This video has two thumbnails, which one did you get?

I liked pikmin 4 a lot but the fact that enemies didn’t even respawn in the overworld was just lame. There’s making it easier than Pikmin 2 and then there’s what they did. Totally killed my desire to keep going after I beat the game

After I eliminated all enemies on the surface, I waited for them to respawn… … but nobody came

Sadly I don't disagree with anything said here. I love Pikmin 4 very much but its like it actively wants you to stop playing because all the gorgeous maps they designed turn into desolated wastelands after your first sweep through the area. The lack of respawning enemies hit me harder than anything else.

I quite like all 4 Pikmin games in different ways, but the last couple feel like they're drifting from the idea that Pikmin are the fun part? I don't want a cute alien dog that overrides the Pikmin, I want to have my rainbow army of cute little plant guys that I grew

i think the biggest issue with pikmin 4's difficulty is that it's balanced around "okay, you will definitely beat this game, but how EFFICIENTLY can you do it" with the focus on dandori over actually being difficult traditionally, which is a fine idea, it leads to a desire to self-improve and learn the game, which is a wonderful way to play pikmin, but pikmin 4 is also the longest game in the series by a HUGE margin and as a result way less replayable in that way. i've done a lot of pikmin 3 runs trying to cut down my day count just for fun, and i think that's what they wanted with pikmin 4's design, making it a lot easier so enemies are more tools of run design/optimization ("do i want to go get more pikmin by killing them", "can i afford fighting these stronger ones in my way", the lack of respawning means they can be treated as specific tasks and not just obstacles), but pikmin 4 is also 30-40 hours long on a normal playthrough and has a ton of secondary things like the night stuff that add unoptimizable time on or the ridiculous tutorials that feel like they're WAY too long even on a FIRST playthrough - it's way harder to think "oh yeah i can keep trying to improve my runs and be more efficient" when one attempt at that takes as long as 5 attempts at that in another pikmin game

Cant wait for Pikmin 5 to have an auto mode, where the game plays itself

It sucks that swarming was basically replaced with the charge mechanic... Swarming actually FEELS like you are commanding and guiding your army. Meanwhile the charge is basically "hey go kill that guy."

PLEASE AUTO AIM TOGGLE OFF

imagine an alternative universe where we didn't get the dog

As someone who loves Pikmin 4 and It's my favorite in the franchise, this hurt to watch...because I agree with pretty much everything. They designed a great game but added unnecesary features (autolock, Oatchi charge) that have turned several players off and that's probably one of the biggest mistakes that Nintendo games in general make. Enemies being so much weaker in 3-4 than in 1-2 is something that I've noticed and wish it could change in the next game, if they hopefully decide to market it towards Pikmin veterans instead of newcomers for the 3rd time in a row.

most annoying part is that while these are fundamental issues, the majority are issues that could be fixed incredibly easily with settings for auto lock and a hard mode that nerfs Oatchi, buffs enemies / rearranges their placements, and allows them to respawn

Nintendo seems to be allergic to giving us gameplay settings, god's sake let us turn off the auto lock on, or give us difficulty settings that actually do something other than increase enemy health.

Remember how in the first few games Bulborbs actually used to be threatening

Another thing about caves is that the caves will just give you the elemental pikmin you need even if you don't have the onion. It removes any sense of progression and strategy to caves because they just give you every pikmin you need anytime a hazard shows up

Maybe Oachi's charge wouldn't be so cheap if it scattered the Pikmin around a lot more, throwing a lot of them further away. Then it wouldn't always be the best solition, since they might be tossed into obstacles or other enemies, so you need to be more mindful of when you use it. Then they also wouldn't all immediately land on the enemy. Maybe having a smaller squad on Oachi's back would make the scattering more precise. The more Pikmin on Oachi's back, the further they get scattered around.

pikmin 4 hardmode that just removes all the convience and you actually have to play the game

admittedly, before release, i thought oatchy was gonna have a max pikmin limit he could carry on his back, so the downside for this crazy mobility was having a major restriction on pikmin choices in specific battles. we got that major restriction from the 3 type limit, but ofc we can just use oatchi with 100 pikmin so it never mattered ig

I feel like Nintendo is trying a bit too hard to get Pikmin into casual fans. It would be better if a lot of these features were exclusive to a casual mode, and were disabled/nerfed in some kind of classic mode.

