Flookz
2006
This is a video game.
This, is a video game.
This shouldn't have to be said. But ever greater grow the perverse incentives which have led astray this nubile young artistic medium, trying desperately to please the tastes and desires of a growing audience who want video games to be something else. To enjoy God Hand, you have to be a fan of VIDEO GAMES. If this experience turns you away, perhaps you've been lying to yourself that you actually like video games in the first place. Maybe you're the problem.
God Hand doesn't give a shit. God Hand is a game. God Hand will make no attempts to reward or please you through any way other than the satisfaction of play. Mastering a system, making it your own, and overcoming hardships through pure intrinsic reward and intuition. When you play God Hand right, it's like a symphony in your hands.
From a gamefeel standpoint, the words that come to mind are raw, snappy, crunchy. This game is proof that simple is better. Write a system, and trust the player to deal with it. ( And throw in some incredible audio design feedback to top things off )
More games used to be this way. Perhaps it was merely a consequence of an era where developers simply didn't know better, Pandora's box hadn't been opened, they were blissfully ignorant of the power in their hands. But modern devs understand now how to fine tune and cheat gamefeel to be friendlier to the player, ease them into success, give them an edge. What they fail to recognize however is that sometimes that power is best left unused, a temptation of sin that's so hard to ignore when you're overly concerned with playtesting, metrics, and broadening your audience.
When you're so eager to over-engineer your gamefeel, it eventually leaves your game evoking words more akin to gummy, sticky, or prescriptive. Particularly now in taking a step into the past, God Hand is just so refreshing. Animations play, hitboxes clash, and you deal with the consequences.
I had a far better time with it then I expected to have. The game's sense of humor, fantastic cast, and novel surprises were just icing on the cake which kept any part of this game from feeling stale or dull. Even the sometimes excessive repeated content didn't detract to much for me, as it often served to give me an opportunity to display how much I'd grown at playing the game by dominating a once imposing threat in seconds flat.
This game never stops expecting MORE from you. The scenarios are built at your expense, and almost any moment of quiet or reprieve where most games would seemingly step off the gas, God Hand takes the opportunity to sucker punch you, up the ante, lay on the pressure, and let you know that you need to stay on your toes.
This is how you demand mastery. Take the rough stone that is the player, apply enough pressure, and a diamond will come shining out the other end. A game SHOULD expect you to actually be good at it in order to succeed, shouldn't it? If your goal isn't to be good at something, why are you even playing? God Hand understands this implicitly. Having one of the best mirror matches in any game makes it clear what they valued, here.
The only things I could really find to complain about playing God Hand was that the auto-lock-on was occasionally a bit disagreeable, the camera could have benefitted from backing out in a few fights, and that the game ends a bit abruptly. I would have killed for a more bombastic "mine is the drill that will pierce the heavens!" style ending that turned things up to 11, but what is there is serviceable enough.
I laughed, I cried, my wrist hurts. Sounds like any good session of chain yanking to me. What more is there to say?
This, is a video game.
This shouldn't have to be said. But ever greater grow the perverse incentives which have led astray this nubile young artistic medium, trying desperately to please the tastes and desires of a growing audience who want video games to be something else. To enjoy God Hand, you have to be a fan of VIDEO GAMES. If this experience turns you away, perhaps you've been lying to yourself that you actually like video games in the first place. Maybe you're the problem.
God Hand doesn't give a shit. God Hand is a game. God Hand will make no attempts to reward or please you through any way other than the satisfaction of play. Mastering a system, making it your own, and overcoming hardships through pure intrinsic reward and intuition. When you play God Hand right, it's like a symphony in your hands.
From a gamefeel standpoint, the words that come to mind are raw, snappy, crunchy. This game is proof that simple is better. Write a system, and trust the player to deal with it. ( And throw in some incredible audio design feedback to top things off )
More games used to be this way. Perhaps it was merely a consequence of an era where developers simply didn't know better, Pandora's box hadn't been opened, they were blissfully ignorant of the power in their hands. But modern devs understand now how to fine tune and cheat gamefeel to be friendlier to the player, ease them into success, give them an edge. What they fail to recognize however is that sometimes that power is best left unused, a temptation of sin that's so hard to ignore when you're overly concerned with playtesting, metrics, and broadening your audience.
