Pikmin 4's Difficulty is Horribly Designed

[@imonlyhereforpikmin]

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

[@numbskull4899]

Omni man oatchi

[@simon178933]

Omni man

[@doublesystem9790]

omnioatchi

[@lyndisrobin]

oatchi is to blame 😭

[@FalseAndOnlyFalser]

​@@lyndisrobin lmao i said the same thing

[@nickk3077]

Older games: You were pray surviving in a predator-filled world. Newer games: You are predators in a prey-filled world.

[@Thegreatercheese]

*prey

[@Jenb13171]

Correction:in pikmin 3 most of the pretadors are lowsy In 4 oatchi is the prestador that doesn’t like eating pikmin

[@jamman_rl9604]

tbh pikmin 3 is easier than 4 imo

[@ekyanso4253]

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_love_eating_plutonium]

The consequences of our actions

[@moosesues8887]

Can’t even escape Extinction in video games smh

[@LG555]

Obviously Nintendo wouldn't want you to play Pikmin 4 over and over again. Else you would be to distracted, when they release the next game.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Pikmin Extinction except this time it means the Pikmin caused an extinction

[@marcuscostello5635]

That's cuz you are stupid

[@brandonbernard1570]

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.

[@SuperKamehameha2]

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

[@tapdancinggiraffe9047]

My least favorite aspect of this game. It made me not want to kill the overworld enemies just so the game won't feel empty

[@lasercraft32]

It also makes grinding Pikmin slow and tedious after beating the game... In order to get the Golden Vaulting Table I had to grind pellets to get enough purples, all because I had killed all the enemies long before getting the purple onion. Something I used to do back in the day is just use my 100% completed Pikmin 2 file and just grow more Pikmin, just for the fun of it... Now you can't do that.

[@SuperKamehameha2]

@@lasercraft32 yeah grinding pellets to get like what, 30 Pikmin a day? That sucked, I quit that fast. I have a day 100 file in pikmin 2 because I just like collecting pikmin. Atleast enemies respawn there

[@SuperKamehameha2]

@@tapdancinggiraffe9047 don’t blame you at all I almost wish I did that

[@vybe1307]

i have to admit though, when i was finishing up an area and took a look around to see *nothing* but corpses strewn about, it gave a certain vibe to the area. unlike olimar or the koppaians who basically only fended for their life in the alien ecosystem, the rescue corps annihilates it, leaving nothing in their tracks on their quest to Find Rescuees. it's a pretty creepy undertone that i actually kind of appreciated in the game (even if its not great gameplay wise)

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

PLEASE AUTO AIM TOGGLE OFF

[@leodaoust8035]

O LORD GIVE ANTI AUTO AIM

[@jenispizz2556]

I think it's fair to say Nintendo doesn't want you playing their games in the "wrong" way, and this is part of their warped idea of what is wrong. I'm sorry to say, but I think features that punish skilled players will only get worse with the next titles.

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

@@jenispizz2556 same with Jamboree now the game does't allow you to toggle off hidden blocks, i had 5 of them discovered in the cloud map in less than 10 turns, which 3 of them give out a star and the jamboree mechanic which kill 10-12 turns games because it's so broken and last for 3 turns. can't also toggle off the 2 luck based minigames in online 2v2 that kill any winstreak just because, or that luckbased bowser minigame in koopathlon that punish hard good players again for no reason

[@PauLtus_B]

I feel the auto aim is just constantly doing what I don't want it to do: It doesn't stick when I want it to, it sticks when I don't want it to, the lock on always manages to release the moment I decide to start attacking… I've generally been really enjoying the game but this has been feeling like it does the exact opposite what it's supposed to.

[@theepikduck7716]

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

[@Brown-Dude47]

* But nobody came - Undertale OST *

[@pickmen.]

really kills any sort of replayabilitility after 100%, especially when i am a Pikmin maniac and i grow over 10k Pikmin on day 151

[@theepikduck7716]

@@pickmen. Yeah it feels lonely… And I want to keep it that way.

[@Apppl-With-A-E]

They could have at least made a option or mode that let enemies respawn on the surface. I dont know why they can only respawn in caves.

[@LazuliScarab]

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

[@Rikrobat]

This was my main issue even from the start of Pikmin 4. There is so much Oatchi offers for platforming and such, but him having all of the Pikmin’s individual skills (either with levelling up or from the start) makes the Pikmin feel less unique? Where I really felt it was when he could sniff out buried treasure, something that should have been unique to White Pikmin and forcing the player to come back once they found some.

[@epicgamergoodman7786]

exactly i dont even have pikmin 4 yet and just from playing the demo i dont wanna play it because i wanna use a army of dumb like plants not a dog that can accomplish everything at once

[@QuJee]

Game should have been called "Oatchi: A Pikmin Story"

[@greattitan371]

I didn't get Pikmin 4 because I saw the dog in the trailer and knew it would be too much

[@Gamxin]

Last couple? I hope you mean Hey Pikmin because 3 makes Pikmin the fun part more than 1 and 2

[@sirpsycactus]

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

[@RollyPollyPal]

Well said. 1 2 and even 3 on occasion are games I can pick up at any time and go "ok, time for a playthrough". I needed almost a year long break after first finishing 4 before I wanted to come back for another playthrough, despite genuinely enjoying my time with the game

[@xerobeat9142]

The "dandori" marketing gimmick is a terrible way of advertising an already bad game imo. Pikmin 4 has no room for multitasking. All of the levels are gigantic, unfocused and linear with very little variety in how they are traversed, and the leader/Oatchi having separate abilities actively punishes the player for trying to multitask. Everyone plays this game with the captain and Oatchi together because of how much of a pain in the ass it is to hit a roadblock and have to wait an upwards of 3 minutes for the correct character to come and jump up a slight incline. The only games in the series to really epitomise dandori are 1 and 2. Pikmin 3 suffers from equally drab and linear level design. The way each sequel tries to up the anti with the scope of the series actively hurts what made the series good in the first place.

[@KevTyGaming]

There’s one aspect of Pikmin 4 I unconditionally love, that I think perfectly makes use of the “you’re definitely going to beat it but how well can you optimize it” angle. Olimar’s Shipwreck Tale actually makes you feel that dandori aspect of the game- it’s so easy to pick up and say “hey let me try that one again, the whole thing only lasts like two hours”, and seeing how low you can get your day counter is genuinely a fun time. It captures that Pikmin 1 magic for me perfectly and blends it with the low difficulty speedrun-friendly aspects of the new game like Oatchi and faster Pikmin

[@grafzeppelin4069]

Strong disagree. Pikmin 4 (possibly 3) is the most replayable in the series. I've played Pikmin 1 twice, 2 twice, and have no desire to ever touch either one ever again, but I've 100%ed 4 EIGHT times and am considering challenge runs or light restrictions (no flarlic, no upgrades, speedrunning, etc.). Pikmin 4 is a collectathon instead of an RTS rage game with light collectathon elements sprinkled on it.

