I like Mario, what can I say! They still know how to make these games, this is another good one. I think people saying it's easily the best 2D Mario are maybe being a little hyperbolic, but it is a great game filled with joyful moments. Outside of the final 100% challenge levels and a handful of others, this game was very easy for me, I would have liked it a little tougher, but I understand that I'm poisoned by difficult Mario Maker and SMW rom hacks. Also I wish there was a little bit less "this is for little kids" vibes to a lot of Mario, which I feel has become a little more prevalent starting around Mario Sunshine maybe, but I understand as well that Mario has always been for all ages. I'm not saying Mario needs to ultra mature or anything, I just don't need a flower telling me "great job" every time a make a jump. But it's not enough to ruin the game or anything by any means. Lots of great creativity on display throughout this game, really fun!

The spectacle in this game is very very good, and the combat is fun, though it does begin to wear out it's welcome by the end of the game. Less so than most games though. There's also some great production going on, the voice acting is mostly very good.

That said, the pacing is really terrible, mostly because the side quests are nearly all just really boring garbage. You can really see the final fantasy 14 roots, the structure of the game and side quests feels pretty similar even if the combat is completely different.

The main story in this game is generally just ok, but certain aspects do not work.

Mostly, the bearers. The way the bearers are handled does not really make any sense to me. It's implied that in most cases parents just give up their kids to become slaves and hate them if they find out they have magic? Like I understand you could say people in real life will do that sometimes if they have lgbtq+ children, they can basically disown them in some cases, which is a terrible thing, but in this game the same people who follow a king who has special magic powers disown their own children who have normal magic powers? And these magic people, who should be more powerful than their masters, never try to rise up against them? I guess you could argue we're just not shown it because it's not relevant, but I'd still say the way the game handles their slave class largely feels unrealistic. Of course I agree with the thesis of this game that people should be allowed to live on their own terms, have freedom, but it doesn't meaningfully address why people will hate others and oppress them so much. It feels like they're using a really dark part of some humans' natural inclination to hate what's different and exploit others, but they're not really talking about it realistically or saying anything about why it happens and not really using it for any reason other than to say it's bad. There's just no depth at all to any of the themes in this story. And it almost feels like they knew they're not handling it well, because they chose not to include black people anywhere in this game, they took the cowards way out and completely ignored the racial aspect of real life slavery, rather than try to say something meaningful anywhere in their game.

Overall it's a fun game but really poorly paced and has a questionable story

Too much repetition, too obtuse at times, the story doesn't fully work for me, but also one of the most unique, interesting games in years.

I'd only recommend it to puzzle enjoyers, because so much of the game is puzzles and they get really difficult, but I feel like the story stuff could appeal to a whole huge chunk of people who wouldn't necessarily play puzzle games like this ordinarily. Unfortunately, I'm not fully part of that huge chunk of people who the story might appeal to, the tone is a little too anime and/or YA for my taste, though there are still cool things in it. And the way it's told/structured is pretty cool.

I am a puzzle game fan though, and this game has a lot of puzzles. Actually too many, I think, it's a little overlong. And if you want to figure out all the secrets, there is a LOT of repetition. But there is also a LOT of content behind those secrets, and the secrets are satisfying to figure out, so the repetition feels both tedious and worth it.

Overall, really neat!

I emulated the original Saturn version. It definitely has a great vibe, and the soundtrack, especially the first episode, is really cool.

It's pretty difficult I thought, I was planning to not use save states, and I made it to episode 5 without them (meaning I got a few game overs and had to beat the first few levels several times), but eventually gave up on that (just used them to get unlimited continues though, didn't save state mid-level). There are multiple buttons to shoot, and it definitely feels like it was designed to require the player to kind of drum on two fire buttons so they can shoot down incoming attacks faster and not die, at parts particularly in level 5

Cool game, after a little break I'm planning to continue onto 2 and then Saga

I loved my time with Pikmin 4, and also I think it's my least favorite in the series. While each game has introduced something new, it also feels like some of the rough edges that give Pikmin its character are sanded down a little more with each successive title. Game 2 loses the timer, game 3 loses basically all difficulty (outside of challenges), and then game 4 simplifies a lot of the controls/strategy and adds on extraneous systems that don't add much.

