Pikmin 4 Review: What Is This, a Game for Ants?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 มิ.ย. 2024
- Nintendo's charming but overlooked series has received another sequel, aged 10 years in the finest oak barrels. Contains mild spoilers, also aged in the finest barrels
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0:00 Pikman History
1:34 Caves Story
3:46 New Mechanics
6:45 Babyproof Controls
9:41 Meet the Pikmans
12:04 Conclusion - เกม
As a Pikmin fan, I’m just glad we got our per decade entry in the series. See you guys in 2034 for Pikmin 5.
This comment hurts me because of its plausibility.
@@mister_john Exactamente compañero.
@@theboivenom4170la triste realidad
I’ll probably be dead before then
I think this has been one of the best selling Pikmin games of all time, I know I bought my copy brand new from a retailer just to support the franchise. So maybe it'll start having one game per console from this point forward.
Neutering the motion controls in a Nintendo franchise that helped pioneer it is a sure fire way to awaken Nerrel's inner demons.
I loved Pikmin 4 to death but I can totally understand the controls really hurting the experience. The fact auto-lock isn't optional and there aren't more control options in general is baffling.
Nintendo needs to get into the 2020s and start including proper full button remapping and control freedom like most other AAA games
The auto lock is lame. The old games had better damage depending on whrre you throw, this both makes that too easy in some cases and impossible in others.
The autolock literally makes some of the encounters feel like a gamble, it's so frustrating, I'm constantly fighting against the controls.
@@Ross516Half of “modern” games, especially on consoles, don’t allow remapping. The switch has a software side remapper.
I notice this is a trend with Nintendo games. Most recently, Tears controls were an absolute mess largely in part to the horrendous menu systems, useless horse whistle, obtuse mechanics, and weird mapping of certain actions. On top of not being able to remap anything. As if Nintendo knows best for every single player's preferences.
I'm friends with several devs that are either part of AAA teams or have shipped indie titles alone. Talking to them over the years, they all tell me the lack of button remapping and basic input options is pure laziness or pure hubris.
"Gummy" is a perfect way to describe the menus
Pikmin 1: fighting the pikmin ai
Pikmin 2: fighting the devs
Pikmin 3: fighting the time gap between title releases
Pikmin 4: fighting the controls
I'd say Pikmin 2 is fighting the enemies, but otherwise absolutely spot-on lol.
@@Hysteria98 well who put the enemies there in the first place
What was so bad about 1's AI for most people? I've been playing 1 for over 20 years so I suppose I've grown numb to its flaws x)
Pikmin 3 is fighting invisible boss caps
@@VonFirflirch Totally intentional things like pikmin tripping (happens WAY more in 1 than 2) and getting distracted by grass and rocks, plus much less intentional things like the occasional jank with pikmin carrying pathfinding, dismissing pikmin being the only way to select the color you want (sometimes accidentally causing them to work on nearby tasks you may not have intended), pikmin dismissing very poorly (different color groups overlapping, sometimes one or two pikmin don't go the same direction as the rest of their group, etc.), bomb rock jank in general which can very easily wipe out your entire squad, and so on...
Pikmin 1 is my favorite of the bunch, but it's got some goofy nonsense here and there.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe's controls were basically perfect.
You could freely aim your cursor independently of where you walk, and you had the OPTION to press a button to lock your cursor onto the nearest target.
In Pikmin 4, the manual lock on is useless because the auto lock on is already clingy enough.
It didn't have swarming though, which allowed for a lot of control when not only on the offensive but dodging too. I'm not sure why such a simple yet useful mechanic was seen as obsolete and thrown away in exchange for what we have now.
@@autocorrect5456 Pikmin 3 had dodging mapped to the D-pad for your captain and Pikmin and charging is more effective than swarming in most cases
All of Pikmin 3 Wii U's controls were perfect or at the least, very good. The Switch version is absolutely unplayable to me because they butchered every control option.
@@Hysteria98 I'm not sure if this also occurs when using traditional gamepad controls on Wii U, but I hate how on switch when you turn the camera your character keeps moving in the direction they were originally running in, instead of the position you're holding the left control stick at
@@autocorrect5456 And Pikmin 4 could've almost fixed this but they decided to give you swarming in the very last post-game cave...
9:02 To be fair, with that enemy in particular, it's an intended effect for the pikmin to be distracted by the shiny rocks that fall off of it.
Was probably explained in some dialogue he skipped
Ye that is a Arin Hanson level of "this game it's doo doo look look!" and turns out he is just bad at reading.
@@idk8912can yall stop being annoying whenever a guy on the internet makes one error
he still 100%'d the game and his criticisms are still accurate lol
@@internetguy7319 This is just what people do when someone has criticism on the internet. Nevermind the fact that the criticism still applies overall, he got this one instance wrong, so therefore his point whole point is wrong.
@@internetguy7319 i don't agree with all the video and some problems are more subjective then objective. That is just how the Pikmin serie is some people prefer 1 some 2 some 3 and now some 4.
I find it really interesting that Nintendo chose Pikmin 4 to be their first game (to my knowledge) developed in a third party engine like Unreal Engine 4. Curious to see how much more we'll see this in the future.
Yoshi's crafted world was also made on Unreal.
@@Fi___ Ah. I wasn't aware of that, never played that game myself actually. Thanks for letting me know.
@@Fi___ Nintendo published Crafted World, but it wasn't actually developed by them (the actual developer was Good-Feel). Pikmin 4 was both developed and published by Nintendo.
Fire Emblem Engage was developed using the Unity engine.
@@Fi___ Damn, that's Unreal.