When you're so eager to over-engineer your gamefeel, it eventually leaves your game evoking words more akin to gummy, sticky, or prescriptive. Particularly now in taking a step into the past, God Hand is just so refreshing. Animations play, hitboxes clash, and you deal with the consequences.
I had a far better time with it then I expected to have. The game's sense of humor, fantastic cast, and novel surprises were just icing on the cake which kept any part of this game from feeling stale or dull. Even the sometimes excessive repeated content didn't detract to much for me, as it often served to give me an opportunity to display how much I'd grown at playing the game by dominating a once imposing threat in seconds flat.
This game never stops expecting MORE from you. The scenarios are built at your expense, and almost any moment of quiet or reprieve where most games would seemingly step off the gas, God Hand takes the opportunity to sucker punch you, up the ante, lay on the pressure, and let you know that you need to stay on your toes.
This is how you demand mastery. Take the rough stone that is the player, apply enough pressure, and a diamond will come shining out the other end. A game SHOULD expect you to actually be good at it in order to succeed, shouldn't it? If your goal isn't to be good at something, why are you even playing? God Hand understands this implicitly. Having one of the best mirror matches in any game makes it clear what they valued, here.
The only things I could really find to complain about playing God Hand was that the auto-lock-on was occasionally a bit disagreeable, the camera could have benefitted from backing out in a few fights, and that the game ends a bit abruptly. I would have killed for a more bombastic "mine is the drill that will pierce the heavens!" style ending that turned things up to 11, but what is there is serviceable enough.
I laughed, I cried, my wrist hurts. Sounds like any good session of chain yanking to me. What more is there to say?
2013
I have like 42 fucking vials of juice what the hell ain't no damn point to this game.
2023
This review contains spoilers
There's kind of A LOT I have to say about this game, and the direction Pikmin as a series is going in. I'm sorry for myself for writing this and for you if for some reason you subject yourself to reading it.
Very long story short, this game's praise is incredibly overblown. It's nice that Pikmin has found a new audience, but at what cost? I think this series has lost it's soul and hollowed into a corporate mess that has rounded off so many corners that it now fails to evoke any sort of emotional response. It's not a bad game, but it is often boring, and makes me feel empty and sad.
It's probably useful to start by prefacing that I don't care for 3 very much at all, I never really understood the praise it got. In contrast I'm at least fairly conflicted when it comes to 4, but how in the world are people praising it as the peak of this series? I don't know what planet you're from but it sure as hell isn't PNF-404. This game IS confidently better than 3, and how middling I felt about it only served to push my opinion of 3 further down. I don't know why I bother but it's just hard to watch a series I care about flounder while Nintendo pins it down to lobotomize, declaw, and defang it.
So before I dirty myself and climb into the muck, I'll start with what good I found in Pikmin 4.
The game is pretty meaty. This is the most Pikmin bang for your buck that you're going to get in this series. That praise comes with some caveats, however. Depending on your outlook more isn't always better. Besides, art shouldn't be judged from the cynical perspective of value judgements based on cost. Do better and judge things based on the overall experience of engaging with it.
I'm really glad to be ditching the 3rd captain. I never personally cared for how much it complicated planning and management, 2 was just enough. Making the 2 captains asymmetric is also a nice change of pace, splitting up has more strategic weight to it. But it's a great idea that is clumsy in it's execution. (we'll GET to talking about Oatchi)
Loading zones were removed from 3, which is good. They broke up levels to much and tended to spoil and signpost boss encounters before they even began, they also tended to over incentivize the use of the "go here" map screen commands. (I don't want a game that plays itself for me, OK?)
Moving the ship to new bases is an interesting albeit odd addition. Sometimes a cool tactical option, and does allow more sprawling level design I guess? I think I like how it effects cave design more than main stages. It's a mechanic that has the strong potential to bolster puzzle and scenario building... But doesn't really get used for such, mostly operating as yet another design that feels as if it's there more out of a desire to keep the player comfortable than to give their brain a workout. If it has any merit, it's that it may be interesting in time challenges and speedruns where people are attempting to maximize their efficiency.