Honestly I have issues with Pikmin 4 from both a story and gameplay perspective for Story the whole Leafling stuff just sort of glossed over despite the dark implications of the pikmin planet, like I definitely feel the sage leaf should’ve been the main antagonist of the post game instead of Louie (Who should’ve been a red herring.) the story is just too light compared to the other 3 games where they had moments of atmosphere and dark moments in comparison. As for gameplay they ruined dungeons by absolutely neutering them, being able to leave dungeons at any time and being able to choose which floor to go ruins the resource management aspect of the dungeons, it doesn’t help that the dungeons are way longer and focus less on combat they’re just the overworld area’s reduced which just sucks.

I have a lot of friends in Japan who play switch games with their kids, and even their children found the auto lock on super frustrating after just a few minutes

It's a real shame. Pikmin 4 is full of so many creative ideas, and it's one of the few Nintendo games of the past decade that I've found really charming on an aesthetic level. I want to love it, and on a conceptual level I kind of do, but the level structure and mechanical changes are practically a deal-breaker for me. I'm torn between wanting Oatchi to return in subsequent games, but with major changes, and wanting them to leave him here and go in a whole new direction for Pikmin 5. P.S. I know this sounds weird, but in retrospect I'm so glad I played Pikmin 3 on the Wii U and not the deluxe Switch version. The original has a lot of rough edges that I actually like, and all the convenience features of Deluxe seem really intrusive to me.

Not to mention ice Pikmin are crazy overpowered and they give you a metric ton right at the beginning of the game. If they were a late game unlock that might’ve helped the game’s difficulty.

What's with Nintendo's obssesion of taking off options, such as Auto aim on Pikmin 4 or Set mode for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet

This is probably my biggest issue with 4 that prevents me from enjoying anything else in this game. A few of the new enemies at least feel designed in a way that can at least do something to you while riding Oatchi, like the new Creeping Chrysanthemums, Shellcakes, and Pricklepuffs, but they're only a small handful of enemies. I'm especially annoyed about the loads of returning enemies they brougt back without any care to how they work with Pikmin 4's changes. So many of them are reduced to having zero impact. For example, Anode Beetles are completely trivialized by auto-lock (they hardly even put them in the game anyway), Snitchbugs no longer deflower and aren't put next to enemise in a game without a time limit. Man-at-Legs can literally just be outrun and the enemy was originally designed to take out pikmin that were lagging behind, Pyroclasmic Slooches were essentially fire-walls in 3, and are irrelevant now because Oatchi can just kill them without needing reds (or rocks), Armored Cannon Beetle was brought back but all you have to do now is avoid a slow projectile with your captain because there's no army behind you, etc. Some enemies like Porquillion would actually be very good, just in any other pikmin game, because riding on Oatchi just removes any element of danger with it's concept. Pikmin 4 seriously doesn't even feel like your commanding an army at most times.

Also Glow Pikmin exist. Their spirit bomb move make every enemy, even the Smoky Progg extremely easy. If they restricted them to only being used during the night missions, they wouldn't be so busted.

One thing this video doesn't touch on that I think is also part of the conversation is how caves work. In Pikmin 2, you had specific floors where geysers would spawn so you could leave the cave if you needed to for some reason, at the cost of being forced to start the cave from the beginning. You couldn't just leave whenever you wanted and come back. In Pikmin 4, when you leave a cave, you're allowed to go to any floor you previously reached, completely nullifying any punishment for leaving the cave prematurely. In addition, they give you an option from the menu to leave whenever you feel like it. They still have geyser equivalents, for some reason, but you can also just use the menu and there's literally no difference. You keep all treasure collected and progress made. Why even bother with the fans then? I could forgive this conceptually if they actually utilized it to make some really long, grueling caves (though, maybe utilize the fans as checkpoints rather than letting someone retread any floor they've reached) but they don't even do that. I don't think a single cave goes deeper than 5 floors until you get to the very last one in the game which is just a poor man's Hole of Heroes since boss fights are a joke.