9:07 to the defense of this enemy, pikmin will automatically attack the "gold" objects. This enemy's purpose is to disarray you by messing with your treasure finder, and forcing pikmin to suddenly ignore you.
That being said, I agree with the points on the mechanics to control Pikmin. It is probably my least favorite thing in this game. I feel like I lose a bit of the freedom in how I throw Pikmin. Sometimes I'm trying to grab an item, and for some reason my cursor targets something behind me, and something that's not even close. I have to move the camera in a certain way just to properly collect something, which really halts and hinders the sense of flow I'm going for in trying to complete a mission with complete proficiency. Not having to count Pikmin when grabbing an item can be convenient, but honestly it's annoying when my A button is suddenly not doing anything. It feels kinda cluttered, and can be especially annoying when it comes to certain things like nectar, or the spider bosses mentioned. Wished they kept it simple like in Pikmin 1 and 2. Yeah you have to put a bit more effort aiming and counting how many Pikmin you toss out, but in my opinion it also gives you much more freedom in control. If they really wanted auto-targeting, they should have done it the same way Pikmin 3 did, never had any issues with how it was handled there.
There are other small complaints I have about my overall experience, but that being said, this is definitely my second favorite in the series, One chocked full of content I did not expect for it to have. And I had a genuinely great time playing through this game
Zr is a button that cycles all selectable objects in front of you, and i mean all, so there is an immediate solution to lock on problems in the game itself.
@@stanley8006 Yes but a solution to a problem that shouldn't exist. The autolock and pause throwing "features" just need a simple toggle like the motion controls. Manual lock could stay with the cycling with Zr occurring when you're locked on
Its not perfect but my overall experience has been really great (maybe for the fact that I skipped 3 and grew up with 1 and 2 so pikmin is really nostalgic to me) my fav game is still pikmin 2, really hard compared to 4, especially with the rewind time function (should be disabled completely by default)
Auto-targetting should also be an optional feature. It is by far the worst mechanic introduced in the series, and an absolute nusiance.
@@stanley8006 Here's an analogy: Imagine Ocarina of Time had auto Z-targeting with no option to turn it off. You are fighting two Lizalfos and the focus won't unstick from one while the other is wailing on Link. That's Pikmin 4's auto lock-on at its worst. Being able to switch with ZR to the next thing the game *guesses* you want to look at isn't particularly helpful either.
limiting pikmin types and telling us exactly what ones we need at all times really sucks and removes a lot of the decision-making. always having the right tools and always having time to do it winds up really diminishing room for strategy and player expression outside of the dandori challenges
Having to reorganize your squad EVERY TIME you enter and exit a cave gets so fucking annoying.
imo this really gets at a larger design direction for pikmin 4 where they just take away the need for player decisions and consequences for those decisions. In pikmin 1 if you make a mistake and don't prepare, you are losing a significant amount of your precious limited time. In pikmin 4 it doesn't let you not prepare, and if you do it doesn't matter because you can just rewind a few minutes or just wait for another day because the days don't really have any meaning and are only there because... (really I'm honestly not sure why the days are there, very little would change if you removed the day cycle)
That was the first thing to really make me shake my head when I started looking into Pikmin 4. It's a pushy, intrusive change that I feel like most Pikmin veterans would hate.
Let me play the game you made. If I make a mistake, I'll _learn_ from it. Don't get in the way of that.
Yeah, it feels handholdy, but the alternative would've been to just manually select Pikmins every single time you enter and exit caves, so the selection menu could get annoying after a while. And accidentally choosing the wrong Pikmin types for cave exploration would seriously break the flow of the game and is not the fun-n-fair kind of mistake that you can "strategize" around, as you can never foresee which Pikmin are required for every treasure. The go-to strategy would then be to manually deploy every Pikmin type at all times like in Pikmin 3, trivializing the whole selection aspect anyway.
@@lobsterp3821I think the alternative would just be doing like in pikmin 2 where they show you what hazards show up in the cave, instead of the game automatically giving you all the required pikmin types for the cave.
The only thing i hate is the multiplayer, was it really that hard to make oatchi the 2nd player
Maybe because of oatchis more pikmin like qualities, they felt it wouldn’t be equal?
Switch probably can't handle splitscreen in the regular game, that's why the dandori battles take place in that weird toy dimension where there's little to no detail in the environment.
@@InkyMusteswitch can handle Pikmin 3 multiplayer though
@@cowboyluigi5275Can't really see how that's relevant in any way
@@InkyMustebro just said it isnt relevant even though he just proved you wrong from your sentence “pikmin 4 multiplayer isnt compatible with switch”
Fun Fact. If you press and hold the A Button, it overrides the auto aiming and lets you freely use the gyro aiming with ease.
I feel like I was subconsciously doing this sometimes, not sure. I’ll go back to the game soon to finish up the challenges and stuff and try it out
honestly the unnecessary deaths are some of my favorite parts of pikmin, in the same way that the stupid and frustrating AI of the first game makes it feel more like you're dealing with creatures that aren't always going to understand exactly what your intentions are. it's a weird crossroad of actual intention and limited design options
"It's not a bug; it is a feature" all over again.
I too like it, but not when it came to the likes of the rare Pikmin that you weren't ever sure would get their own Onion (of which I'm happy to spoil they all do for the first time in P4), Pikmin 2 was a nightmare for this, because you had to grind out pre-done dungeons to farm Purple Pikmin for 1 bullshit treasure.
@@Hysteria98 You get the last onions so late, that it basically does not affect the end game anymore, as getting the onion is the end game.
Sure, it is nice to have a proper way to get 100 purple, but even that feeled boring as there where no enemies in the overworld to farm as they do not respawn.
