturally playing through the story. I tried quite a few different builds, although I always ended up going back to one somewhat basic dual trigger bipedal setup that was the only thing I felt like I was able to use to get me through the game's most difficult boss fights and challenges. I'm no expert at customization so I had a hard time building anything that felt like it came close to the power of dual trigger gatling guns and this one grenade launcher (Songbirds) that solo'd a lot of the game for me, but I did at least enjoy experimenting with other things in less difficult missions, particularly in the Arena.

The boss fights in this game were also pretty fantastic, there were a couple I hated a bit and had a lot of trouble figuring out how to not die instantly, but most of them felt like a good, fair challenge with incredible set pieces, particular the Chapter 4 boss which was by far my favorite in the game and reminded me of some of the best FROMSoft boss fights of the past. I found myself playing this game for 6+ hours at a time, which is not something I'm capable of doing with too many games, and so objectively I can say that I was pretty engaged throughout my entire playthrough.

I know getting just one ending is pretty loosely considered 'finishing' the game, but unfortunately there are just so many other things to play atm I think I will have to put this down for now, but it is something I am certainly interested in picking back up again for a second go-around, especially considering a NG+ playthrough would be significantly shorter than my 21 hours I spent doing everything I could in my first. Super neat game, and definitely was of the quality I expect from FROMSoft these days.

8.5/10

Excellent Metroidvania experience with interesting and varied environments, balanced and consistently enjoyable combat, a unique and polished aesthetic, and arguably most important for the genre, a wide range of secrets and rewards for exploration.

I was fully engaged throughout my entire playthrough of this game, at least to some extent reminiscent of my time with Hollow Knight (although a much different experience still). I found the combat to be quite fun, and the overall difficulty of the game to be very well-balanced, with plenty of difficult areas and fights but nothing too egregious or 'unfair'. Overall this game is extremely polished, sticking to its aesthetic and themes throughout and engrossing you in a beautifully horrific world backed by almost-always-excellent gameplay.

9/10

Tried this for about 5 hours and just ultimately decided I was not having fun. Wanted to try it out because of the sequel but not really something that I think I want to spend my time on. Very uninterested in the world, combat and movement mechanics and such do not feel great, everything in general is just pretty bland to me to where I'd rather just play something else

After recently playing the first game, TEW2 was a bit of a disappointment for me. The former established a unique aesthetic and niche in survival horror, with excellent, balanced gunplay, level design and pacing, and while this game keeps some of that, it falls flatter than the first in several ways. I enjoyed parts of this game for sure, particularly the last few chapters which I think were the best part across both games, especially the final boss, but my enjoyment was far less consistent than the first.

The Evil Within 2 does have some really neat ideas, and the better parts of the game in the more linear, scripted segments of the world akin to TEW1. For example, the first villain of the game, Stefano, is super neat. An artist using murder as his medium is an awesome, disturbing idea that fit right in-line with what I'd expect from these games.

Unfortunately, in between some of the more interesting ideas is the bland, frustrating, and poorly constructed 'open world' part of the game that I really could have done without. TEW2 focuses a lot more on stealth than the first, especially because you don't get nearly enough ammo, crafted or not, to take out all the enemies you encounter, and so in most situations it is best to either wait to sneak kill everything or just run past the enemies. I do really like the combat in these games (although I found that the combat did 'feel' better in the first), so not really being able to participate in it much to play optimally was frustrating. Going through the open world ends up just being a race away from enemies while trying to go from location to location, especially when trying to avoid the Guardian and other 'rare' enemies.

This ammo problem is present all throughout the game, particularly in boss fights. There are a lot of enemies and bosses that have huge health pools, and for a couple fights I had to basically just loop around the areas that respawn a few handgun shots for like 30 minutes to finally be able to kill them. Sometimes you'll track a fallen soldier to get some ammo, only to get one single shotgun shell, often not even enough to kill a single enemy. Of course ammo management is a part of the survival horror genre, but I haven't had it be nearly this big of an issue before and I just found myself getting very frustrated, much more than in the first game, at both that and the designs of some of the enemy encounters in general.

Despite my issues with the game there were certainly a lot of positives as well. While it loses the grittier aesthetic of the first, which I do prefer, there are some pretty beautiful moments that exemplify what makes both of these games pretty unique. As I mentioned earlier, the final few hours of this game are my favorite in the franchise. There is some absolutely gorgeous scenery, storytelling, and excellent combat sequences of which I wish the game had more of. The final boss I think is my favorite final boss in any horror game I've played, and not only fixes the ammo issue but is easily the best designed fight in the series.

I would say that overall The Evil Within duology is somewhat underrated, and any survival horror fan should play these games, especially the first. I don't like how different some of TEW2 is compared to the first, and I do feel like it lost some of the magic due to a kind of 'triple-A-ification' of a lot of mechanics. While I am a bit disappointed with this I am comfortable saying that I am a fan of this franchise, and would love to see a third entry one day.

7.5/10

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