Personally, I think that Pikmin 1 and 3 really hammered the difficulty level the series should go for. They aren’t easy, and don’t have many mechanics that feel like a crutch. Pikmin 3’s lock-on and charging were pretty damn good, but it’s not too easy to cheese many enemies using them. The auto choose feature is fine imo, but only for caves as sometimes the hazards could be misleading in 2. The 3-type limit is lame, but understandable, and the auto-lock in 4 is really irritating, and the option to turn it off should’ve been there. In short, Pikmin 4 is way too easy, but Pikmin 2 was still probably way too difficult. The caves were not made well, and should’ve been closer to Pikmin 4’s, just harder.

*So, in a nutshell:* Pikmin 1 is like fighting a guy with the exact same musculature as you Pikmin 2 is like fighting a 6'7" ft buff professional wrestler that also wears brass knuckles Pikmin 3 (specially Deluxe) is like fighting a small premature coughing baby And Pikmin 4 is like fighting a guy with the exact same musculature as you, but you are basically forced to also grab a loaded gun with tons of ammo and a few grenades.

PIKMIN 4 was the first PIKMIN game I ever played and honestly the auto lock on(and Ochie) make me wish I got PIKMIN 3 instead so I could have a more PIKMIN like experience without feeling like I’m cheating. Next time I play PIKMIN I’m not gonna use otchi….too bad I’m still stuck using auto lock on!

I feel like this ties with with something else that upset me about Pikmin 4, and that’s the brutally slow pacing of the game. Thanks to night missions, as well as the bloat of objectives, the day count spikes rapidly compared to other games, but it feels like you don’t progress nearly as much. Like, for a series about being quick and efficient, why must the game slow me down at every turn? Also, it shows that for all the heavy reuse and referencing of Pikmin 2 in the game’s caves, they always feel like cheap knockoffs instead of remasters.

Tye difficulty honestly isn't even the worst thing about pikmin 4. The worst thing is that nintendo retconned one of their few series with a coherent storyline.

Oachi could take goku

I personally never noticed the game's balancing being outta wack, but that's probably because I grew up with Pikmin 3. But yeah I do agree with your points here, even if I still had lots of fun with the game regardless

I HATE how the characters always guilt trip you for accidentally having 1 Pikmin die once while they're just in their base doing NOTHING!

People complain about the purple Pikmin being overpowered but the ice Pikmin are somehow worse like purples are nerfed by being pretty scarce you gotta scrounge for them but ice Pikmin are passed out like candy in almost every cave. My only problem with ice Pikmin is that they just obliterate the bodies afterwards which wouldn't be a problem if enemies respawned but someone at Nintendo decided to nix a basic gameplay feature so if an ice Pikmin kills an enemy outside of a cave it's gone nobody gets it not even the ice Pikmin. It gets worse when you get ice Pikmin during a dandori challenge you gotta watch them very carefully to make sure they don't kill an enemy you needed to bring back to the onion, anytime the game recommends bringing them I go back and bring the fun Pikmin instead most times when the game says "bring ice Pikmin dumbass." It's usually if there's a puddle they can freeze or an ice wall and they usually recommend blue Pikmin at the same time so who cares about the ice cubes

I'm so glad that there are some people on this site that are not afraid to acknowledge that Pikmin 3 and 4 are not perfect games and have some pretty serious flaws. And I'm really glad to know that there are still dedicated Pikmin 2 content creators left on this site. I would be really curious to see you make a video discussing Pikmin 2's difficulty and analyzing if it truly is bad game design like some people say it is or just a difficult game in general, personally I don't mind 2's difficulty that much except for a few sublevels.

The Pikmin 3 on Wii U apology is here! The Wii U version is actually harder than people give it credit for, it just seems easier because it’s endgame area was cut.