It would be nice to have a "hard mode"/options with tweaks like enimies respawning after 3 days of not being in the area.
cute creatures misunderstand your intentions so they clip through a bridge and drown
So you like when games don't work the way they're supposed too?
For once, I'm happy a big reviewer made a review with a lot of negativity on a game I love. I absolutely adored Pikmin 4, but there's so many flaws that really dampened my experience, and I don't see a ton of people talking about those flaws. The small restrictions that Nintendo made to make the game "more accessible" feels almost arbitrary to a point, where they could've easily made it an toggleable feature, or they could've just not added it in the first place, and it would've made the game significantly better in my eyes. I love Pikmin 4 so much, but damn, it really could have been better with such simple changes.
Because modern reviewers suck. They focus on surface-level details and so long as they’re able to finish it, that’s “good enough”. Removing control and automating things might make it more “optimal” in that the result is achieved faster, but that doesn’t make it _more fun._ It’s technically more optimal if a game played itself too, but then there’s no fun in that. You have to have some element of choice and what is or isn’t has to be balanced. And with a strategy game, I’d say you have to be even more careful with those two things, because the fewer options you have, the less chance you have to make your own strategy. And if you go too far, t ceases to be a strategy game and becomes something else.
I’d still be annoyed because people would be robbing themselves of actually playing a strategy game, but if a lot of these things were options, it wouldn’t be as bad. And it might ease people in enough to where they would get comfortable and taking off the training wheels. But this is like bowling with the lane guards up, and calling it a professional competition. It doesn’t matter what you call it, you changed/forced the experience so much it’s not even the same thing.
Unfortunately, most of the people who play PIKMIN titles (let alone review them - Nerrel being the rare exception), are the very people who would exhume Satoru Iwata's corpse just to steal a lock of his decayed hair.
Lemme start over.
In other words, these are the people who would sniff Miyamoto's farts in glee if he passed gas.
Lemme start over.
These are NintenDUMB zealots with very low standards.
@@mrshmuga9Modern reviewers? What a broad statement. Lmao
With games like these I often feel like peoole who enjoy them are afraid of criticizing them because they're niche and they think a harsh review could negatively impact the future of the franchise. I remember when travis strikes again released some people got angry with negative reviews because they thought those could kill no more heroes as a series.
@@mega20able To be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered if it did kill it. NMH3 was such a letdown. And it’s not even nostalgia as I played them all at the same time (albeit out of order, 1-3-2). A big part of the original/series were the characters, but the aliens barely got any screen time or personality. And then part of the story strings you along just to pull out a cliffhanger. Like they purposefully avoided characters from talking because then they’d have to write something instead of pushing it off. I guess one could say the reveal at the end might negate said discussion, but it’s not satisfying. It just feels like a hollow secondary plot. I think Suda just doesn’t know what to do with sequels, which might explain why everything he does are one-offs.
Actually failing olimars quest is pretty funny with how easy it is
I spent way too much time clearing enemies early on instead of getting parts. I am trash. I am shame.
I almost failed first play through because I couldn’t find Moss and ended up with a couple days collecting nothing because the only treasures left required her.
I finished it on my first try, with about a day to spare
It is easy for veterans (not sure if I'm one) but I've seen some new players (and Pikmin2 fans lol) comment how they stressed out because they can't handle time limits.
I failed my first playthrough because I was like, 10, and wanted to get tons of Blue Pikmin, so spent a bunch of days just farming levels and making number go up
Do a review of the Three Stooges on the NES next.
The most natural follow up to this one
they definitely need to add an auto-lock toggle feature in an upcoming patch. idk why it wasn't optional from the start
This is why I've held off on buying it so far. That auto lock sounds just awful.
@@amunago080 it's really not, believe me. The AI t's smart enough to prioritize active enemies instead of objects, it's easy to toggle between targets with a slight stick tilt, ZR locking does the job when you want to run and throw, and you can hold A to aim freely. Only time when it became problematic was when I wanted to throw more Pikmin than the minimum recquired to carry an object faster.
I didnt have too many annoyances with controlling pikmin but most of my fighting was spamming charge either alone or with Oatchi rather than trying to throw precisely (but maybe that was BECAUSE throwing controls were sticky and awkward).
I loved this game, I just wish the controls weren’t so annoying
Sounds like a dandori issue 🤷♂️
In defense of the "decoy targets" section, the footage you show is an intended decoy mechanic meant to trip your Pikmin up. That said, I know what you mean; the autolock definitely messes with efficiency. I got used to manual locking 99% of the time, though.
Also, I'll hide my "low IQ Nerrel" troll comment here for failing the Olimar mode the 1st time. Git gud [dandori].
Pikmin 4 is a game for ants with more content than an average AAA game.
This
💀💀💀
Tasks and waiting isn't content but it's more packed than old ones
@@TanixKington😊😊
An average AAA game? What AAA games have you been playing?
I played the gamecube version of pikmin 1 recently and found the game and its controls just fine. I think its a good starting point.
If anything, I feel the more limited aiming kind of adds to the game, in a way.
Its more limited but always consistent which is easier to play around
My exact feelings as a Pikmin veteran. Each new mechanic alone changes the gameplay in a sutble way. But all added up, it was a drastic change to the core gameplay.
Too much streamlining can disrupt the flow of the gameplay loop. Which robs a game of some of its essence.
I started Pikmin with New Play Control Pikmin on the Wii and have played every game in the series. There is no beating Wii Remote aiming, but I can confidently say that this game would be the best in the series IF ONLY YOU COULD TURN OFF THE AUTO AIM!!! It really ruined the experience for me, which is a shame because there's such a good game in there underneath that frustrating mechanic.