Admittedly my views may be nostalgia clouded, but Pikmin 1 is my favorite of the bunch. It's also in many ways the least forgiving. The main thing that differentiates this game from future installments is the hard timer. It's not an impossibly difficult challenge, but it definitely expects you to focus on the goals, and if you spend too much time experimenting without making in game progress, you'll get a game over with no recourse but to restart the game from the beginning. This is also the shortest game in the series, which to me works in its favor, it feels focused, doesn't overstay its welcome, and leaves me wanting more. It also makes it easy to replay, and try to improve your time (I must have played this game through 4 or 5 times when I was a kid)

Pikmin 2 shifts the focus to gathering treasure (real-life earth objects, a Duracell battery, a Dannon yogurt wrapper, great way to add character), and gives you two captains to switch between, giving you more tools to try and manage your time as efficiently as possible. These are the best new things to me, the others I like more in theory than in practice. The caves are a good idea and are interesting for a time, but after a while they start to feel repetitive and dragged out. It's also exciting to get new pikmin types, but the purple pikmin in particular feel somewhat overpowered, for non-boss enemies the best strategy is basically always to get behind the enemy and have the purple pikmin do their stomp on them. That said, boss enemies can be fairly difficult in this one, I would say Pikmin 2 has the most difficult battles of the series. Overall, this is my third favorite in the series, mainly due to the game feeling a little repetitive, a little overlong by the end.

Pikmin 3 has you gathering fruit for food, and has a timer again for how long you can survive that will increase as you gather more fruit. Interesting idea, but it's so easy to gather more fruit that the timer might as well not exist. The fruit itself is also much less exciting/interesting when compared to the treasure from 2, or even the spaceship parts from 1. That said, I love the big new thing added here: this game gives you a third captain to swap between, and lets you give them simple commands (destinations to walk to) via the game pad. This really opens up the efficiency management opportunities of the game, it keeps you juggling tasks and swapping between captains, it's very engaging. Also caves are gone here, which I think ultimately makes the game feel more focused. Even though I like caves in some ways, after playing 2 and 4, I think I've come to the opinion that these games are stronger without them. In the end, I think if 3 were a little more difficult, it could be my favorite in the series. The challenge mode is cool and gives some good difficulty, but since it's divorced from the main campaign, it's a little less compelling.

And then there is Pikmin 4. This game removes the time limit again and brings back caves. It feels like the most content-rich of the games, giving you more levels, more variety, more pikmin types, etc. The big new thing here is your dog Oatchi. Oatchi is a great little guy, but to me he oversimplifies things. He serves as a replacement for multiple captains, you can split up like before, but ultimately I didn't want to most of the time because you can generally work more effectively together. All your Pikmin can ride on his back, making it so you're effectively controlling one entity, rather than leading a little army. This makes evading enemies simpler (don't have to worry about stragglers getting eaten when everyone is amassed together), makes attacking enemies simpler (you can charge into enemies as Oatchi, stunning them for a second, and causing all your pikmin to jump off his back onto the enemy to attack, killing most enemies before they have a chance to retaliate), and makes exploring simpler (IE: you can just swim across water with pikmin riding Oatchi, rather than requiring you to split up your blue pikmin. You still split up at times, but it's less of an issue with Oatchi). When you do split up, there is less you can do to command your separate teams than in 3, there is less focus on multitasking in that way. The "dandori challenges" are a highlight though, and do effectively have you focus on multitasking and time management. But, I prefer Pikmin 1 where the time management aspect is more seamlessly integrated into all parts of the game, as opposed to being discrete mini challenges. Beyond that, the updated controls work, but feel like they offer less control and frustrated me more than improved the experience. I did not like the cursor constantly snapping to enemies, or that the game stops me from throwing more than the minimum required number of pikmin to carry something (I want to throw extra! They carry it faster), these should be options rather than the only control scheme. I also wish switching from controlling Oatchi to my main guy was an instantaneous button press like before, rather than holding a button then selecting an option, it feels tedious. The upgrade systems felt unnecessary, felt like something there because that's something that modern games have. The night time tower defense is a fine diversion, but is not as fun as the main game and ultimately feels unnecessary as well to me.

Anyway, as I opened, overall I still loved my time with Pikmin 4, and the soul and appeal of Pikmin is still strong, but I can't help but feel that they're oversimplifying the series little by little