I've always been firmly of the opinion that Pikmin 3 and 4 being easier isn't a big deal, because it gets away from the RNG-based cock and ball torture levels of difficulty that Pikmin 2's caverns had. I think the series changing focus from being extremely difficult to challenging the player to maximize their efficiency is a good direction for it to take. But watching this... man, it's really making me rethink some of that. Finding peak efficiency is a lot less satisfying when the path to it turns out to be "do the same overpowered thing over and over to defeat every single enemy".

i want to bring up how they also kind of messed up the flow of caves. in pikmin 2, the point of caves is that they’re a test of the player’s skills by acting as a gauntlet of enemies with loads of treasure. using the ship to escape would guarantee the safety of your pikmin, but you’d lose all treasure you collected. caves were high risk with high reward. geysers midway through caves complemented this idea by giving the player an important choice: you can escape now and guarantee the safety of your treasure and pikmin, but you’ll have to go back through all of the floors again to get the rest of the treasure. OR, you can keep going to get more treasure, but you may lose a bunch of your pikmin and lose everything. pikmin 4, however, must have had this concept fly over its head or something because it added an “escape with no consequence” button that’s accessible at all times. you can ALSO just instantly skip to any floor you’ve already been to. this removes all tension there would be otherwise and makes the game boring. it’s no longer a test of the player’s skills. something i found hilarious, though, is that there’s an escape vent midway through pikmin 4’s final cave. they must’ve just been taking design choices from pikmin 2 without understanding why they were made because there’s literally NO reason for that vent to exist - the escape button serves the exact same purpose

The Switch generation will go down as the era Nintendo finally learned about Twitter and game journalists. It's nothing but auto aim and wholesome doggos from here on out 😔

It's funny how every Pikmin game has their own reasons for being the "best in the series", yet the one thing holding Pikmin 4 back from being THE best in the series is all the weirdly forced handholding they decided to do.

game was still super easy even when i never used an item, but let's be real: i just chose never to buy them beyond the free prototypes and only messed around with them in the piklopedia and the real challenge -was getting the best scores in each challenge- fighting the auto aim when getting the best scores

Don't forget the fact that enemies never respawn on the surface and caves don't truly reset

you really hit the nail on the head for me with the comparison to purple pikmin in 2, there’s no actual risk of losing any of your buffs in 4 and there’s no strategy really. i really liked 4 but the game is so blindingly easy

Pikmin 5 better be like pikmin 2 really hard

generally I don’t think any pikmin game is very hard in the main campaign but it’s a bit mr. uncanny incredible to walk around with no respawns. also they gave all the best music to olimar’s tale

I hate to put most of the blame for difficulty on Oatchi but call me Eustace with how much that stupid dog makes me look bad.

spicy spray farming is almost painfully easy. in serene shores for example the berries are right next to one of the bases, and in primordial thicket there's 4 plants. like come on, man.

I'm astonished you put exactly into words why Pikmin 4 just kind of felt soulless to me. It seems to have been built around "improving" (and sorta insulting) Pikmin 2, which is still my personal favourite. It actively retcons its plot and introduces the swarming feature as a worthless ability when you already nearly fully completed the entire game. It seems to pretend to be a homage to the more difficult time in Pikmin while actively holding your hand to make sure the big bad creatures don't give you and your Pikmin a boo boo. On top of this is the greatest sin committed by Pikmin 4. Snow Bulborbs no longer have fur. Joke aside, the developers don't at all seem to be in touch with what made Pikmin special and enjoyable. What I hated about Pikmin 4 the most is how it actively meddled with the first game, making its issues so much more apparent. I cannot stand retcons and modern versions of games going back for the nostalgia value only to keep a character around that never wanted to be around in the first place, this being Olimar as the damsel in distress. He's not Peach. Let him see his family. It completely tones down and flummoxes the main stakes of Pikmin one, the dire and tragic situation that this tiny spaceman had found himself in and for that, I'll never forgive Pikmin 4. All of Olimar's achievements have been nullified. While he was fighting for his life, a highly advanced group of space rangers and tourists were just a mile or so away looking for him. He was never alone. This makes Olimar's bond with the Pikmin a lot more unremarkable. Hammering the term "Dandori" into your brain removed a lot of immersion for me and I just know I'll have to put up with the fandom constantly spouting the word themselves for many years to come, perhaps forever. Characters are chatty and obnoxious as well as one note rather than surprisingly complex characters like Olimar and Louie were. Even the President had some depth. Oatchi was a mistake. He's the cute and marketable thing that's super cool and strong and that's all there is. Now that you have an all powerful tool any other game in the future will just be accused of evolving the game backwards. I know that Oatchi was originally going to be a Bulborb which would've at least felt a bit more immersive rather than riding a random "space dog" to collect "sparklium". There are very little stakes to the story, making the story itself sort of boring as a result.