Also it would be nice if the enemies had more health so that boss fights weren't over so quickly.
Such a testament to Pikmin 1, 2, and 3 in that they are genuinely the only games I think I have ever played where the Wiimote was literally the perfect controller and it took a long while to even realise that because the controller left such a bad taste in the mouth with every other game for years, as did the Wii overall.
I always liked Nerrel's videos on motion controls and what the Wiimote did for games, but never agreed on any of the examples, because the controller still brought caveats that gamepads did not.
Pikmin again is the only game ever where the Wiimote is the only way i'd ever play it. Just absolutely perfect. Like it was born for it.
A hard mode would be good.
There's way too much juice.
@@Hysteria98 Which makes it all the more hysterical since the Wii is the only Nintendo console since the series' inception to not get an original Pikmin game.
@@BrickBreakerXXPikmin 3 was planned for the Wii but got delayed so much that ended up being a Wii u game unfortunately
There's something about Nerrel's sense of humor that I utterly enjoy. "Now there's a Pikman." might as well be my favorite Joker quote from now on.
I do think Pikmin 4 is still a quality game that's just in desperate need of a free tiny quality of life update that gives us more options and maybe a new game plus for late-game unlocks. I'm crossing my fingers we get that sooner rather than later.
Loved the comments on the controls and how intrusive they are to gameplay. I really hope they never come back, or at least that they come back with toggles.
i played occasionally single player, but when the 2nd player played, they had no aiming lock on, it was also a pretty powerful thing to have even if there's no "player 2" given the free items that normally cost raw material for p1 to use.
but man it would have been cool to have a dedicated 2 captains playing mode, maybe in the dlc for pikmin 2's story mode into 4
Holy shit Nerrel Pikmin review - what a time to be alive.
aaaaaaaaaand it's shit
at least we can still play pikmin 3
and it's ass
Pikmin 3 fanboys being as annoying as always
Time to unsubscribe
I'm surprised how much he hates the game honestly. Pikmin 2 was my favourite game until 4 came out.
uh... he actually offers many solid points of criticism. i guess it must be surprising to people lacking critical thought@@residentevilfan543
@@residentevilfan543 But in the conclusion of the video, he says that Pikmin 4 is a fine game and that it is "well worth playing in general". He certainly was critical of it, but that doesn't sound like hating it to me.
"In pikmin 3 I would reset constantly to save pikmin, but in this game it always felt like the little bastards deserved it."
Is a weird yet accurate way of describing the pikmin worth difference between these two games.
As an experienced Pikmin player (having played all the mainline entries, excluding Hey! Pikmin), I didn't have as many issues with auto-lock as other people did; it might've had a couple hiccups here and there, but other than that, it was still a fantastic experience.
I'll say my only gripe with the game was the Oatchi commands and Item menu; it takes so long to open that I never bothered to give it a chance.
'Hey! Pikmin' wasn't a mainline entry. It was a handheld spin off, that deviated from the main games.
Also played all the mainline games, but reaaaaally got frustrated with the autolock rather frequently. It's kinda sad when the brand new game makes me wish it was more like the previous one. Don't get me wrong, I loved Pikmin 4 and I kinda regret bulldozing through it in a single weekend like I did. In fact, I'll probably replay it many times over. But the controls of 3 were so much better. The auto-lock is only helpful when you have the option to turn it off. Attacking groups of enemies or picking up multiple items at once were made so difficult for no reason. 3 was bad enough about that, but at least you could still click the trigger to switch targets repeatedly or turn off the lock entirely. 4 doesn't allow that at all and it's such a shame.
But yeah agreed that the menus take way too long. I rarely used items or Oatchi commands because of it. It felt faster to disband, switch to him, and walk him places myself than to wait for that menu to load up and register button presses.
For multiple group of enemies just spam the A button to kill them, and for picking up multiple objects at once use the charge button or again just spam A @@animeartist888
Did you know you can hotkey the Oatchi command and item menus to the D-pad? I had the same reluctance to use them until I figured that out.
Yeah, I thought the Auto Lock-On worked fine for me. Most of the time it would lock onto exactly what I wanted. Though, admittedly, in the few times it didn't, oh boy, that sucked...
As for the quick menu, yeah no it's awful. Thank God you can assign pretty much all of the quick menu commands onto you D-Pad and analog stick, other wise I would have a WAAAAAY less enjoyable time with Pikmin 4.
I didn't have as many problems with the controls personally, Especially with large groups of items the charge mechanic bypasses the unnecessary lock-on. while I wouldn't say the controls make the game unplayable (I find that to be a little hyperbolic), I think there should have been more control options too the player.
Same, I feel like the game incentives you to use oatchi for a lot of encounters as well. The control options should definitely be there but I didn't really notice any of these issues, and I've been a fan since pikmins 2 gamecube release.
As an experienced Pikmin fan, the auto lock was a minor inconvenience at worst. I never really experienced these horribly frustrating situations everyone else seems to have, though I do think I'd turn it off given the option
Same, doesn't make me hate it any less.
Agree, it can be annoying but no where near “game ruining”
Yeah I almost never had any of the issues he brings up
I had problems when a few small items/enemies were close to one another, but only 2-3 times.
I never even noticed the auto lock until it was pointed out me. Even then, when I needed more prise controls I just held A and took my time to aim with the gyro.
Tbh, I had more trouble with Pikmin 3 deluxe’s lock on. It made it really hard to target specific enemies, like the puckering bllinow, which were fast and agile.