[@idontcheckmynotifications]

I’m just tired of this being a trend in modern Nintendo games and it’s why I’m not excited about them any more. They rarely made difficult games, but it’s separate from creating a sense of tension (rises and falls, even if the difficulty stays low) and I think they actually used to be quite good at that. These days they feel hyper-focused on intrinsic reward to the very obvious detriment of their level design. It’s not engaging anymore. That influence spreads of course because it’s Nintendo, and 3D platformers these days are basically nothing but that kind of design (unless you’re Crash 4 or Cavern of Dreams, or Bowser’s Fury which somehow escaped most of Nintendo’s modern design philosophy trappings). I digress. Point is I feel this is not just Pikmin, and it’s not a quality I actually like.

[@YujiUedaFan]

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!

[@Rikrobat]

For real. I already guilt myself enough and replay areas as much as necessary to remain deathless. I don’t need their comments.

[@YujiUedaFan]

@@Rikrobat By the second ending I already had 2/5 of my Pikmin die.

[@Rikrobat]

@@YujiUedaFan - Haha, I can’t do that. I feel distressed and upset when they die, so I will rewind and reset as much as necessary to stay deathless. It’s a self-imposed challenge, and I respect those who aren’t as wimpy as me. 😂

[@YujiUedaFan]

@@Rikrobat I only rewind when Pikmin I don't have onions for die.

[@francisharkins]

I love how they are the rescue corp but all of them are either bigger cowards, apathetic, or downright useless compared to the Rookie.

[@Dionaea_floridensis]

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

[@mango8616]

When it's not making things crazy easy it's having a stroke and can't stick on something consistently enough to keep me from flinging my pikmin like a nutjob. If they really wanted to add it swap it out with the pluck whistle as a really late game upgrade. Which brings me to another weird gripe of why the fuck is the pluck whistle so late as a reward? It doesn't even add much ease it just make things slightly faster, which would help considering oatchi's plucking "assistance" is fucking unreliable. In general just like auto lock when he's not making things easier he's making things annoying as fuck because his Ai decides to go brain dead. Some of these features feel like such late or unfinished thoughts.

[@sangan3202]

no one wants automized controls theyre always fuck up constantly

[@barelyhere7200]

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

[@thatnectar-]

Trying to kill a Bulborb in 1 feels like a headache, in a good way.

[@lechaosadmin]

My first pikmin game was 3, and I grew so accustomed to the easy bulborbs that when I finally got to play 1 and fought the first bulborb I was surprised that it took a bit of challenge, because not only does the charge not exist, but they also have a ton of health

[@KaguyaH]

No. You just run behind them while they're sleeping with a reasonable squad of reds, spam A and they die every time.

[@gboogie3257]

No?

[@twostarling8348]

​@@KaguyaHIf you have that big of a squad, you are bluntly playing wrong

[@dog7676]

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

[@AnAveragePurplePikmin]

Oatchi is Canonically the strongest character in the Pikmin universe.

[@drnanard9605]

A 50 Pikmin cap when Oatchi is around would have been a good idea. With the ability to leave Oatchi at base too.

[@NerdMiGerd]

That would’ve been SO MUCH BETTER holy shit

[@realsalu634]

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

[@JuleGhoul]

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

[@brem-]

Pikmin 5 will use the same gameplay as seen in Pikmin Bloom.

[@Light_Repairman]

Doesnt pikmin 4 have a feature where someone does the night missions for you?

[@jwechols86]

@@Light_Repairman i think so the one I thought was the most stupid is that they can do the dandori battles for u

[@Kaktus64]

Pikmin 6 where once you boot up the game it’s just a black screen with the text “you win”

[@littlefox_100]

Pikmin 7 is entirely post game.

[@lasercraft32]

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."

[@gianfranconavarro9154]

At least swarming is still an option… AT THE VERY END OF THE GAME (at least is useful in Olimar’s Shipwreck Tale)

[@Rikrobat]

My first game was Pikmin 3, so I’m way more comfortable with charge than swarm, but I agree with you that swarm feels better suited to the role of the captain.

[@lasercraft32]

@@Rikrobat Yeah, same... I'm more comfortable using the charge too, but its kinda overpowered and makes most enemy encounters a joke.

[@Razoredge581]

@@gianfranconavarro9154 The fact they changed the theme for the command whistle was unforgivable

[@jaybee27D]

@@Rikrobatsame, i played pikmin 3 first and really appreciated the charge, so it felt weird when i went to play the series from the start and had to rely on the swarm. but by the time i got back to pikmin 3 i genuinely appreciated swarm way more. it’s frustrating but fun having the manage the direction all of the pikmin walk, and it can also be useful in ways that charge isn’t, like getting them to navigate certain unique paths.

[@thatgamingkiwi1630]

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.

[@tempinveir6234]

ik this reply adds nothing to this but I just wanted to say you're so right

[@MrBritishNinja]

I would've bought a switch if the ttyd remake had a hard mode... Instead it got easier

[@Leee275]

@@MrBritishNinja That is not the case with the new 2 bosses.

[@leedlelel2373]

Ive always wondered why nintendo hates adding anything that customizes someones gameplay experience to their needs Heck, i dont remember a single game of theirs that allows you to lower in-game volume or sounds

[@moneykenny119]

Not even just gameplay settings, but many settings in general like sound and controls. MK8 for example, when playing couch co op with multiple people it is ridiculous how loud the engines are, you can't even hear the music whatsoever. Why cant we just have the option to turn the music up or the engine sound down. And thats just a small example

[@ShiraCheshire]

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.

[@ChickenNugget7]

everything in the game is built around you being an ultra efficient dandori master which is done really well, but when it needs to slow down for difficult and precise gameplay the issues are more obvious. Take the water wraith for example, in pikmin 2 it worked so well because you are used to being slow and careful in caves to avoid deaths, but in pikmin 4 it didn’t work so well because you are already used to being quick and efficient so the water wraith doesn’t add much. The water wraith only works when going fast isn’t comfortable but pikmin 4 does everything to make going fast as comfortable as possible, this is both good and bad in my eyes.

[@hooksnfangs6006]

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.