Imagine an alternate universe where pikmin 4 ACTUALLY got a hard mode of any kind

I feel like Oachi should only be able to carry +/- 50 Pikmin

Pikmin 4 was so afraid of creating interesting friction for players to deal with that it creates its own more annoying friction. However what always bothers me the most about it is how overworld enemies just *don't* re-spawn, making the areas feel depressingly empty after you clear them and taking me out of the world. It's like the ecosystem here just *stopped* which was never an issue with any of the previous titles. After both 3 Deluxe and this, I seriously hope they tone down on the "QoL" features for whatever the next game is because this was absolutely a step too far.

A subtle but impactful change is 4’s lack of regenerating overworld. Even with 2’s lack of day limit, you were encouraged to not waste time. Enemies would respawn, bridges would be eaten, spiderworts would grow. It felt like the world was constantly fighting back. There’s nothing on 4 stopping you from painstakingly exterminating everything in your way.

All I want is for Oatchi to have a carry limit of pikmin equal to half his total strength. That automatically stops him from being completely broken while still leaving him strong for various functions. It also encourages you to travel separately from him. Design overworld maps around this, while you encourage sticking together in caves. Actually, I should elaborate more. I did a low-upgrade run and it was much more fun and difficult to deal with challenges where I can't just send Oatchi in but still use him where I have to. The Purple Onion trial was actually really tough because I had to use my Pikmin to carry the onion and use Oatchi intelligently to clear the paths while still getting the platinum. I just want the mechanics of the game to be fun to use and encouraged in a constructive way. No elemental immunities goes a long way (I don't use Glow Pikmin either). What makes me really sad is that 4 is still my second favorite game after 2. (this has nothing to do with no time limit, most of the time you are trying to beat your own records rather than the arbitrary easy to beat limit anyway). If things were a little better this could have beaten out Pikmin 2.

THANK YOU, I hope you do more videos about some of the lackluster elements of 4 because this game while not terrible really underwhelmed One thing that could be a video is about how the Pikmin series art direction has been made quite generic as the series went on, like how the first 2 had this naturalistic bubble text and UI that really stood out. But going into 4 things like the clock that told you how far along the day was and the text have been turned into completely unremarkable assets that could be from anything.

I will admit unless you actively cheese bosses the boss interactions are still there, but I definitely feel like enemies are the main issue, I don’t have a problem with easier difficulty most of the time due to it meaning you can get done more in a day keeping the progress going, but when too many enemies fall faster than the time needed to dig something up I definitely feel like there needs to be more to them in future titles without being infuriating or boring, enemies like the bulborb, orange Bulborb, and some of the blow hogs can stay how they are because they are simple and have simple counters like ambushing or just attacking before they become a threat, so I think it is mainly if the enemy is meant to be simple or just needs more skill required for some enemies (besides sheargrubs I hope they never get their free kills ever again)

I haven't really watched the video fully through so I don't know if this point was made, but let's not forget about the Doomsday Device in Pikmin 2--one of the very last treasures in the game. It needs 1,000 pikmin to carry back to base, which you can _only_ do with 100 purple pikmin--a pretty effective check for how well you've managed your purples. If you've been careless the whole game with your purples and just blew through everything while disregarding losses, the Doomsday Device will force you to go back and find a cave where you can farm purples (usually Subterranean Complex)--a very time consuming task that will take significantly longer and longer the more careless you've been. It punishes you for being careless by taking back all the time you thought you saved when you just aimlessly spammed purples at everything.

I felt alone for so long for not liking for this game because I found it brain dead easy but besides saying Oachi is too powerful, I couldn’t put my finger on why. Thanks for making me feel more justified!

