Pikmin 4's Difficulty is Horribly Designed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ค. 2024
- Pikmin 4 has quite a few problems but one of the biggest problems is the game's difficulty. From features like the Auto-Lock On, Oatchi and the Three Type Limit, Nintendo has made this game's difficulty less than stellar
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Omni man oatchi
Omni man
omnioatchi
oatchi is to blame 😭
@@LynCubed lmao i said the same thing
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
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
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.
@@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
@@tapdancinggiraffe9047 don’t blame you at all I almost wish I did that
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)
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.
The consequences of our actions
Can’t even escape Extinction in video games smh
Cant wait for Pikmin 5 to have an auto mode, where the game plays itself
Pikmin 5 will use the same gameplay as seen in Pikmin Bloom.
Doesnt pikmin 4 have a feature where someone does the night missions for you?
@@Light_Repairman i think so the one I thought was the most stupid is that they can do the dandori battles for u
Pikmin 6 where once you boot up the game it’s just a black screen with the text “you win”
Pikmin 7 is entirely post game.
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
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
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.
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
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
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.
ik this reply adds nothing to this but I just wanted to say you're so right
I would've bought a switch if the ttyd remake had a hard mode... Instead it got easier
@@MrBritishNinja That is not the case with the new 2 bosses.
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
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
imagine an alternative universe where we didn't get the dog
That would be awesome
I mean in that world, the new players would be crying with how the Water Wraith would be a threat.
The dog is ridiculously unbalanced and awful for the game, but he's also a funny dog, so...
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.
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
After I eliminated all enemies on the surface, I waited for them to respawn…
… but nobody came
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.
Maybe also have it where Pikmin can fall off oatchi while charging because they were not holding on hard enough.
Remember how in the first few games Bulborbs actually used to be threatening
Trying to kill a Bulborb in 1 feels like a headache, in a good way.
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
No. You just run behind them while they're sleeping with a reasonable squad of reds, spam A and they die every time.
No?
@@KaguyaHIf you have that big of a squad, you are bluntly playing wrong
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
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."
At least swarming is still an option…
AT THE VERY END OF THE GAME (at least is useful in Olimar’s Shipwreck Tale)
PLEASE
AUTO AIM
TOGGLE
OFF
O LORD
GIVE
ANTI AUTO AIM
pikmin 4 hardmode that just removes all the convience and you actually have to play the game
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
PIKMIN 4 was the first PIKMIN game I ever played and honestly the auto lock on(and Ochie) make me wish I got PIKMIN 3 instead so I could have a more PIKMIN like experience without feeling like I’m cheating. Next time I play PIKMIN I’m not gonna use otchi….too bad I’m still stuck using auto lock on!
I 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.
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.
Except for that one male sheargrub that was removed. You know which one I’m talking about.
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.
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.
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!
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
Smokey Progg was always easy
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
Oatchi is a shotgun and the Pikmin are the pellets is how it feels a lot of the time in Pikmin 4
Its a little wild how much could be solved if they decided that Pikmin just couldn't ride on Oatchi.
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.
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).
@@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
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.
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.
just so Olimar can get a dog which would make for nice goodies
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.
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
@@ToaderTheToad yes exactly
Disagreed
*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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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.
omg sage leaf as a villain would be awesome, I never thought about that before. now I'm disappointed too lol
@@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.
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.
Pikmin 5 better be like pikmin 2 really hard
If it is would probably be a difficulty option
Pikmin 2 isn't hard you just crawl around and spam purples at everything
@@grimey3480unless water. Or electricity. In that case bust out the blue or yellow pikmin and spray them, and the enemy if needed
@@grimey3480an oversimplification, but yes
@@luginess0 The spray argument is fair in a way but unless you're Schaffrillas and want to waste hours of your life grinding an intentionally hard-to-get resource you're gonna want to pick and choose where you want to spend them
It's still better than Pikmin 4 where you have all of these busted moves at your disposal without limit
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.
amen
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
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
Oatchi is Canonically the strongest character in the Pikmin universe.
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 😔
Nah
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.
the most skillful dandori approach to life is to not spend your time arguing on reddit
@@gren4586 Fair enough, but it's kinda the main place people discuss and shitpost about Pikmin. Also it's better than Twitter
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.