I also kind of feel like the music in Pikmin 4 is a big downgrade from the rest of the series, but maybe that was just the sound mixing? I felt like I was never able to hear the music and there were no options to increase music volume specifically
I dont know i feel about oatchi. Hes such a powerful tool that defies a lot of pikmin conventions, like trying to control the army following you. Im glad hes here, but the fact he can do so much and so perfectly takes away some unintentional charm.
Idk, the homing charge kind of already breaks the game. Oatchi at this point can only give more depth and options.
it would be nice that the game gave us more "Oatchi less" challenges, considering he can't climb or pass through iron bars or small warp holes. Hope they do that on a future DLC.
I loved Pikmin 4 and I love Pikmin in general, but I absolutely agree with what you said about the controls, specially the auto lock. I knew there was something wrong when I went back to Pikmin 1 after beating Pikmin 4 and I actually prefered the controls from Pikmin 1 since I could freely move the cursor
The auto-lock on and throw stop assist controls are by far the #1 complaint I hear about Pikmin 4. I'm surprised Nerrel didn't mention the baffling decision to make the most fun and useful upgrades (Lineup Trumpet, Plucking Whistle, Oatchi's infinite rush) impossibly late unlocks. The former can be fixed by an update, but the latter we are probably stuck with unless you download one of several mods that fix the upgrades.
Edit: The gyro aim in Pikmin 4 has had a mixed reception, but I like it. I've always felt comfortable with the classic stick controls in Pikmin 1 and 2. Stick controls + gyro helps with stuff stick controls can't do, which is mainly whistling far away Pikmin. Throwing Pikmin as far as gyro aim allows is rarely necessary, but also isn't that hard in Pikmin 4's gyro implementation. IMO, the way Nintendo did Pikmin 4's gyro aim eliminates the constant gyro drift which Pikmin 3 Deluxe suffered from, which is a win. The classic stick controls might rely on auto-lock on like a crutch in Pikmin 4, sure, but I bet it could work just as well with a manual lock on.
I'm glad the traditional controls felt good in this. They felt terrible in 3.
They should definitely had an option to have to use a button to lock on.
You can customize the shortcuts at anytime. You can even assign them to control stick presses
That Zoolander joke will never get old to me
full series spoilers
...
I 100% agree that the Engulfed Castle is a major highlight of the game, but the issue I have with it is that it already *was* a major highlight of Pikmin 2.
It's an almost 1 to 1 recreation of the Submerged Castle, and besides the ledges and gates to justify having Oatchi there it barely has any new ideas. It's just one of the most memorable parts of Pikmin 2 that is now also in Pikmin 4.
In comparison to the Formidable Oak in Pikmin 3, which is also based around the Submerged Castle, it gets even more rough. Sure, the Mysterious Life-Form is definitely based off of the Waterwraith, but the whole segment is wildly different than in 2. For starters, it's not the same map, which I feel is the least that Pikmin 4 should have done. Additionally, you're also getting chased the whole time, and the obstacles are set up so it's more like an escape room sequence instead of a collect-everything-and-get-outta-here experience. It also helps that you're not literally just getting chased by the same Waterwraith from again, and it has different properties and methods of attacking. This sort of deviation and creativity with new ideas isn't even remotely present in the Engulfed Castle, and in my opinion the entire game as a whole has this same problem.
Besides Oatchi and the way the overworld is designed, there aren't really any new exciting ideas. There are new enemies but most of them rely heavily on "you need to use Oatchi's rush" and others are just elemental variations of existing enemies. Most of the bosses you encounter are ripped from Pikmin 2, and half of the "new" bosses are just variations of older ones (the worst being the normal enemies that are just big now).
The last boss is an exception to this (besides it being Louie riding a thing again but without the subtlety of whether he's actually controlling it), but the fight itself has it's own problems. It deviates to an extreme degree from the rest of the series as a whole, where you have to actually wait for it to do its thing before you get a chance to attack with multiple phases. It involves a *lot* of waiting around in comparison to almost every other boss in the series, where the whole battle is in an 'always vulnerable, always dangerous' state. I personally do like the boss fight, but it does feel like it relies 99% on the platforming abilities of Oatchi and barely on actual Pikmin gameplay, which seems like a negative change altogether.
Comparing it to Pikmin 3 again, the actual fight portion of the Plasm Wraith uses all of Pikmin gameplay completely, having to command different Pikmin to defeat different cubes while simultnaeously dodging the Wraith's attacks. It's like the opposite of the final boss in Pikmin 4, and by extension the final boss of 4 is the opposite of what the series has been known for up to this point.
Pikmin 4 is by no means a bad game and I do love it, but after my first playthrough I was really disappointed. I get that the game is supposed to cater to new players, but they literally just rereleased the first two games on Switch so now the whole main series is on there, so it makes very little sense to have to cater to them to the point of almost exclusively retreading old ideas. For someone who has praised the games for being its own unique thing each time (they're all tied for me quality-wise but in different aspects), Pikmin 4 being mostly consistent of old ideas (ideas that felt more complete in Pikmin 2) really dampered a lot of it for me.
This whole comment is really poorly formated because TH-cam mobile moment (and off-topic with the final boss thing) but hopefully I got my feelings across.
One thing I've never seen anyone mention, which I had more problems with than the auto-aim, was that the pikmin-type icon at the end of the cursor kept getting in the way, so I couldn't always see how many pikmin a task needed.
“Gummy UI” feels like a game gaslighting me into thinking something is wrong with the controller (or the connection is blocked). Glad I’m not actually crazy, but also irritated that anyone would ever implement a delay on text boxes.