I really appreciate your nuanced take with how Pikmin 3 and 4 did difficulty. I understand if they wanted to make enemies easier to deal with so you can focus on collecting and managing larger areas. But enemies should be the cog in the Dandori machine you have to work around to make it run smoothly. Also I still don’t get who the hell was cooking with the auto lock on 💀

I agree with everything you said, and I hate when people say "if you think that makes the game too easy, just dont use it lol". If that is a valid argument, then every single game can be hard. Kirby for example is an easy game, but if you never fly, never inhale enemies and never jump, then of course it isgoing to be hard, but that doesnt mean the game is hard

Honestly, we need more KZfaqrs like you who are critical about Pikmin games, but still like them, and can actually back up their points instead of just "Haha funny KZfaq Reviewer with controversial opinion"

FINALLY. SOMEBODY GETS IT. I've been arguing with the Pikmin subreddit for MONTHS about this and now I have someone to back me up.

personally i dont think it helps that alot of the times it feels like pikmin 4 wants to be pikmin 2 in a way or atleast some sort of replacement for it, which kinda also goes into the problems i also have with the story in some way, but i think it really shows with how they rehash some of the returning caves/enemies from pikmin 2, and how they are completely diminished because of oatchi biggest offender of this would be engulfed castle where oatchi really ruins the original submerged castle's fear towards the waterwraith considering that all the pikmin could be on the faster-than-waterwraith oatchi's back, and also easily rush to escape it.

You know the game is unbalanced when you can beat most of the game with the dog and some items only.

Neat. For me, Pikmin 4 was somewhere between the middle for me, I have no idea why

I kinda wish they kept the controls like Pikmin 3 Deluxe, where the cursor only locks onto enemies when you actually lock on, since, when you hit it twice, it will always change what the locked target is, you can pretty reliably lock and throw pikmin at a patch of 4 or 5 small enemies or pellet posies. Edit: also agree on removing the 3 type limit and having cave hazard indicators on caves, you can choose what pikmin you're bringing anyway before you enter so you don't even have to walk back to the onion first. And while you can use every pikmin type at once you probably don't want all of them at once, since you would have like 12 pikmin of each type, and that's at max flarlic, which could lock you out of certain treasures if there's a type specific roadblock like water or a cold room (the 300 weight ham towards the end of the game comes to mind, where you need a good number of purples, even if Oatchi's carry weight is maxed). This kind of thinking is something I wish Pikmin 4 did more

Man you nailed all my biggest gripes with the game. I think I should also mention that the main maps feel way too big. Previous Pikmin games' had small and tight maps, but they were dense with things to do. Many times Pikmin 4 just feels so empty and barren, especially when you defeat all enemies.

We were all thinking this, but no one was brave enough to say it. Thank you.

Finally, someone with good points about Pikmin 4. As much as I love Oatchi, he is WAY too overpowered.

What got me is the fact that the game doesn't trust you to do or understand anything on your own. You get somewhere, someone talks at you to tell you what to do. You take ten steps, someone has to talk at you more. Two more steps, oh look at that someone is talking to you. I had them tell me the solution to basic puzzles the second I walked near the puzzle, before I'd even gotten a chance to see what it was. It was obvious from the start that this game wants to treat you like a toddler. It was such an incredibly frustrating experience right off the bat.

13:10 what happened to that poor tusked blowhog!?

The blowhogs issustrate the speed problem so well. Unchanged since Pikmin 1, the point of them was that your squad was so slow and Pikmin does so fast to hazards you had to stratemgize and remove them beforehand. Now all your squad fits compact on a FAST dog that can run 2 laps arounds it before the fire / water animation even completed. If a Pikmin ever did get caight out youcan basically ignire it and kill the hog with the amount of time they run around on fire. All that assumes you didnt just charge the poor thing from downtown offscreen and kill it with an instant, perfect accuracy swarm before the first stun ends!!! Lock on is annoying sure, but to me the core problem is that we're solving unchanged problems (enemies) with solutions developed decades after the fact.