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
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
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
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.
all games should have difficulty settings as accessibility options, and they should actually mean something beyond just health and damage numbers. idk how this hasn't been figured out by more devs yet.
Because having meaningful difficulty changes requires a lot more work on the developers' part that's just not really feasible. It's like he said in the video, you can't just fix Pikmin 4 by removing Oatchi even though he's busted. Enemy AI, enemy health pools, and Pikmin AI, among other things, all factor into the overall difficulty, and trying to modify that sort of stuff while _also_ being able to test and balance the game in a reasonable amount of time is a ridiculous ask. This can vary from game to game, of course, some genres will facilitate this a lot easier than others.
This is why, rather than do all of that, intelligent developers will instead give the players tools and options to essentially create their own difficulty (think of Souls games, Elden Ring especially.) The problem is that in order for that to be impactful, the game has to be designed around a specific "average level" from which you can deviate by using more or less of your available tools until you feel the game is appropriate. Pikmin 4 attempts to do this with stuff like character/Oatchi upgrades and consumable items that are ridiculously powerful, but ultimately the "average level" around which Pikmin 4 is designed is not high enough even if you limit yourself.
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
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.
Also the retcon and sparkle stuff
Oachi could take goku
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.
I will admit unless you actively cheese bosses the boss interactions are still there, but I definitely feel like enemies are the main issue, I don’t have a problem with easier difficulty most of the time due to it meaning you can get done more in a day keeping the progress going, but when too many enemies fall faster than the time needed to dig something up I definitely feel like there needs to be more to them in future titles without being infuriating or boring, enemies like the bulborb, orange Bulborb, and some of the blow hogs can stay how they are because they are simple and have simple counters like ambushing or just attacking before they become a threat, so I think it is mainly if the enemy is meant to be simple or just needs more skill required for some enemies (besides sheargrubs I hope they never get their free kills ever again)
I feel like Oachi should only be able to carry +/- 50 Pikmin
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.
Imagine an alternate universe where pikmin 4 ACTUALLY got a hard mode of any kind
The onky way to make the game harder is by having to use your teeth to press the buttons while being tied upside down.
@@AnAveragePurplePikmin i might try that challenge, maybe it'll give any sort of difficulty to the game!
the part that bothered me most is that i would leave oatchi at the base.
then he would pop up randomly.
"oatchi found his way back to you!"
i seriously hate that dog. he robbed me of a pikmin game. it was an Oatchi game, Feat Pikmin.
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.
Pikmin 4 makes design choices so mind-bogglingly stupid it makes you wonder how it even is a Nintendo game.
Sure, it has that certain Nintendo charm and all that, but the main reason this game has abysmal replayability is because when the novelty wears off, all you're left with is a barren game with braindead enemies that won't even respawn on most situations.
Oh, and also late-game unlockables what could've been cool to use if the game actually let you make use of them.
Like, I still appreciate it for what it is and keeping the series alive, but the game design is so bad that it might be the worst mainline game.
What's with Nintendo's obssesion of taking off options, such as Auto aim on Pikmin 4 or Set mode for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet
I think something you should also have included is the freezing ability of ice pikmin, and how plentiful spicy spray is.
Something I think would also have been a meaningful addition to the game is you making a list of changes for a theoretical higher difficulty mode.
Honestly, we need more TH-camrs like you who are critical about Pikmin games, but still like them, and can actually back up their points instead of just "Haha funny TH-cam Reviewer with controversial opinion"
Personally, I think that Pikmin 1 and 3 really hammered the difficulty level the series should go for. They aren’t easy, and don’t have many mechanics that feel like a crutch. Pikmin 3’s lock-on and charging were pretty damn good, but it’s not too easy to cheese many enemies using them. The auto choose feature is fine imo, but only for caves as sometimes the hazards could be misleading in 2. The 3-type limit is lame, but understandable, and the auto-lock in 4 is really irritating, and the option to turn it off should’ve been there. In short, Pikmin 4 is way too easy, but Pikmin 2 was still probably way too difficult. The caves were not made well, and should’ve been closer to Pikmin 4’s, just harder.
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
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.
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
We were all thinking this, but no one was brave enough to say it.