Bosses were returned to how they used to operate in 1 and 2. Pikmin 3 added phases, damage caps, and cutscenes which slowed the gameplay down and stole away the Pikmin series' unique experience of running into bosses in a diegetic fashion. Thanks to the removal of the damage phase caps, bosses once again reward skillful play by letting you kill them faster. Well, almost all the bosses, anyhow. 4 still committed this sin right at the end, just to spit in my dinner.
Dandori battles feel a bit arbitrary at times but are sort of fun, the versus mode from previous games having now been rolled into the primary experience.
On the other hand, Dandori CHALLENGES may be my favorite addition. It's really satisfying to work under tight restrictions and execute a plan to clean house, barely bringing in the final few items as the last few seconds tick down. (A feeling the series used to work towards facilitating more often). And these aren't afraid to get difficult either, refreshing!
There's actually some really cool new puzzle and environmental hazard additions that give both old and new Pikmin a lot of new strategic options and spice up the level design. Fire pinecones, deep water, pipes, fans, basically everything Ice Pikmin can do, fences and buttons. But they never quite get used to their full potential.
The Piklopedia is finally back. It was a gaping hole in Pikmin 3's overall experience, and it was sorely missed. It has new features too! Being able to fight anything is great. The new characters (we'll get to them much later) aren't interesting to listen to... But Olimar and Louie's logs remain as entertaining as they were in 2.
Olimar says sperm, we take those.
I love Groovy Long Legs. Best thing in the game. See, I don't just hate fun.
The Olimar mode almost makes me feel as If I'm playing a real Pikmin game, if only for the tension of a true time limit and the nostalgia bait it evokes with music and other references to Pikmin 1, but it's shallow praise that says more about Pikmin 1 than it does 4.
This is where that praise ends. Pikmin 4 inherited a lot of problems from 3, changed or fixed only some of them, but introduced some problems of it's own in the process. I can't help but use the word degenerate to describe the way this series has developed, in the most traditional sense of the word. There's so many little touches where in an effort to make the series more accessible or easier to play, they've sacrificed what made it special in the first place, rendering entire systems at the core of Pikmin pointless.
Controls are a big part of this problem, it's quite a can of worms. But I'm opening it, deep breath...
I'm going to start by calling out lock-on as a problematic addition to the Pikmin series. Pikmin is a game that's difficulty and intrigue is predicated on MANAGED CHAOS, and aiming your Pikmin to land where you need them was always a huge part of that. Maps full of hazards, large enemies for which what part of the body you throw Pikmin onto makes the difference between life or death, throwing Pikmin was always a focused and nuanced challenge that rewarded accuracy under pressure.
Then 3 added lock-on... and threw that all out the window. No longer do you need to split your attention between avoiding hazards and throwing Pikmin, or carefully aim to keep your Pikmin from soaring off cliffs or into water. Simply lock on, run in circles, and mash A. It's easier, less stressful, more friendly to new players! ...But you've now rendered enemy and map design as an afterthought you can mentally disengage with due to the confidence you now have that your Pikmin will just go exactly where you expect them to. What's even the point of snitchbugs, skitter leafs, dwarf bulborbs, snagrets, breadbugs, beady longlegs (and the family), honeywisps, iridescent glint beetles, ( I think you get the point ) in a world with lock on? Almost all the enemy design of Pikmin is RELIANT on the skill based aiming, and fighting these enemies went from engaging to literally mindless since 3 came out. Yet they're still here for some reason.
4 Is no different in this regard, but somehow they've managed to make it worse. 4 has an aggressive auto lock-on that is our first example of the many ways in which this game attempts to guess and/or assume player intent, and make choices FOR YOU. Throwing a Pikmin will often trigger the game to eagerly and automatically lock on to objects. The lock-on is also sticky, often frustratingly refusing to unlock from objects. When under pressure from time or enemies, you'll often find yourself mashing lock-on in a futile attempt to wrestle control back from the game, as it jumps to locking on to other objects you didn't intend... you might start to see the problem, but it doesn't end there.