[@jasonreed7522]

Something that really stands out to me is the waterwraith. In pikmin 2 it is memed to death, its genuinely terrifying. It puts a cave on a time limit, and then this unkillable steam roller of a monster spawns and chases you. However, the way you control your squad means it generally is killing stragglers who just can't quite get out of the way in time. And sometimes you get unlucky and he gets most of your squad, but generally it picks of stragglers and tests how good you are at commanding your army with the c-stick. In contrast, in pikmin 4 the waterwraith is basically the same, except its a bit of a joke, in my first playthrough of 4 i don't think i lost a single pikmin to any of the wraiths. The reason is oatchi, he consolidates the entire squad into the form of a slightly bigger captain, you have no stragglers like this and thus the waterwraith has to run over the captain directly and not the stragglers of a large and unwieldy squad. I hope that in another decade when we get Pikmin 5 they remove the space dogs and return to the format of large squads you have to manage. Part of the risk/reward balance of a large squad in earlier pikmin games is you get more power at the cost of it being harder to control increasing the risk of losing some pikmin.

[@DesignDoc]

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.

[@ShyGuyXXL]

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.

[@Solscalr]

Maybe also have it where Pikmin can fall off oatchi while charging because they were not holding on hard enough.

[@Rikrobat]

While I would probably hate this mechanic because I keep my Pikmin on Oatchi for safety, I wholeheartedly agree that it would have been better than the precision in the game.

[@jaybee27D]

ooh, what if you had to hold a button to get all the pikmin to board Oachi, and depending on how long you hold it you can let more of less of your squad climb aboard, giving you strategy for using the charge

[@dreamy_sparks]

Super smart

[@petarus625]

Another detail that could've been cool is if Oatchi's current strength correlated with the number of Pikmin he could carry. Why is he able to run around with 100 Purple Pikmin, yet only drag a 20-weight treasure?

[@mr.tatortot6469]

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

[@unemilifleur]

I don’t understand why there aren’t difficulty modes. We should have a version with no auto lock on, less spicy spray, less free pikmin and nerfed Oatchi

[@TheWhitePikman]

Auto lock on shouldn't even be a mode it should be in the settings ​@@unemilifleur

[@protocetid]

@@unemilifleur Give Nintendo a break, it's not like they had ten years to carefully design harder difficulty modes.

[@unemilifleur]

@@protocetid 🤣🤣🤣

[@Kino_the_Crusty]

the giant wollywog boss fight was over in 1 charge attack, and i was like "...oh i expected more," and then i saw the water he left in his hops and i got even more upset because that would have been such a fun fight, but i didn't even notice it happened until he was dead

[@smashers6971]

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.

[@ceasinghornet40d40]

omg sage leaf as a villain would be awesome, I never thought about that before. now I'm disappointed too lol

[@smashers6971]

@@ceasinghornet40d40 he makes way more sense as an antagonist, he’s a leafling looking for a successor and he doesn’t want to be cured at all. Having him be the one that’s turning people into Leaflings strengthens that plotline alongside giving them more precedence to be rescued and cured.

[@dontworry4945]

seriously same. the first 3 games hint tremendously that the pikmin are controlling olimar and the other leaders to propagate more pikmin. even the bad ending implies the leafheads. but they just ignore it because there's a cure. like WTF the pikmin are eating your mind and forcing you to propagate more slaves it's horrifying if you think about it for more than 2 seconds which is EXACTLY where I wanted the series to go because they "planted the seeds" in the first text box when you see a pikmin. olimar is Drawn to pull on the sprout.

[@pikmaniac2643]

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.

[@bimbelimbim4998]

I never really thought of it that way, but it makes sense, the way you put it. Honestly I think this wouldn't be so bad if the game had a better difficulty balancing. But one other major point would have been giving sparkelium a secondary use. It would have been nice if for example Russ would have required it for his permanent upgrades and/or oatchi for his. This would have forced you to choose, explore a new area or upgrade my stuff. As it, you simply do not have such a chioce. Sure raw mats have a multitude of uses, but you can farm it indefinitly by entering caves repeatly so there is really no point. This would have made the size of the game feel less arbitrary and superflous.

[@bellsproutproductions445]

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.

[@eyeseedee]

I definitely think the spirit bomb is overpowered, but I DO like the idea of being able to bring them into the caves. I really like the idea of having what are essentially just bulbmin that you can earn, and then bring with you in case of emergencies, but yeah their current implementation makes them just as overpowered as most of the other things in the players' arsenal!

[@flarthemself]

tbh i kinda tuned my brain off at the night missions because apart from the final one it was so boring so i forgot glowies existed

[@gboogie3257]

Smokey Progg was always easy

[@aaronsandoval7684]

​@@gboogie3257I mean, I lost a lot of Pikmin in Pikmin 1 because the pikmins just wouldn't attach and instead go to the poison trail, but maybe you're better than me

[@aleee2323]

Wym??? They ARE restricted to night missions

[@Duppling]

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.

[@BOBINDUN]

Also the retcon and sparkle stuff

[@cablefeed3738]

Except pikmin four is my favorite, so no, nothing's holding it back from being anyone's favorite.

[@JammyJam5588]

@@cablefeed3738 Thats what the commenter meant. Any of the games can be someones favorite still but this stuff is holding it back from being considered the defacto Best Game in the series. Cause by god it hits all the other game's intended best points, but its these underlying issues that make those best points shine less than their original games.

[@MaxenceBerrier]

i'd add the map designs, the story, the retcons, the difficulty, the QoL, the artstyle. Too many things are holding this game back.

[@empresscarrie6230]

@@cablefeed3738they didn’t say anything about that, it’s ok to like bad games but acknowledge they’re bad

[@randomnpc445]

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.

[@robothing6531]

amen

[@OriginalGameteer]

The Kingdom of Beasts (I think that's the name?) in the second area is 6 floors iirc But said cave also essentially copy pastes the Empress and Emperor Bulblax floors from 2

[@smilejakoby]

Pikmin 2 hardly had any punishment for leaving caves early, either. You can literally just leave 100 pikmin with 1 of the captains, take the other Captain and safely run to the hole to the next floor, and magically those 100 pikmon follow you since they were in the other captain's squad. I don't think being able to skip to another floor affected the difficulty much, it just saved time.