I’m so sick of automation and oversimplification being the mythical duct tape of game devs nowadays. If someone wasn’t interested in your game when it had it’s unique fun and challenges, why the fuck would not actually being able to play be your solution? Nobody can ever just be happy for the fans they accumulate, they always need to reconceptualize the fucking wheel in hopes of winning over fans of cubes and pyramids. As if it’s not a matter of taste, but “Everyone else is just too darn stupid to understand why my game is a masterpiece and if I just make it as dumb as them them they’ll all love it!” Jesus fucking christ.
I hated this game for all the control and AI reasons you mentioned. However, I also hate it for how pointless it feels.
Oatchi can practically solo every enemy so why bother using pikmin at all. I 100%d the game, and it never knew whether it wanted to be utterly obnoxious to beat, or pacifyingly easy.
Why is the story a bizarre reboot? It doesn't do anything interesting with its new setting and just feels plodding. Sure lets erase the last three games because ???
Nothing of interest happens in this game! It doesnt offer more insight on our characters or the world, like 2 and 3 did. It doesnt even have a satisfying story of its own: you save olimar, heal everyone, louie's there for no reason, and you leave, the end.
This is literally the Star Fox Zero of Pikmin.
Also dont you dare say 1&2's controls and AI were worse than this. They weren't. Pikmin might've gotten distracted sometimes, but you always had perfect control of them thanks to the whistle not taking up the entire screen, and the pikmin always going to where you want them to go. None of the AI issues you mentioned 4 having did either 1 or 2 have. With the Wii ports, you had perfect control and the only difficulty was REAL, not artificial difficulty because of the controls.
I've never played the Wii versions of Pikmin 1 and 2 I played them on Gamecube, I haven't played 4 yet but I guess I can't relate to people saying the first 3 games without gyro have shit controls
The gamecube versions are hard to go back to, especially 1. The wii ones improved the ai, aiming, and even switching between what pikmin type to throw with a button press.
@@TomatoKing1817
Eh, even after playing 3, I can revisit the gamecube ones just fine. I honestly prefer the more limited cursor.
I love the cursor best on the cube honestly
The auto lock being something the game doesn't make optional was one of my biggest gripes with this game. It just felt like I was playing a click & pointer game at points. I still really enjoyed the game but a few tweaks and changes here and there would of made it a masterpiece. The few things I disliked/would change
- Make the game harder
-Oatchi while fun made the game super easy
- Added more underwater segments
- Graphically the game shined in these areas and we're fun but just felt like afterthoughts
- Online multiplayer
- Bingo battle bring it back I loved it
THANK YOU, Ive been wanting to make a neurell style video on my opinions on pikmin4 the way you made one for totk but its great to hear it from the horses mouth
Experienced Pikmin player here. I don't feel like I had nearly as many issues with the controls as you did. But I typically take a slower, more methodical approach to Pikmin. even the bosses that FEEL like they're enticing you into chaos always have a tell or a way to control the situation.
For some reason I really like how starts talking about Pikmin by saying "they look like this."
as a new comer the controls piss me off
"sOuNdS LiKE a DAnDoRi iSSuE" - every time you give a critique
4 was my introduction to the series and I loved it so much I went back and bought the rest. I agree with your opinion on the controls being limiting with one exception. That boss creature with the gold stuff on its back I'm pretty sure when those things are knocked off I think its intentional that your pikmin are drawn to it like the iridescent flint beetle. It's the wrinkle to that fight and it's okay to not like it, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a mistake.
9:20 I firmly believe that the Pikmin doing stupid, chaotic things is part of the gameplay. It’s certainly not new to Pikmin 4.
I honestly wasn't a fan of Pikmin 4. It's a very "safe" Pikmin game that tries to appeal to everyone, which isn't necessarily bad but it does lose a bit of the charm that Pikmin is known for. Most of the memorable enemies/moments are recycled from the older games, no reason to care about micro management, the controls being idiot proofed, Oatchi taking the spotlight from the actual Pikmins, way too handholdy etc. It's not a bad game, but a bad Pikmin game imo.
It's a fun game that feels like it's constantly doing its utmost to make the experience more tedious than it needs to be.
The challenges definitely require micro-management.
It's definitely trying to appeal to everyone though, and does it in both good and not-so-good ways
"It's like Lemmings. Another game you haven't played. Unless you are 40 years old"
Me: *cold sweats*
I wish there were at least more options for controls. I also wish some of the game mechanics were introduced earlier in the game rather than way later. I really wish we got the leader horn way earlier. It would have made avoiding boss attacks way easier. But overall a great game with some flaws. Can't wait for the pikmin modders to get their hands on it :)
I'm a long-time Pikmin fan, and I did really enjoy Pikmin 4, but I found the difficulty and the streamlining really dampened my experience. One thing not mentioned in the video, that I admit is a pretty niche complaint I don't expect many other people were bothered by, is that I wasn't huge on was the large reuse of enemies/bosses from previous games. I really looked forward to seeing new enemies, but there didn't end up being very many. Even when new enemies do appear, many are simply elemental palette swaps. The behavioral/anatomical/ecological aspect to the enemies has always been a large draw for me so this was disappointing. There were elemental palette swaps in previous games, but it was mainly just the dweevils and blowhogs (which actually had a pretty well-reasoned rationale behind theirs - the watery blowhog had lost the capacity to ignite its lighter fluid) It made them feel less like rationalized fictional creatures and more like video game enemies. I certainly understand it from a game design perspective and I think some implausibility is part of the fun of fictional creatures, but it could have felt a bit more natural. I think the reuse really hurts the bosses too - The overworld bosses you just kind of obliterate immediately, and the ones in caves are almost entirely reused or just large versions of regular enemies. There weren't many "Oh no, how am I going to beat this thing?" moments for me and I didn't feel like I was exploring and finding new things as much as in previous games.