Thank you.
i 100% the game in 30 hours and never played it again
note that this game is priced the same as RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2
and you can buy watch dogs 1 and 2 for 50 dollars i think (without sale) and it has 4x content then this waste of ＭＯＮＥＨ
*Based.*
@@UphillBridge based? BASED ON WHAT?
Most craptendo games aren't worth their price
They're at best worth like 40 bucks, but then they add the 20 extra as the "Nintendo tax", as I call it
Paying for the "privilege" of playing their crap on their overpriced crap consoles
I love Pikmin 3 but 4 just sort of boiled things to mush.
3 Deluxe Ultra Spicy is my favourite Pikmin campaign.
Ultra Spicy is my least favorite and honestly worst main campaign because it’s completely slapped together and not enjoyable
ultra spicy is good, but the 60 pikmin limit sucks
OG Pikmin 3 is def better
@@pikminologueraisin2139 I love both but prefer Deluxe by a smidgen.
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*
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.
You know the game is unbalanced when you can beat most of the game with the dog and some items only.
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
13:10 what happened to that poor tusked blowhog!?
My legal copy of Pikmin 4 on my legal Nintendo Switch started acting funny
The auto lock on killed one of my red pikmin, Nintendo you’re sins are UNFORGIVEABLE
The last point, I agree with, let us turn off, ENEMIE LOCK ON DIFFCULTY WITH CAVES yea they should have just made a hard mode.
Pikmin 4 shifted the difficulty away from careful play against enemies that can wipe you out if you dont strategize properly, to quick optimized play to maximize dandori. Bad play is only punished with a low score, it's rare to lose a substantial amount of pikmin. But even the hardest dandori levels dont provide the same challenge and tension that some bullshit pikmin 2 floors provide.
Really just makes me enjoy Pikmin 1 & 2 that much more tbh
Finally, someone with good points about Pikmin 4. As much as I love Oatchi, he is WAY too overpowered.
I really appreciate your nuanced take with how Pikmin 3 and 4 did difficulty. I understand if they wanted to make enemies easier to deal with so you can focus on collecting and managing larger areas. But enemies should be the cog in the Dandori machine you have to work around to make it run smoothly. Also I still don’t get who the hell was cooking with the auto lock on 💀
Neat. For me, Pikmin 4 was somewhere between the middle for me, I have no idea why
God... like pikmin 3's aiming mechanics were so fucking perfect. Like what happened? Why happened?
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 TH-camrs 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.
Ill be the outlier and say i absolutely hated pikmin 4, i also hate how often the npcs talk. Just let me explore and take in the levels!
I feel like every time a new game comes out Nintendo is still trying to wildly overcorrect Pikmin 2's difficulty. They keep making these balance changes trying to attract a casual crowd that simply will never want Pikmin in the first place.
I think the main issue is that pikmin 4 wasnt designed with us, core pikmin fans, as the target audience. I think its pretty clear that they were targeting the new casual "new-age switch" audience, the same people that were playing animal crossing in 2020. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, Pikmin NEEDS new blood, but it does lead to veterans having to handicap themselves to get the same level of enjoyment they did in 1,2, and 3.
I think with this in mind, Nintendo did a brilliant job designing the game, seeing that the game is still very enjoyable despite its easier difficulty.
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
I feel insanely vindicated by this honestly.
I couldn’t finish Pikmin 4. The looooooong series of tutorials, dialogue with the world's most boring characters (who then never shut up for the rest of the game) and handholding gets old insanely quick. I grew up with Pikmin 2 on the GameCube and Pikmin 3 on the Wii U, and I think 3 kind of perfected the aiming… and then it got totally butchered for 4??? Autoaim seriously made me stop playing into the second area due to how much it screwed me over. Seriously. The isolated feel of the first 2 games (and sort of 3, though it was lighter in tone, there was still much less irritating dialogue) is gone when fucking Collin chimes in with inane commentary about nothing every 5 seconds. I really wanted to love it. Waited 10 years for it. And what I got I just never even finished. Tragic.
i wanted to love pikmin 4 so much but when i unironically fell asleep from it because it got so boring and easy its pretty hard to kid myself about it. well its either that or sleep apnea
long story short pikmin 2 engine best engine. also PREACH! the removal of swarming is the worst thing ever, no idea why they thought removing control from the player was a good thing.