[@NerdMiGerd]

It just doesn’t feel like you’re exploring unknown territory anymore, because of how easily you can opt out and back in. Like if you can just magically teleport in to a lower floor are you even putting yourself out there? My biggest issue with 4 is how it often feels like an amusement park ride instead of an actual adventure, there’s a constant artifice attached to any potentially dangerous scenario you face. I had a hard ass time getting through this one despite all the new features I loved, because it just didn’t feel like these games respected my intelligence anymore. If this game just had some fucking cojones I would say it’s easily the best one, but alas… The more I mull over this game the more strongly I believe it’s the weakest entry in the series.

[@jasonreed7522]

​@@smilejakoby 1 important difference is that in pikmin 2 you had to leave through a geyser to keep your loot, if you give up through the menu then everything is left behind. Additionally, some holes were clogged and needed you to bring pikmin to them to unlock the way down. (To say nothing of gates that Captains can't damage) I'm not saying you can't cheese floors by just running past everything to get to the purple candy pop buds down on sublevel 9, just that it technically has some consequences for quitting early.

[@GoldenCorral52856]

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

[@wetsock9639]

That would be awesome

[@gameyfirebro9645]

I mean in that world, the new players would be crying with how the Water Wraith would be a threat.

[@9years2yank]

The dog is ridiculously unbalanced and awful for the game, but he's also a funny dog, so...

[@Joosher56]

At the very least he should have been a breadbug or some type of bulbmin, they even had concept art of controlling a friendly bulbear, and I wish they’d stuck with that design.

[@GoldenCorral52856]

it would be cooler if it was a post game or later game thing instead of something you get at the start of the game

[@mchanna06]

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.

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

just so Olimar can get a dog which would make for nice goodies

[@smashers6971]

I definitely wonder if 4 was supposed to be a sequel to 3 originally since there are elements from the end of 3 that would’ve been perfect in 4, like Olimar going on Vacation with his family leading to the massive amount of castaways and Alph speculating on the planet forcing crash landings thus a perfect opportunity for the leaflings, idk it just feels like they did the reset for no reason.

[@ToaderTheToad]

That's the thing I dislike the most about 4, it has the most present story of any Pikmin game but it's completely ruined for me because it inherently replaces Pikmin 1, which I love for its mystery and loneliness...both of which are completely undermined by 4's interpretation So, as a certified Pikmin 1 and 2 fan, I'm just left with having to ignore the entire thing because I prefer the darker and real tone of the first two games over the marketable wholesome cute doggos of 4

[@pikminologueraisin2139]

@@ToaderTheToad yes exactly

[@gboogie3257]

Disagreed

[@nickk3077]

I first played Pikmin 1 and 2 on Wii and when I eventually got them again on Switch, I was worried that it button controls would be much worse, but I was genuinely surprised by how well it worked. So, it was crazy that Pikmin 4’s auto-lock makes the game worse to control than games 20 years older than it!

[@hollowtraitor7534]

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.

[@thesilverblueman]

its late but I'd like to add on to this that pikmin 4 was way to happy of a game in 1-3 i wouldn't call any of the characters happy with their situation Olimar in the first game is stranded fighting for his life and in 2-3 hes on dangerous planet collecting treasures to save the company he works for while his family falls apart at home, Louie gets stranded half way through 2 and the president is on the run from loan sharks, and in 3 the protagonists home world is facing food shortages and are stranded till they find the cosmic drive key with limited food reserves to keep them going in 4 many of the castaways want to be there and the others don't care I cant recall one even asking if they can go home already

[@CheeseBread107]

Gotta give homage to the keyword "boo boo"

[@hollowtraitor7534]

@@CheeseBread107 2 spicy 4 KZbin

[@just_a_rock]

In Pikmin 5, instead of assigning the pikmin various tasks, the characters will automatically play the game for you with one pikmin at a time, which they will be smoking like a cigar. This is because Pikmin 5 takes place in a third alternate universe for the Pikmin series where Louie kills Shacho & turns Hocotate Freight into a fast food delivery service & decimates PNF-404 by overhunting to fuel his food business. The gameplay consists of watching a Papa's Pizzeria style game play itself like a TAS.

[@KitKat-ui1gc]

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.

[@MagerBlutooth]

One big issue I have with these reductions in difficulty is how it contributes to the reduction of the game's atmosphere. The first two Pikmin games did a fantastic job of presenting the Pikmin planet as a hostile and alien place, where the air itself wants you dead. No matter how much you conquer the area or master the mechanics, you can't survive after sundown, and there's always a sense that you are never truly safe. You can survive the planet, but you cannot tame it. The difficulty of the experience plays a big part in creating this vibe, like the planet isn't tailored for player's benefit. With Pikmin 4, it feels almost like we could build a house and live here in relative comfort. From the big things like the Waterwraith no longer chasing the player down to the small things like the Pearly Clampclamp being killable, the planet feels too tame. I can't think of a better example of this issue than being able to demolish swarms of Smoky Proggs at night.

[@AlmyTheAlien]

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 😔

[@fartface8918]

Nah

[@lyleabner2475]

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

[@geschnitztekiste4111]

I‘d say the Ice Pikmin Breaking enemies is good because it means you have to watch out, the problem is everything else being automated

[@lyleabner2475]

@@geschnitztekiste4111 I shouldn't have to stay and watch my Pikmin kill an enemy I know they can beat. Let's say I have some red Pikmin, I see a dwarf bulborb, I leave let's say 5 reds with it and go about my business, I come back and the bulborb is dead maybe 2 Pikmin are dead and but I can carry the body back to make up for the 2 Pikmin I lost. Now let's describe the average ice Pikmin interaction I leave 5 ice Pikmin with the bulborb and I go about my business, I come back 2 Pikmin are dead and the body is gone because 2 Pikmin were eaten meaning the bulborb froze and the ice Pikmin destroyed it that means I can't make up for the Pikmin I lost. If I had stayed and watched the ice Pikmin fight I would've had to stand there whistling them back every time the meter gets close to freezing the enemy, it's not fun.

[@pikmints]

As soon as I saw the trailer where they showed Oatchi, I thought "there's going to need to be some creative limitations for him in order to prevent him from trivializing game design elements/building the game around him." If nothing else, the ability to carry a maximum capacity squad all in one condensed package is already taking the orderly marching that Pikmin did in Pikmin 3 to another level, but showing him being able to transport Pikmin over bodies of water, up ledges that used to be used as one-way gates, having him be a low-risk way of attacking enemies since he can't die, it was not handled well. Nintendo seems so obsessed about making it so that every player is able to beat their game, that they don't care whether or not the player is having fun while doing it. Remember Phi in the original Zelda Skyward Sword? Remember how the game would tell you what all of the items did whenever you collected one after turning the console off, just to make sure you knew what they did? They were so worried that you weren't going to have fun, that they made the game no longer fun. Overcoming a challenge and discovering/mastering a mechanic is satisfying, but if there is no challenge and there is no way to master anything, then they're just making the game unsatisfying.