The autolock definitely brought the game down a bit, but I would say it was far from a superlative like "unplayable" even in its worst moments... For me, anyway, but I happen to be good at Pikmin, lol. I do agree with your assessment on the game's issues.
I truly love the videos you make! Thank you.
As a beginner to the series, I found the controls to be overall very helpful. There were some cases where it wasn’t, but in most cases I quite liked it. There’s a gain and loss from these controls, and I find myself preferring them even if there’s a bit of a loss
As a newcomer to the series, I feel the auto-lock is helpful half the time and annoying the other half. The gyro is also weird in all kinds of ways. The fact it only activates after you throw or whistle is counter-productive as you said. I think my brain also keeps expecting it to be relative to the center of the screen or my own position rather than where the pointer is. I also wish ZR let you use the gyro freely instead of the weird manual pseudo-lock it does. I still love the game but having customizable controls would improve it immensely
Nerrel you absolute legend, I wish you uploaded more since you’re my favorite TH-camr
The two "let me start over" bits got me.
Honestly, I didn't have too hard a time with the controls. Sure, the weird auto lock on can be annoying, but I found it easy to work around with the gyro. With throwing bombs, for example, if it locks onto something you don't want, just shift the reticle over to the thing you do want to blow up. I tend to also keep my distance from enemies and such, which seems to make switching between targets a little easier. With the manual lock, you can switch between targets by just pressing the lock button again, too. Maybe this'll help some of you guys out there, but more likely I'm just weird.
9:01
I'd say part of the intended challenge with Gilldemander boss fight is that the Gold bits of treasure that fall of its back are supposed to be decoys that distract Pikmin. When the gold is knocked off, the Gildemander will try to pick it's gold back up, lapping up any pikmin that are currently latched onto it along the way. Since it is an "anglerfish", it makes sense it baits Pikmin with something Shiny and then eats them while their distracted.
Aside from that, I'd wholeheartedly agree that fighting the auto-lock controls made getting Platinums in some of Dandori Challenges far harder than they should be.
I think the first two Pikmin games have the best controls. I love swarming and throwing them really fast in those games.
As a Pikmin fan since '02, I had the opposite problem with the controls. I found they simplified things too much, and made the game too easy for me. I never encountered a single problem with them not doing what I wanted, but I'd love the challenge of being able to play without auto-lock. I always played Pikmin 3 with the Gamepad however, so It's likely that it was easier for me to adjust to the new control scheme, because I never tried playing with the Wii Remote/Gyro controls. Pikmin 4 is a great entry for newcomers, but the challenge leaves a lot to be desired for fans like myself. I beat Olimar's Shiprwreck tale on my first try in twelve days without ever seeing a Pikmin loss, and could likely beat it faster if I cared enough to replay it.
I hope we get a "Hard mode" update that ramps up the difficulty, allows us to turn off the automated controls on all modes -- Because other than the lack of difficulty, this is probably my favorite game in the series. It's so close to being perfect, that I hope Nintendo decides to take the extra step to _make_ it perfect.
I feel the same way. I've never used Wii pointer controls either.
I've only just gotten the first ending for Pikmin 4 so far, but I feel like the auto-lock works reeeeally well. But part of the fun of the first two Pikmin for me was manually tossing them exactly where I wanted, and I feel like the auto-lock takes away half the gameplay.
I agree that Pikmin4 has sticky controls, but for a different reason. Many of the lock on issues go away by using the charge horn. It's faster than individual throws, and targets multiple objects at once, However, the game's controls practically go out of their way to make that inconvenient. You can't use it on Oatchi, so you have to fumble to get off of him to pick things up. I found the absolute best power up for the dog is lift strength. Get off him, assign him to the heaviest thing you can find, charge horn the Pikmin, and do things on foot with the troops you have left. If you time it in your head right, you can have Oatchi deliver the thing, and then command it to take the Pikmin at base to go to another part of the map while you're doing something else. It's satisfying to pull off, and I actually found it far less janky than the pool cue like aiming of the charge horn in Pikmin3. But, you can only do it after you fumble with the controls.
I think the layout and menuing have the same issue as Tears of the Kingdom. Lots of things are divided in sets of four across the different buttons on the controller. You have to stop to figure out which button from which set to do things, but you're on the clock so you inevitably misclick three times in a row and in the process waste a spicy spray(I just straight up removed consumables from my quick select bar and replaced it with Long distance Oatchi/Pikmin commands since that's usually what I'm fumbling for anyways.)
This compartmentalization style of controls simply don't work. Nobody using an interface consciously thinks of the button they're pressing. They rely of muscle memory to make the movements for them while their conscious mind is focused on choosing what task they want to do. You don't know how to type if you actively have to think about which button to press next. How did this even happen? Who suddenly started making these awful design decisions?
This is wild, I dont know if we are post control patch now or what, but ive been playing the past week and have had zero control issues that were frustrating in the ways described here. Game plays great, and I've played everything prior. There are aspects of those games and their respective controls that i miss, but this game feels like the best parts of all of those. The only things that ended up being challenging were the challenges that are meant to be the hardest ones. Really sad to hear that others are having a rougher experience.
I am just sad that we didn´t get more of the Pikmin 3 Coop-Mode. It is the ultimate 2 player experience.
as a newbie to the series, i didnt mind the auto-lock and only had minimal frustrations with it, namely on some sage leaf trials or areas with a lot of items and/or enemies in close proximity. i can see where your critisism comes from though, and it certianly would have been preferable to be given some toggle options. i would have surely experienmented with other control options if they had been available to me!
