oh my gosh the way that the title screen changes in pikmin 4 once you reach the house is adorable
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this game really does need an option so that i donāt have to hit A so many god damned times. iām too old to be smashing buttons this fast and hard
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i like slamming A to throw 30 pikmin or whatever, i like the over-curated way that it kind of catches for a second when you hit the number you need before you can throw more, thatās great. i do not like when iām hitting A through the three or four steps to cash out a sidequest thing, that shit got excruciating by the end
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i use the big charge on X to pick up most items, so i end up slamming A a lot in combat instead, which made my wrist hurt last night lol
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Iām pitching pebbles on my wifeās save file. You can hold A to pitch, but you can mash A to pitch a little faster.
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just finished olimar mode. so glad they included that, it was perfect for me. really lovely.
gonna see what else is in the post game. maybe iāll 100% this
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So decided Iām gonna start Pikmin 3 this week in an effort to try and finish up the last of my Wii U games andā¦ I can just play this with the gamepad and be fine, right? I saw a lot of yelling online that wiimote is the only way to play it but I donāt have a sensor bar set up on this tv and it is a bit cramped for that to be easy (not that I expect swinging but if one isnāt far enough from the sensor bar it isnāt detected too great).
I think you can, but I personally find it inferior. I could be confusing my memories with playing on the switch though.
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I didnāt use motion controls when I played it, but thatās because I didnāt think to. I defaulted to the Classic Controller Pro. It worked fine, but for all I know the other way might be better.
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People may not want to hear this but a wiimote is the best control system for Pikmin. It allows you to do things that are unreliable in any other control system. You no longer have to rely on lock on to hit a target. You can move Olimar around while aiming Pikmin directly at a Bulborbs eyes. Itās the pinnacle.
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Alright Iām trying it with the wiimote, I think I currently have the sensor bar balancing on top of the Wii U pushed back as far it can go and the pointer seems responsive enough so far through the first two tutorial days. Switching back and forth between that and the gamepad is extra annoying this way but Iām hopeful after it stops tutorializing itāll become less frequent.
okay so probably not but i do think iāll get all the treasures and people. i just donāt wanna try and get a platinum medal on every challenge. i donāt think thatās an interesting experience tbh
i guess i got some pikmin fever after playing 4 because i played 1 right after (if anyone wants to high score fight me in challenge mode hmu) and now i am surprised to find myself kind of pikmin 2-pilled of all thingsā¦
i had next to no memory of them but it turns out the caves in 2 kind of own actually. theyāre often shockingly brutal-- the longer ones iām often coming out with like half the troops i went in with-- and the randomization, which i was rolling my eyes about, really gives it a nice kick once in a while. like youāll go around a corner and thereās a little tiny room with three electric beetles near the entrance and a fire-shooter guy near enough that youāre worried it might aggro if you try to fight them and also thereās a poison trap in the middle of the room and youāve only got five poison pikmin anywayā¦ thereās just no obvious correct way to deal with them sometimes, which is a real stark contrast with the other games, where the more meticulous design specifically avoids messy encounters like that. not that thatās not better in lots of cases, but iām surprised how interesting 2ās looseness can get
also, wow, the generally high lethality of any given floor and the fact that you have no idea how many floors a given cave is going to be really ratchets up the tension while youāre in there. and unlike pikmin 4 caves, which often give you so many bonus pikmin as you go through that you end up with a net gain at the end, pikmin 2 almost never gives you a single extra guy (and when it does itās a tiny handful and itās done in a frankly extremely upsetting way lol)
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If I recall correctly, in Pikmin 2 I ended up eventually leaving as many Pikmin as possible near the floor starting point and just made a run to the floor exit with Olimar (it was still Olimar, right) as I believe if he reaches it all the other Pikmin appear unharmed at the start of the next floor. Itās how immediately after I triggered the ending I just went to where the āfinalā cave was, bypassed everything, had an absolute slog of a fight against the true last boss and accomplished the last big goal.
I wouldnāt recommend it if you actually enjoy the caves (I did not) but itās always a good option to have in your back pocket.
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Okay Iāve played through a āweekā of Pikmin 3 andā¦ ups and downs, basically. I am unsure about the āhow many days you have leftā number being fluid, depending on you gathering fruit to produce juice you live off of. What I learned from Pikmins 1 & 2 is that you definitely need that time pressure but this feels likely to be a fake one, but maybe that is enough? They also seem to be the replacement for the ātreasuresā you gathered in the earlier games, at least so far, which I am also taking a wait and see approach with.