[@MsBabydice]

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!

[@cinnamonnoir2487]

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.

[@potatoe972]

Except for that one male sheargrub that was removed. You know which one I’m talking about.

[@wraith4978]

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

[@ZombieChicken1310]

*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.

[@TheQuackingQuagSpy]

I'd say that you also get brass knuckles in Pikmin 2 in the form of purples and ultra bitter sprays, but you're still going up against Mike Tyson (who also has said brass knuckles) while you're just an average guy. Otherwise, you're spot on.

[@ZombieChicken1310]

@@TheQuackingQuagSpy Thanks a lot, but tbh both purple pikmin and bitter sprays are useless when most of the time the main reasons why you lose pikmin are not by enemies you can fight with but rather by stage hazard traps like boulders, bomb-rocks, pikmin falling into the abyss and electricity. Like, Pikmin 4 has a strange fetish involving gloom and mud cuz they are everywhere in the late game, but in Pikmin 2 the fetish was with explosions because oh my god.

[@nyon7209]

Nah. Pikmin 1 is like fighting a 6'7" buff professional wrestler (without brass knuckles), but they don't realize you're trying to fight them. You have a chance because they aren't trying to win, they're just trying to get you to stop.

[@aaronsandoval7684]

​@@nyon7209but in Pikmin 2 it's a boxing Match, and the only way out is if you knock your opponent (and bombs are falling from the sky)

[@aaronsandoval7684]

​@@ZombieChicken1310I remember restarting like 10,000 times because a bulbear suddenly fell out of the sky and killed half my Pikmin. Honestly, I think the fetish is more oriented towards making you miserable because you couldn't save that one Pikmin from the meteorites that fell from the sky, making you restart and repeat the process

[@stellamarie32]

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.

[@Camo-xf7yc]

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.

[@cablefeed3738]

They don't have serious flaws. It's just people complaining. Why isn't it hard even though no pikmin game has ever been hard.

[@Simpstroyer]

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

[@AnAveragePurplePikmin]

The onky way to make the game harder is by having to use your teeth to press the buttons while being tied upside down.

[@Simpstroyer]

@@AnAveragePurplePikmin i might try that challenge, maybe it'll give any sort of difficulty to the game!

[@someone24688]

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

[@Glockenspheal]

Counter-argument: The Engulfed castle features poison enemies and you can easily not have any by the time you enter, it's happened on my current run.

[@bimbelimbim4998]

Pikmin 2 did that with white and purples too and some of the basic colors in some dungeon as well. The real problem is that pikmin in Pikmin 4, you know simply just do not die. White and Purple were a valueable asset in pikmin 2 that you had to take good care of, but as explained in the video, the abscence of any difficulty simply perverts this concept completely.

[@NerdMiGerd]

Pikmin 4’s greatest sin was making the Water Wraith a joke by letting you bring along purples at the beginning- completely killing all suspense on how to take it out.

[@Glockenspheal]

@@NerdMiGerd Huh? except it doesn't? you cannot bring any other Pikmin type other than blues to the cave, even after you've beaten the cave.

[@someone24688]

@@bimbelimbim4998 the difference with two is it was never before you unlocked the Pikmin type

[@MaroonMarlin]

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.

[@TheWrathAbove]

Oatchi is a shotgun and the Pikmin are the pellets is how it feels a lot of the time in Pikmin 4

[@moneykenny119]

Its a little wild how much could be solved if they decided that Pikmin just couldn't ride on Oatchi.

[@DragonEnthusiast]

Im gonna be frank, I was so happy when I got Pikmin 4. But I was really disappointed when I began playing it, despite my love for the Pikmin series. There was even less pressure to get better at optimizing your days outside of Olimar’s side mode, and even then it was a painfully easy 15 days that I could have probably easily cut down even FARTHER. Enemies are weak at best, and just annoying at worst, Oatchi is a good boy, but worse than just getting what I actually was hoping for: 4 Captains in a massive area, artificial difficulty via the Pikmin limit via the flarlic system, Swarm being a POSTGAME ADDITION instead of being able to get both charge and swarm, non-respawning enemies, the great Waterwraith Lobotomizing of 2023, the areas feel smaller and emptier than Pikmin 3, Ice Pikmin just make the bitter spray issue WORSE, aoe attacks are not as effective when your whole squad is on oatchi’s back. And that’s off the top of my head. I’m happy it’s here, but for nearly 10ish years of work? This is almost insultingly underwhelming, and I’m kinda assuming the original project got lost/deleted so they panic made what we got with what was left. I will give the game a few credits: 1. Night missions. Glow Pikmin are an ok replacement for bulbmin, but the horror adjacent aesthetic of this mode was great. 2. Louie returns as the menace we love him for. Edit: another thing for me to fault Pikmin 4 for, the lack of a reason to ever revisit areas with a new Pikmin type, because of wild Pikmin and all of the hazards in an area only being in an area a Pikmin type appears for the first time and future areas.

[@emiljunstrand]

The auto lock… I would respect the convenience being accessable. But counter point, I did not try to hit that pellet!

[@kirbcake]