Pikmin 4 is Nintendo overcorecting something that just needed a lil polish in Pikmin 2 To not scare off new players I just hope next game we go back the strategy roots

The auto targeting killed more of my pikmin then the water wraith in pikmin 2

I think something you should also have included is the freezing ability of ice pikmin, and how plentiful spicy spray is. Something I think would also have been a meaningful addition to the game is you making a list of changes for a theoretical higher difficulty mode.

The only difficulty I ever see when I play Pikmin 4 is in the Leaf Sage’s trial Another thing about the AI of Pikmin when it comes to carrying, sometimes they have that really stupid Pikmin 1 AI quirk of only being allowed down a specific path, even if there’s another path to the ship, my main example of this is if you use Winged Pikmin at the top of the Giant’s Hearth. If you got up there with the Oatchi parkour path and you attempt to use Winged Pikmin to collect the treasures. They just stop carrying stuff once they make it to the climbing wall because it hasn’t been built. *YOU HAVE FUCKIN WINGS JUST FLY YOU NITWITS*

I just want you to know that this thumbnail you made is really good, it’s so simple but still has this menacing aura, great work fr

Really just makes me enjoy Pikmin 1 & 2 that much more tbh

Watching people slowly realize that pikmin 4 is the worst pikmin game as the hype wears off has been very entertaining to watch

i think nintendo really has a knack for making enemy designs just for the sake of making them look cool and never building on making the gameplay anywhere near as impactful. that one snow butterfly enemy (i already forgot its name which is kind of telling of how un memorable a lot of this game's content is) was something i expected to be very unique, but after i hit it with a fire cone twice, it was just over immediately. theres not much "active" puzzle solving going on. you arent adapting to its movements, you arent taking advantage of its behavior, youre just doing a task, and with the lack of independent aiming you might as well just be pressing a and then x a couple times. and you'd think that with the addition of oatchi (which, i think the idea of having all your units clumped together is a fun idea and lets you more consistently dodge attacks, though i do believe having your whole squad dodge is also possible to be done completely consistently) the enemies would be more violent and adjust to the massive increase in speed, but no, even the most intimidating boss in the series became a complete joke and was reduced to a throwaway retconned miniboss also, honestly, i completely forgot the onion even existed in this game. i have literally never produced pikmin past the first few days

I like the casually glitched texture tusked blowhog his name is now glitchy and I hope he comes back in future videos

The auto lock on killed one of my red pikmin, Nintendo you’re sins are UNFORGIVEABLE

i 100% the game in 30 hours and never played it again note that this game is priced the same as RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2

God... like pikmin 3's aiming mechanics were so fucking perfect. Like what happened? Why happened?

Another thing that dumbs down the game is Oatchi carrying all your Pikmin, meaning you only have to protect one creature instead of dozens of them... And you're controlling said creature, partially destroying the main gimmick of the franchise.

3 deluxe was a warning

I love Pikmin 3 but 4 just sort of boiled things to mush. 3 Deluxe Ultra Spicy is my favourite Pikmin campaign.

Sun-Speckled Terrence is my most hated Pikmin character.

ngl oatchi ruined a lot of aspects of the game for me. Feel like the game would be better if the level design didnt revolve around your wholesome keanu reeves big chungus reddit doggo

Finally someone is spitting fax. Pikmin 4 is the only game I didn't beat because it was just so boring.

I think it goes a layer beyond that. The Dandori sections are the best part. They're very tight and can be difficult to master toward the end. It gets those same feelings i got when i got really good at some of those challenges in Pikmin 3. Thats the key point though. "Got really good". I think their idea was to get the good feelings going there without the need to git gud. To lower the skill ceiling in those sections. It explains the auto lock-on. The kids can see their favorite KZfaqrs being good with that same easy mode tool. It explains why the Sage Leaf Trials are locked behind so many prerequisites. It also explains why Olimar's story had to be retold despite all other games being on Switch at the same time. It isn't for us. It's for them. Its to extend sales numbers and satisfaction to those not patient or fixated enough to do it without the tools. If the game designs it like this and does not allow the people that would do the spreading to change it, it is more achievable to them. The "they can do it, i can do it too" mindset, just without the extra time needed to get to that level. I know this is not directly proven, but it would fit with their advertising strategy for the game in the US. The universal allure of a dog, the family friendly atmosphere with the female voice (yes, that is a strategy, often used to add more universal draw, but i could see it also trying to reach a female audience), and the cutesy Pikmin hum one they just put out. I am sure someone in marketing could describe it better, but as a computer scientist who is also a woman, these strategies have always been emphasized to me. They dont want it to seem hard.