If only we had Ochi the jedi hunter trying to carry bombs but then tripping and blowing up an entire squad of Pikmin. Would have been a very different game.
Probably getting this for the holiday. I was a big fan of Pikmin 3 on Wii U. Only reason I haven’t gotten 4 yet is because I’m trying to work on my backlog. Everything I’ve seen from 4 looks extremely polished.
ive been luke warm on this games release and this man managed to sell it to me in one minute
It's basically a chill collectathon at this point. Great for sales sure but the timer was so integral for me
I think your points about the auto-lock are fair (even though It's possible to switch targets with manual lock by pressing ZR, which you didn't mention). But with your points about the Pikmin AI, It's worth remembering that they've always acted like that. Sure, just because previous games did it doesn't mean It's okay for this one to do it too, but if anything, I think 4 has the best Pikmin AI in the series, especially because of some improvements that you didn't mention such as the Pikmin no longer entering water even if you enter it, or not carrying objects through hazards they aren't immune to.
Nerrel's reviews are great. Only played the demo for this one but what really stood out for me was the stiffness and annoying controls/lock on. It seems such a step back from 3 (especially the deluxe version) that you have to wonder what happened.
10:50 LOL "This is no time for a history lesson!"
Nice add to that section. xD
I found the most consistent results wrt aiming by straight up turning off gyro aim, because it's all kinds of effed to sunday in this game. As far as I was able to tell before it pissed me off enough to turn it off forever, gyro aim only activates _after_ you start pressing the throw button, and with my pretty shaky hands, it caused the auto aim to go from bad to _worse_ because I wasn't hitting anything anymore past the first pikmin thrown. What I found worked for me was embracing aim-locking and pressing the switch targets button like mad when needed. Essentially, it turned the fights from a frustrating throw everything at everything and hope it works out mess into a significant test of my reflexes, which at least was in my control in comparison. Still, pikmin and the wiimote were a match made in heaven, and we can only hope that the console pikmin 5 will be on will come with a controller aiming scheme that rivals the best two gamecubes stapled together in the world.
i was really beginning to think no one actually saw the flaws in this game
great video!
I love this guy he always dose the kind of meaningful game analysis that you don’t see in reviews
I personally didn’t mind the controls. Yeah, the controls were smoother in Pikmin 3, but Oatchi makes up for so much and bypasses most of these situations.
Nerrel is the only person on the planet that could get me to watch a Pikmen related video
(9:00)
I do believe that for this specific boss (and the smaller variants), the pikmin being distracted by the gold "nuggets" is intentional.
"We need to make the controls dumbed down for new-comers!"
*Makes it worse for new-comers and fans alike
I barely finished Pikmin 4 with only beating the main story boss and allowing the night mode to stack all the leaf people i've saved in the hub with like 20 people just laying there as the game gave me no reason to clear it. This game does a lot of good quality of life changes and additions but there were some elements as shown in the video that took me out on my experience. This game does major hand holding from start to finish and is butt ass easy with features like Oatchi and advising the player to rewind rather than letting the player think for themselves. Pikmin 4 is not a bad game but i find it rather weak considering where we're at in this series and being the fourth game coming out after a decade wait.
Nerrel's thoroughness about these products takes a load off my plate
I don't get why you'd censor the water wraith but not the smokey prog
I think my abuse of the charging whistle led to me enjoying the controls. The only time I didn't enjoy them was when I didn't have it at the start of Olimar's side mode.
I really didn't have problem with the control, you just have to change how to approach things like fight or collect and not to try to do both, this also helped me with dandori stuff, also to battle more effectively you just have to use oatchi more, which I think is the reason for the autolock
control complaint that wasn't mentioned, if you're underwater with blue pikmin and oatchi is following above with pikmin on his back the type select will keep switching back to him when I use charge even though I can't use him, very frustrating for frantic fights where my attention can't be spared on it. it doesn't tend to lead to my squad dying but it is very annoying.
I like the hexagonal censoring
I never had the controls be remotely this bad as described and I've 100%'d the entire thing. The only part of 4 I can think of that the controls became an issue was that one sage trial with the 99 larva.
Leave it to Nerrel to always point out flaws I had never considered before but totally agree with
Did you blur out some spoilers, or is that part of the game?
I blurred a returning boss from the old games
He is Lying it is a part of the game
Yeah he’s lying, that’s in the game
Weird that Nerrel would lie about that, thats how it is in the game.
It's not even a spoiler- the game outright hints at it it's obvious as hell. If you've played Pikmin 2 you'll recognise it because they literally remade the entire dungeon and even the music returns untouched.
Thank god for this review. It's fair and while I have differing of opinions on a few things, nothing you said was wrong. I felt insane people's criticisms of the game extended to "auto lock-on annoying." As a Pikmin 1 & 3 enjoyer I still feel 2 is the most unfun to play for me, however 4 feels actively spiting on my face. It took away my ability to play the game as I liked and replaced it by a mediocre experience where every non-choice I made didn't matter.
They should have as a target lock switch button to switch between nearby enemies/targets and non linear caves like pipes, ect.
0:36 - Dude, I'm 31 and I used to love Lemmings as a child. My father let me play the DOS version. :D
The only issue i had woth control alis the auto lock on. Sometimes it isnt responsive enough. But that was pretty much it. This is also my first pikmin, so kaybe not knowing how the control scheme worked prior helped
00:39 wtf why am I being attacked
Huh, I also 100% this game and didn't have anywhere near as many issues with the controls as you did and I enjoyed it the whole way through. I wonder if your pikmin 3 senses were battling against pikmin 4s style?