Something that I don't think was brought up in the video that i'd like to mention... This isn't anything that affects the difficulty or gameplay outright, but this isn't a Pikmin game, this is Oatchi: a Pikmin Story as another commenter gracefully put it. This is the first time in the Pikmin series that the Pikmin themselves, genuinely, are not the spotlight. The reds are portrayed as a spectacle in the tutorial and then the Pikmin are straight up forgotten about story-wise for the rest of the game. Sure, mentioned in dialogue, but that goes as far as exclusively flavor text between the HQ characters in moments unimportant to the plot like night scenes. In previous Pikmin games, Onions were placed in interesting locations that drew attention to them, gave personality to their resident Pikmin, or told a story through environmental storytelling. You'd often find Onions in deactivated states showing that they've been abandoned or their species colony started to die out only for you to show up as it's last hope, or sometimes you'd find Pikmin living their lives around the onions like the yellows in 2 or the blues in 3. Sometimes the onion would actively be under attack like the wings and rocks in 3. But here? They're just completely random treasure pieces laying about in nonsensical locations that you bring back like they're an inanimate resource. The onions had a REASON to follow the player in past games, like a mutually beneficial relationship -- The pikmin help you, and in return, you increase their population. Not anymore. They're reduced to tools and projectiles, especially with how you no longer have to manage their movement in large squads due to oatchi, or manage aiming them, or manage their location in battle. You just have an inventory of projectiles and you press a button to throw them. The whistle radius is so colossal you no longer have to manage rounding them up either, just whistle once and every pikmin in the area of Forest of Hope's open lake area is immediately on oatchi and safe from all harm. You don't have to manage their numbers either -- squads of 100 are always outright better than smaller squads, and bigger numbers always equals more damage because throw speed and enemy attack pattern openings no longer matter, you can essentially throw 100 pikmin at the same time. I miss the days where the Pikmin were part of the plot. Remember when captains would write eulogies at sunset about lost Pikmin or interesting things they saw the Pikmin do? Remember when Olimar felt genuine regret at having to leave the Pikmin behind? And how much personality they had in 3? When they would think about the Pikmin's purpose and their grim place in the Ecosystem and how their fate is to carry, fight, multiply and be consumed despite them having such playful personalities? Remember when there was a SONG about that?? Too bad! They're soulless tools now that are completely overshadowed in their own game by The Dog. The Dog is the face of all the marketing with the Pikmin off to the side. The Dog is the strongest entity in the entire series and can solo every single enemy with relative ease. The Dog can swim, is immune to every element, has a colossal amount of health allowing them to facetank basically anything, can stun enemies, throw 100 Pikmin at once, carry 100 Pikmin on their back using non-euclidean geometry, can JUMP, and compress any item to be carried with extreme speed. Every rescue officer except Yonny is named after a dog breed. Both ships are named after dog breeds. The entire latter 50% of the story is dedicated to The Dog and Pikmin 1 was apparently retconned to include another dog. The final boss is a dog. I don't get it. Why? The Pikmin just feel tacked on now.

[@Crystalluss]

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.

[@talentlessanimator2831]

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

[@bobonnor]

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.

[@nyon7209]

True. most of my experiece comes from the Switch version. I know it's actually harder on the Wii U. I don't know to what degree, as I think a lot of my issues with it's difficulty come from things that aren't Switch exclusive, and can't gauge how much the changes made on Switch actually effect it's difficulty, but I know that it has a much more reasonable difficulty.

[@_pancakes1734]

@@nyon7209 wii u is basically switch hard mode but the pikmin have the speed of the gamecube games & nectar isnt as plentiful as on switch.

[@JammyJam5588]

The first boss is still easier on WiiU cause you can disarm it in one rock pikmin throw :P

[@Nyxael5845]

Pikmin 3 on the Wii U with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk is honestly the best way to play the game. Free aim while moving is so good.

[@bimbelimbim4998]

@@nyon7209 I would argue that wii U's default difficulty is even harder then ultra spicy on switch IF and only if you are proficient in using both games mechanics to the fullest, though the difference is not big and might be a matter of personal opinion. Even though hard difficulty on switch is the actual mirror image of wii U's default difficulty as far as enemy stats go, but the changes made in deluxe just downgrade the general difficulty so much.

[@caioleite5579]

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

[@2011supergamer]

Kirby isn't the best example IMO because Kirby I feel understands this at least a bit better than Pikmin. Like yeah you can use the drink buffs in Forgotten Land to make the Ultimate Cup Z way easier, BUT if you do, there will be a permanent sticker on your final time. It's small, but in my opinion it's more than enough to motivate you against using them.

[@cceerryyss_bb]

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

[@BrendaK7200]

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

[@Jacks_game_room]

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.

[@QJrocks]

I think they were going for how Pikmin 2 did purples: giving you a limited supply of a very powerful pikmin type with a limited ability to make more. The onion is unlocked decently late enough to the point where they're no longer overcentralizing, so the only real issue with them is the ability to re-run caves to amass a ton of them. I didn't know you could do this first playthrough, so I never thought they were too busted, but 4 definitely should have had some sort of "soft limit" to them like 2 did (where purple candypops in early caves wouldn't spawn in you had 40 purples total).

[@thesilverblueman]

@@QJrocks as someone who does no pikmin death runs (this is also the easiest entry to run this on) there are way to many ice pikmin spawns (most cave pikmin refills have 5 in a single spot and there may be up to 3-5 spots in an early cave) and take into consideration the nerfed pop size starting at 40 and in the first area alone theres at least 55 ice pikmin without reruns

[@ExploDjinn]

After 3 Deluxe had multiple difficulty options, it kind of baffles me that there's only one here and it's so easy. I even went out of my way to not use Ice Pikmin, except when necessary. I don't want to sound like one of the git gud crowd, but a hard mode would have went a long way.

[@already-taken]

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 KZbinrs 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.

[@borkbein9700]

I’m surprised you didn’t bring up any items like the mine or trackonator. They barely cost any raw material, and that stuff is handed out all over the game like it’s nothing; the fact that you can just make, save up, and throw bomb rocks on your own is pretty lame, but that might just be me. The only item I used in normal gameplay was the spicy spray, not because I was so against the new items; I just never found a situation to use them because everything folds so easily. They really felt like they were first made for Dandori battles and shoehorned into the main campaign. I enjoy 4 very much, but man, this game has some questionable decisions.

[@pikminman13]

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.

[@Zawamin]

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.

[@gass19]

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.

[@webbowser8834]

As someone who also has similar issues with Pikmin 4, this is a long *long* way away from Nintendo's game design worst mistake.

[@sangan3202]

​@@webbowser8834yeah sticker star is right there

[@Kawi31]

im suprised you didnt talk about the insane amount of cutscenes, theyre skippable tbf but ONE night mission has landing cutscene, possible tutorial cutscene about what new gimmick is here, end of night cutscene, lumiknoll cutscene, return to camp cutscene, end of day cutscene, and curing leafling cutscene. PER NIGHT MISSION FUCK also the crew needs to shut up "erm theres a pikmin that needs to be plucked" STOP

[@moneykenny119]

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

[@d-tergent7899]

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

[@LoppearLink]

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.

[@nigelgreer3479]

How the fuck did u add a bulborb I need to know

[@throwaway7679]

@@nigelgreer3479 They became a member to this channel.

[@PopcornBunni]

This is all without even mentioning the absolute busted balancing of Pikmin types in 4 that makes 2's purples look like a mild bonus in comparison. 100 Rocks will one-shot nearly every single boss in the game off a single Oatchi charge and for the ones that it doesn't, 70 rocks and 30 ice to freeze and double dip will do the job.