The other half of this problem is the THROW CAP, one of the most baffling additions in Pikmin 4... So someone at Nintendo thought it was a little sad that you had to count out the Pikmin you threw onto objects, and decided a friendly change would be that when locked onto an object, the game will STOP LETTING YOU THROW once you hit the default Pikmin count required to interact with that object. Sure, it lets you mash indiscriminately without thought, but also removes an entire vector of control by which you could make strategic choices (or fail to do so). Also pressing throw and having NOTHING HAPPEN is one of the grossest gamefeel faux pas I've experienced in a long time. Just another way in which you can mentally disengage with the things in front of you, and let the game play itself. But it also completely fails to acknowledge that there is perfectly valid reasons to throw extra Pikmin onto an object.
Pikmin has always had the concept of "overloading", in which you would commit Pikmin beyond the minimum pickup count. A tradeoff to move the item faster in exchange for keeping more of your Pikmin busy. A feature I often strategically made use of to maximize the games precious Dandori. But the game tells me this is invalid (despite the feature still being there) and puts on the training wheels to prevent me from making mistakes. But you know what? It was also just downright satisfying to skillfully count out the exact amount of Pikmin to pick up a part, and it was also memorable when you flubbed it. Of course, you can still achieve overloads by not locking on... But recall the aforementioned issues with lock-on, and you can see that doing so has become so inconvenient as to render an entire staple feature present since the first game nearly unusable. The game fights being played in the way you want.
To add insult to injury, I've observed that idle Pikmin don't treat nearby tasks with equal weight, prioritizing certain tasks over others, and that overloading not only has a lower awareness range, but is lowest priority for idle Pikmin. So that is to say that the game continues to fight back even when you try to play around the lock on and do overloads in other ways. While this sucks for overloading, it's worth calling out how this exemplifies a change in priorities in this series away from player agency and planning, and towards convenience and pre-descriptive play.
The fact that Pikmin tasks aren't treated equally and neutrally based on distance means that the game is making value calls for the importance of tasks beyond the player's means. Not only does this degenerate design continue to undermine the original goals of the series, but it means the player now has to play around these predictions. I can't just throw 2 Pikmin down and expect them to move to the nearest task, I have to somehow guess the games preferences for the "better" task, and base my plans around that. A great example of this in action? Try to fight just about any enemy in the presence of slime molds, and note how your Pikmin will aggressively prioritize destroying the molds over the enemy.
To me changes like these are so obviously flawed that it's shocking to see a modern Nintendo game making them. Sometimes simple is better, the honest and raw heuristics by which this series historically operated on has always prioritized player agency. Why would you want to change that? Why over engineer and re-invent the wheel?
Speaking of which I now have to get on my soap box to similarly dismay Pikmin 3's addition of CHARGE. Charge sure is convenient! But I'm going to once again argue that managed chaos is the point of this series. Charge is to reliable, it's to good. Getting Pikmin on enemies was once a huge part of the challenge. And for that, we had SWARM. Swarm was exemplary of what Pikmin is supposed to be about, it could accomplish what Charge does, but only if you were a skilled player which carefully considered your Pikmin's positions and speeds, and were diligent in clumping them up and moving them to safe positions around enemies.
Plenty of enemies were also designed with swarm counters or immunities, in which hitting an enemies ankles versus their upper body did not reward the same amount of damage. Additionally since swarm took no account of Pikmin types, it was a TRADEOFF compared to throwing, in that it didn't allow you to be as selective with which Pikmin you were using. But Charge has no downsides, you can make sure to only charge with the type of your choice, and don't have to worry about Pikmin speed or clumping. Swarm was also not instant, more akin to a flow of Pikmin as apposed to a wrecking ball. I think it should be pretty obvious how charging the enemy reliably with a large group of exactly the type of Pikmin you want to use trivializes most encounters, and runs counter to this idea of Managed Chaos.
And just to kick me while I'm down, Pikmin 4 brought back swarm!... but stuck it in the post game. You get it so late that there's no time to use it. But also it's worth noting you can't use it on Oatchi... and well, when we get to talking about Oatchi it will become clear why even once you get swarm you STILL don't use it.