Beyond that, it has the feel of a game with a troubled development and checking online there was apparently 5 years between announcement and release soā¦ yeah, thatās my guess. The fact that the manual has pages dedicated to four different control schemes, three of them wildly different, with the most recommended one being a mish-mash of two of them suggests it is something they never quite figured out. It reminds me a bit of Kid Icarus Uprising where they had to include a stand with the game to make it reasonable to play.
The camera has also been fairly bad so far which is odd as I donāt recall it bothering me in the earlier games, although I wonder if this is a side effect of using the wiimote. The first big boss battle was often in practice a battle between choosing between seeing the boss or seeing the playing field where you and the Pikmin were. The game lampshades this if you choose the player/Pikmin by putting up a text boss that basically says āgee, where did the boss go?ā, but mainly I think it was just poorly done and hence the whole thing was just plain bad. Combat in Pikmin has IMO always maxed out at serviceable (itās why I never cared for the combat heavy dungeons of 2, the game works best when you have to juggle the various elements which on their own arenāt great but play well off each other), so anything that puts extra pressure on it usually ends poorly.
Those criticisms said, while the game still feels like it is slightly tutorializing it has opened up a bit and there are signs of solid design. I feel like I am multitasking less than I did in earlier games despite having multiple āleadersā now, but it also feels like the game is retraining me on how to do so and that it will likely focus more on that as it further progresses. I also think I need to try playing without the wiimote as I think I can likely aim better with the control stick than the pointer, although I can see how re-coupling the aiming and moving could be problematic.
Anyways thatās where Iām at with it, feels like it could easily break good or bad at any moment.
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Story time!
Played a few more days in the wintery area, beat a boss type creature, got my fruit supply good, generally had a productive enough day 9 or 10. Time was running out and there were a few Pikmin unaccounted for (any who arenāt back at the ship or with you at the end of the day are eaten by predators overnight and lost) so I started walking back towards the ship myself to try and find any stragglers. Get onto the bridge I had assembled a few in-game days prior right by the ship with a few seconds left and am still missing one single Pikmin so I look at the gamepad to see if it is nearby. This requires taking my eyes off the screen for a sec and hence I donāt notice that I am slightly veering to the side andā¦
ā¦I look back up just in time to see me stumble off the side of the bridge into the water with a few seconds left in the day. All my poor pikmin, all red and yellow and rocky (none blue) run right in after me and start thrashing and I watch the last few seconds count down with most of them dying right as it hits zero. Just like that the majority of my Pikmin are no more and either the rock or yellow ones are now critically low.
Now I am stuck between two bad options, either spending the next day or so in-game focused on building my army back up (due to the great last day I have 10 days of juice in reserve so it I can probably eat a day or two) or replaying the last day, which already went well enough and was somewhat optimized so basically Iād just do the exact same thing while hoping not to screw up at the last possible moment again. Thatās probably the right course of action but it feels very boring to have to do, enough that it would likely end up resulting in me not playing the game for a few days in order to keep pushing it off.
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no no, you gotta take it on the chin and keep going. the gameās better when youāre scrapping through it anyway
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I did not replay the day, and FWIW I was down to 3 yellow guys. Iāve played a bunch more days and they are back to a solid level as I made sure they got to feed a boss corpse to the onion. That does not at all read odd when put in writing.
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I finished this today and just in the nick of time, in the final area due to a slight āeveryone go break down that destructible wallā snafu I did not remember in time that a few of my guys picked up explosives and that killed a good 80-85 of my lil fellas. I believe I finished up the final boss with 5 yellows and maybe 5-8 rocks left total, if it didnāt fall I may have had to fly elsewhere and spend a day or two regrowing my army.
I may have said I was leaning this way earlier but I clearly like this much more than 2 (which I disliked) but not nearly as much as 1 (which I think is snazzy). Maybe my memory of 1 is inaccurate but I recall it being much less obviously linear in its stage design than 3ās areas are. Getting the extra fruit opens up the door for various āwell Iāll send a group here and a second one this way to handle Xā but they generally feel very intentionally directed with regards to initially getting the new Pikmin the area has then doing the usually somewhat involved and rather orderly tasks to get to the areaās boss. The time limit aside from early on and one bit a way in is so obviously generous as to basically not be worth including.
It is odd, I havenāt played 4 yet but it feels very much like a series where they stumbled upon a good balance with the first entry that they nevertheless keep trying to tweak to consistently lesser results.
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I have no idea about Pikmin but saw pictures and got curious, is 4 the only one that plays in houses? Because I love that.