[@robothing6531]

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

[@Glockenspheal]

I'd agree if Pikmin 2 didn't have very generous checkpoints that made it a reset-fest, caves in that game become: either reset and lose a few minutes or keep going and risk losing 10+ minutes repeating stuff. I would have loved Pikmin 2 more if caves actually felt like resource management gauntlets, even a non-reset run was fairly easy and boring due to how unbalanced the game is in other areas. 4 might be easier, but at least I take those caves as extensions of the outdoors gameplay, I don't care how "hard" a cave is in 4, I care about how much time it takes out of my day, sadly 4 also suffers from constant checkpoints that make it a tad frustraiting to optimize casually as you would Pikmin 1 or 3.

[@the-golden-duck]

@@Glockenspheal How is it unbalanced if i may ask?

[@Glockenspheal]

@@the-golden-duck Purple Pikmin are too OP, that even their supposed limitations do little to actually nerf them in any meaningful way. Their rarity is moot because a very few number can already wreck havoc on most enemies, you won't be able to even throw all 20 purples before most enemies die, similarly, any enemy won't be able to fight back before they die and having a small squad makes them pretty much riskless, not to mention they are less prone to tripping. That alone makes the game really unbalanced already, but you also have sprays, the lack of time limit letting you use the slowest, safest strategies if you are that paranoid to losing Pikmin, among tools like the napsack that are also pretty useful to bait enemies.

[@robothing6531]

@@Glockenspheal to be fair you can save scum in almost any game, i wouldn’t really count it as intentional game design. it just happens this is a save scum that doesn’t cost a huge chunk of time

[@Glockenspheal]

@@robothing6531 The difference is how you can save-scum between Pikmin games. One of Dandori's corner-stones is repetition, which lets you improve planning, skill, learning, etc. but still, it means that getting the perfect run is gonna be easy. You cannot make any checkpoints throuout your day in Pikmin 1 or 3, you have to perform well as far as you are willing to push your personal skill-limit, which imo makes these games have a great amount of depth. Contrast this with 2 or 4 where you don't even get the chance to rollback days, not even saves through the day (4 is a bit more generous on that). It may not be necessary since there is no real incentive to finish as fast as possible, but it also makes these games lack depth, 2 kinda makes up for it with the cheap/unfair difficulty spikes it often throws, but that can break the game further for some players. 4 Also has an incentive to perfect each sublevel in a cave since time still ticks inside of those, so even repetition there can have depth. I do wonder if it's non-intentional since I can think of many more ways to "save" player's progress without such an aggressive and constant save system, from letting players save manually, a quick-save style system, visible checkpoints, even the option to save or not save between sublevels. There are even instances of caves without saving such as the ones in Challenge mode. It is weird the game doesn't let players not save every sublevel, considering how prevalent re-doing sections plays The save system in 2 mimics everything 4 does except the rollback option in a menu, even then, the original gamecube had a built-in soft-reset button combination, further complimenting this, hence why I think it's an intentional feature, 4 just streamlined it a little. I also forgot to add that Pikmin 4 does have a clever drawback to leaving caves prematurely, despite you being able to go back to any sublevel, and that is loss of time, going out of a cave prematurely can cost you a day if you took long enough in there.

[@J64-h8o]

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

[@siren-nate6565]

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".

[@borbborb9615]

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

[@sethmeaseles3301]

Oatchi in general just doesn't really vibe well with pikmin. Oatchi is resistant to everything after being upgraded like bulbmin but unlike bulbmin, oatchi is available everywhere, all the time. Oatchi can carry up to 100 weight and can swallow some objects to carry them super quick. Purples balanced their higher carry weight by making them slow but oatchi is the same speed as regular pikmin. Whites were fast at carrying but they all counted as 1 pikmin still. Whites and purples were really powerful in 2 but had some balance because you had to find flowers in caves and some of them had logic to despawn if you have more than x amount of the whites or purples. Oatchi is effectively immortal and always around you. The combat has always been super easy in the games if you knew how to approach every fight but with oatchi about 95% of enemies all you have to do is charge and boom they're dead after a couple seconds. I know Nintendo wanted to make pikmin more accessible to casual fans because pikmins design and art style is perfect for it, but Pikmin 4 was ridiculously easy by adding oatchi alone. If pikmin 4 were pretty much pikmin 3 but they added oatchi, it would still run into this problem of being to easy and casual.

[@MuffinPikmin]

I honestly find Pikmin 4 to so easy it is unplayable. Every single "hard," part of the game just feels more tedious if anything. Like, the final boss fight having 5 phases for example.

[@anthonyoliver418]

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)

[@MusicJunkie37]

Thank god there has been more criticism towards this game compared to the discourse around its release giving it perfect scores and saying it's by far the best Pikmin game.

[@kennycarter5682]

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

[@metal_pipe9764]

It's realistically accurate, but less fun

[@The_Gronne]

​@@metal_pipe9764How is it realistic though? If kill a spider under my roof, I'll 100% find a spider there again in a week or so

[@metal_pipe9764]

@@The_Gronne where would they even be coming from?

[@The_Gronne]

@@metal_pipe9764 ... from other parts of nature? It's not like animals can only go 1 place. If a Bulborb territorial and dies, another enemy will likely take its place (In Pikmin, that could just be another Bulborb). It's not like if you kill a spider on a wall, that another bug will never go there

[@metal_pipe9764]

@@The_Gronne yeah, but that would take a while

[@party11440]

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.

[@cablefeed3738]

You could just not use them

[@coolpizzacook]

@@cablefeed3738 The video literally goes into how "don't use it" is still a problem.

[@siegfread9683]

​@@cablefeed3738you can't turn off auto lock. You can't turn on enemy respawns. You can't turn off oatchi....

[@buffy5664]

The thing is that none of the problems with Pikmin 4 are exclusive to it. Nintendo games don't have difficulty curves anymore, they have difficulty walls. The game is several hours of baby sensory software until -after you've already beaten it- the game smacks you in the face with its only challenge. This has been a thing for years now and it doesn't make a lick of sense, it's trying so hard to appeal to everybody that you end up appealing to nobody. Experienced players will be let down by how easy the first 99% is. Inexperienced players will be frustrated by how hard the last 1% is. I still remember idiot baby me spending an entire day of my life trying to beat the secret level in mario galaxy 2, because the game did fuck all to prepare me for how (relatively) difficult it was. 13 years later and I don't experience an iota of resistance from pikmin 4 until the onion challenges. What's event the point?

[@jraff2735]

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.

[@gren4586]

the most skillful dandori approach to life is to not spend your time arguing on reddit

[@jraff2735]

@@gren4586 Fair enough, but it's kinda the main place people discuss and shitpost about Pikmin. Also it's better than Twitter

[@Lemon-cm4nh]

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.