Imo, pikmin 2 had the best difficulty in the series. It was tough and could be cruel, and purples could be op, but there were still many instances where even they could be wiped out. And with the saves between cave levels, there was also a mercy rule if you wanted to use it. It wasn't a cakewalk but it had moments of respite and you felt powerful from learning how to use everything efficiently to the point my game record is 16 days with zero deaths.
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.
THANK you, I seriously think the difficulty in 4 was lackluster and now that you mention it it does seem like these features are the culprit. While I love 3 I'll admit it is still very easy compared to 1 and 2.
I'm not sure if I'm alone in this but I didn't want to complain when this game came out because we FINALLY got a new Pikmin game.
I had expressed my concerns and criticisms but I wasn't seeing people talk about such issues with how easy Pikmin 4 was. You expressed each point I had with the mechanics and changes.
Outside of these things the story was pretty poor with irritating characters pretending like they're helping when you're doing all the work. (Rescue Corps)
The pikmin limits dont make sense considering i used to take like 30 pikmin to fight a boss whilst 20 pikmin across the map are doing something else.
So limiting me to 30 or whatever it was at the start, just means i cant multi task effectively until i have decent numbers.
Enemies not respawning really hindered the over-world. As I felt that by the end it was dead and barren with nothing in my way.
I didn't mind the lock on for dandori challenges, treating combat as a task for some of the harder time windows for platinum medals i think made sense. But every where else the dumbing down of the combat nuances ESPECIALLY with Oatchi just made fighting things boring and the same each time, every enemy was fought the same.
still upset about nintendo seemingly trying to make the swarm mechanic a forgotten feature
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".
It's hard to find any game franchise that hasn't been dumbed down.
Pikmin 4 is a good game, but it isn't a good Pikmin game. You mention a lot of the things that bothered me on repeat playthroughs. Let's hope that future installments fix the difficulty
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.
Finally someone is spitting fax. Pikmin 4 is the only game I didn't beat because it was just so boring.
Pikmin 4 definitely felt... hand-holdy. And like it was trying to appeal to a broad audience by just dumbing down the gameplay. I still like the game, but itll always leave a bad taste to me.
It's stuff like this that's the reason I think Miyamoto should have retired already. He makes everything brain dead because he _needs_ his games to be playable by everyone, including people who are completely unable to think, and he forces players to do things his way. You _need_ to sit through his 500 tutorials that don't tell you anything you couldn't have figured out on your own. You _need_ to use the auto-lock. It's his way or the highway. And it's this game and TotK that make me question what Nintendo's playtesting process looks like. Surely playtesting would have revealed how annoying the auto-lock is, or how broken Oatchi is. Surely playtesting TotK would have shown how tedious it is to navigate the arrow fusion menu, or that players kept cheesing every puzzle with Recall, or that the game punishes you for making complex machines and that the objectively best machine is the simplest one. It just confuses and worries me that both games released with these glaring issues, because it means either Nintendo's playtesting process is incompetent or they just ignore the results of the playtests out of stubbornness and a desire to have their ideas in the game, even when the ideas are bad.
I hope to see where modding goes for 4 because Nintendo hates giving us options for the video game we buy
3 deluxe was a warning
It's been said plenty times already, but out of everything my main issue will always be the fact that no enemies respawn after killing them... Like yeah the levels are gorgeous and fun to explore, but once you kill everything, what is the point of going back? I don't go to a level to replay a cave I already 100%, I go back to have fun fighting off the overworld creatures and more importantly use their bodies to make more pikmins. It just brings so much life to the land and the game itself in general, but its completely lost the moment you finish traversing said area..
It kinda makes me want attempt a run where I only kill those that have treasure in them and leave the rest alive. Just for the sake of having something to fill the area... But tbh it just sounds kinda lame to limit myself like that when the whole fun thing is taking them down in general. Plus grinding via pellets alone is suuuuupper boring and time consuming.
13:11 why is bro built like a birthday cake thats been sprinkled to oblivion
Pikmin 4 is kinda buggy on [LEGAL NINTENDO HARDWARE], i remember the tutorial videos also being a bunch of flashing lights
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
I felt alone for so long for not liking for this game because I found it brain dead easy but besides saying Oachi is too powerful, I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Thanks for making me feel more justified!