Pikmin 4 hard mode: Oatchi got rabies and is now always actively hunting you, eating your pikmin and mauling you. You can run, but you can’t hide.

Pikmin 4 shifted the difficulty away from careful play against enemies that can wipe you out if you dont strategize properly, to quick optimized play to maximize dandori. Bad play is only punished with a low score, it's rare to lose a substantial amount of pikmin. But even the hardest dandori levels dont provide the same challenge and tension that some bullshit pikmin 2 floors provide.

ive just now learned about this channels existence this is the best channel on youtube. ive needed a pikmintuber in my life. youve filled that void.

I've said it before, but it feels like a kid who was struggling with the first few games and cried when their pikmin died made these changes for the game... It really does feel like it was done to make the game easier for children.

Video games are no longer about overcoming a challenge. They are now designed as a way to chill and kill time. Normies have ruined 80% of the gaming industry.

Originally, I had thought this wasn’t too big a deal for me when playing the game, as I was more after the carrying stuff back to the ship and puzzle solving part of Pikmin, but after replaying Pikmin 2, this problem becomes REALLY apparent, because like highlighted in the video, you had to actually strategize what you were doing in that game to minimize purple pikmin loss, and sometimes what that resulted in me doing was just not using them at all in certain fights, like sometimes I bring in a small number of yellow pikmin to deal with beady long legs and man-at-legs or a small amount of red pikmin for groinks, then I strategize my whistling of pikmin after throwing them on the target to minimize flower loss, and that combat is extremely fun, and surprisingly it’s way less rage inducing than people make it out to be, but in Pikmin 4, as shown in the video once again, you just throw the entire squad at one enemy and they all die the end you win case closed. Another thing about this too is that ice pikmin make this problem even worse, they’re basically just a portable bitter spray if you have enough of them, even if you don’t get enemy corpses, there will be a point when that just doesn’t matter, especially in caves. Enemies not respawning in the overworld also really sucks just because sometimes you just want to grind pikmin (even if that’s almost completely pointless in this game) but now everything is a just barren wasteland when you return. Side note of my neuron activation hearing PC-98 Touhou music in this video, I love Civilization of Magic lol.

I feel like one phrase sums up Pikmin 4 pretty well. In Silohawk’s video on Dandori battle he say something along the lines of “Dandori battle doesn’t feel like a strategic challenge where you have to think about your next move. But more like you turn your brain onto auto pilot and just go. Trying to do as much as possible.” I like Pikmin 4, but the enemy changes from Pikmin 3 and now Oatchi in Pikmin 4 makes this feel like more and more of the reality of the situation. Gameplay that’s not too difficult, but allows you to become the king of multitasking. I’m… 50/50 on it. But it’s still fun at the end of the day.

I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I didn't want to complain when this game came out because we FINALLY got a new Pikmin game. I had expressed my concerns and criticisms but I wasn't seeing people talk about such issues with how easy Pikmin 4 was. You expressed each point I had with the mechanics and changes. Outside of these things the story was pretty poor with irritating characters pretending like they're helping when you're doing all the work. (Rescue Corps) The pikmin limits dont make sense considering i used to take like 30 pikmin to fight a boss whilst 20 pikmin across the map are doing something else. So limiting me to 30 or whatever it was at the start, just means i cant multi task effectively until i have decent numbers. Enemies not respawning really hindered the over-world. As I felt that by the end it was dead and barren with nothing in my way. I didn't mind the lock on for dandori challenges, treating combat as a task for some of the harder time windows for platinum medals i think made sense. But every where else the dumbing down of the combat nuances ESPECIALLY with Oatchi just made fighting things boring and the same each time, every enemy was fought the same.