[@The_Gronne]

The snail

[@user-xy6wu3xg2c]

I misread as "You can run, but you can't ride." Maybe not rabies though. Something less... horrible.

[@nintendo-relatedchannel5810]

Getting the purple onion was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in a game in a long time, Oatchi or not.

[@Gliggleglug]

Oachi could take goku

[@EpicDuskk]

Pikmin 4 really leans into the "dandori" thing, where the challenge is in getting the high scores and good times with all of the micro challenges. This game throws alot more at you with the environment, like the things like ice caves where pikmin need to stay warm for example. But the actual gameplay mechanically has been striped down so much to the point where enemies are more of an obstacle then a threat. Killing a bulborb isn't difficult, but the challenge is deciding when to kill it, and how many pikmin you should use, so you can use the rest of the pikmin to multitask something else. I dont think this is necessarily a bad thing, but its a different experience. And personally I prefer the classic Pikmin 1/2 style where the actual act of defeating enemies is the challenge.

[@bleu4472]

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

[@Lerrycapetime]

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

[@jacobtheham4147]

Fully FULLY agree with this. I have kept myself spoiler free from pikmin 4 for months. I finally got to play it a week ago. Although I did enjoy it, I felt like a lot of what I loved about pikmin was missing. This game is so bland it doesn’t try to keep you on your toes all the time like 1 2 and 3. The only difficult area imo was engulfed castle and that was it. Also the limit to only 3 types of pikmin is so stupid. Once again it was enjoyable but a lot felt lost.

[@ceasinghornet40d40]

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.

[@fatalfrostbyte]

Love the casual feel the flooded stump song brings to this video

[@Duskool]

Hey, so this has nothing to do with the topic of the video (Although, i do agree with every point you said about the game) but i wanna mention how nice the background music choices are in all the videos i've seen from you. It's quite a nice breath of fresh air from every other nintendo youtuber, or just game youtuber in general, that just uses the same game music as everyone else.

[@snapslingpeavine1371]

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

[@Baileography]

Coming from someone who loves Pikmin and loves Pikmin 4, you hit the nail on the head here. The game just feels a little too toothless while you've got Oatchi, Purple Pikmin, Ice Pikmin, Glow Pellets in caves, items on hand, etc. Besides fixing or just adding a toggle for the auto lock-on and allowing enemies to respawn in the overworld again, my wish is that 4 is updated to add in difficulty settings. Say what you want about 3 Deluxe but at least they gave you the option to not play it's cakewalk standard difficulty. I think I'd enjoy 4 a lot more if the version we've been playing was just the standard difficulty.

[@grombulon]

I agree wholeheartedly. I don't think I liked a single dog-related thing in this game to be totally honest... After subscribing to the Umibozu theory for a decade, i was legitimately so disappointed that it was just entirely absent in 4. The waterwraith came back as a novelty item. Honestly insulting, i mean it's literally the same cave from 2. This game was just so... Gamey. NPCS giving you quests, a nameless protagonist with no character, retconning the entire story in such an unnecessary way, the pikmin feeling so rigid and fake with how they perfectly take corners and keep formation with ease all the while going faster than they ever have. I knew pikmin 4 could never be what I had imagined after 10 years of waiting, I would still say it was a good game but i would also say I'd rather replay every pikmin game again before replaying pikmin 4 once.

[@quietjester154]

I would like to start this off by saying I basically 100%'d Pikmin 4, I played the game on my own and experienced everything on my own. I had fun with it, but I also had plenty of problems. This feels like complaining, but also feels entirely justified, so I really don't care. . As much as I loved Oatchi and found him extremely useful, I didn't vibe with the amount of upgrades he got. Like, they made Pikmin 2 except Louie has a shotgun and is your go to for most encounters due to the fact he's now 6'7", can carry your whole squad of pikmin on his back, is immune to every form of damage, can carry objects that need 100 Pikmin, and is overall an unstoppable beast, but it's balanced out because he can't climb or go into certain areas. Fr tho, Oatchi was a neat idea, but he really just made the game so easy, and as someone else said, the fact enemies don't respawn genuinely just made every area feel like more of a chore than a constant threat. Like- 1. Land. 2. Kill as many enemies and open as many caves as possible. 3. Treasure collecting, Cave delving, and Dandori Challenges last, since everything is dead and you don't even have to sit there and be worried about anything going wrong. And I understand they're trying to make the game more accessible to everyone, I get that, but at least add in a mode where enemies respawn or something, add a genuine difficulty option that allows you to pick how you'd like the experience. Idk, It was a good game but overall yeah, 4 felt way too easy and not the most interesting. edit: Also, don't even get me started on the fact the Water Wraith is now 10x slower and doesn't feel like as much of a threat as 2, or the fact that White Pikmin have been relegated to dealing solely with poison hazards now (and looping back to Oatchi, he does this better and faster than them too) since every Pikmin is extremely fast already (even the purples) and aren't the sole way to get buried treasure anymore, I legit left the one buried treasure in the beginning area because I was like "Guess I'm coming back after I get whites!" and then realized that my pikmin AND OATCHI, could dig it up. I was beyond disappointed at that especially because White's are my favorite Pikmin, and they got absolutely stripped of every unique thing they do in 4 except for dealing damage to enemies who eat them.

[@kirbykraftgames]

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*

[@plasmerus262]

I think the problem with charging pikmin being too good isn't because of the pikmin's speed but more to do with how the pikmin follow you in your squad. In Pikmin 3 your squad follow you in a line, so whenever you charged them at an enemy, it would take longer for all of them to latch on an enemy. In Pikmin 4, because the squad follows you in a bunch like in Pikmin 1 and 2, charging them made it so that that they would all latch on an enemy at the same time, thus making them overpowered.

[@alexcrisman1954]

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

[@VigilanteLulu]

Hey Pikmin is right there, y'know?

[@SomeNebulaGuy]

I wouldn't say that's quite the case; there is no general consensus as to which mainline Pikmin is the "best" or which one is the "worst" as each game takes on a different approach whole having the same core concept; leading to each game having its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and I'd dare to say that's a good thing

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

​@@SomeNebulaGuy I mean maybe not an absolute consensus, but there's a pretty strong trend that 1 and 2 are on average higher on lists than 3 and 4.

[@alexcrisman1954]

@@VigilanteLuluI don’t count that one, if I did yeah it’s worse

[@alexcrisman1954]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290if 4 had proper multiplayer it would probably be better than 3

[@Gavin_avi]

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.

[@danielellis7612]

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