I also can't help but lament that due to 4's lock on issues, assigning Pikmin to pick up large groups of small objects has become excessively annoying. A problem that used to be solved through swarm, and that charge can't account for. As it stands the best solution in 4 for this problem is to dismiss your Pikmin, but that requires you to then wait for the others to move before calling the rest back.
Oh and speaking of calling! Let's discuss the whistle. I think a lot of people would likely respond "what's there to complain about with the whistle?, it's no different than in 1 and 2." Well, the main thing to note is that the minimum radius of the whistle has been increased since 3. Basically, tapping the button to do a small whistle no longer allows you to pinpoint and select small groups of 1-3 Pikmin. The whistle starts so large that you'll almost always select more Pikmin than you intend if you're trying to be precise. Just another way in which the game removes player agency.
Oh but why stop there? The whistle now has verticality as a factor. It's no longer infinitely tall along the Y axis. I believe this was an addition inherited from 3 due to the addition of flying Pikmin. Basically, the whistle doesn't extend up or down until reaching it's maximum radius, requiring you to hold it for multiple seconds to select Pikmin below or above you. It's not useful, hooray! It just slows down gameplay and makes it frustrating when using flying Pikmin or blues in deep water. Thanks, I hate it!
And that leads into another fantastic addition from 3 that still persists here. The "task pausing" behavior they've graciously added to the whistle. So in 1 and 2, a quick whistle could call Pikmin off any object. And you could be precise due to the small starting radius. But in 3 and 4, Pikmin carrying an object takes 2 whistles to call off. Huh?. Well, first if you whistle anywhere near Pikmin carrying something, they "Pause" their progress. And only after that can you whistle a second time to actually call them off. It's tedious and I fail to understand the advantage this has. The intent must be to prevent you from canceling carrying Pikmin when trying to call other idle Pikmin nearby, but this is a problem they manufactured when they made the whistle less accurate??? On top of that it's so easy to trigger by accident that you'll often find that while performing other tasks, you'll accidentally pause your Pikmin, wasting both their time as well as blocking other carrying Pikmin behind them. Thanks, I hate it!
Needless to say when it comes to Nintendo, but there's no options to tailor this half of the experience. I'd have little to complain about if I could disable lock on, throw caps, toggle whistle height scaling or task pausing. Maybe disable tutorials... But you can't. Thanks, I hate it.
I'll also take a moment to talk about the night missions. It's almost a fun idea? Pikmin tower defense? Sign me up. But they're pretty mindless, repetitive, and easy. There's not much strategy, just increase your glow Pikmin count and spam charge. But frankly the biggest reason I don't feel compelled to play them is something that will feel extremely familiar if you've played a lot of shrines in Zelda's last 2 outings. You can't just play a night mission, you have to talk to a character, watch / skip spam through about 2 cutscenes, wait through a loading screen, skip 2 more cutscenes, and then when you're done, you'll skip 2 more cutscenes, watch another loading screen, then skip 2 more cutscenes, watch the characters cure a captain, skip that, and then finally skip the cutscene to begin the next day. It's as excessive as it sounds and frankly I have a hard time emotionally telling you whether the mode really is that boring or if I'm just so sick of skipping through this much fluff that I have PTSD.
Y'know when I first saw some rumors that Pikmin 4 would allow you to play at night I was excited at the prospect of this being a broad change to the formula that would allow for more intricate strategies in stages and was well integrated into the story. But what we actually got is dissapointing. To top it off glow seeds are handed out like candy and while using glow Pikmin in caves is a fun idea as well, the reality is that it only serves to place another safety net under the pampered asses of an already outrageously spoiled playerbase.
I'm going to be a little rebel and also bring up the ability to move your ship/base as a negative. As I stated before they don't really do much with it, it could have been cool. But the thing I couldn't help but notice is that it sort of robs the game of the tension inherent to getting really far from your ship in previous games. Maps once used the distance to the ship as a way to wrack up tension, placing difficult enemies, stressfull scenarios, and treasures/ship parts far away where you were at your most vulnerable and most pressed for time. They could still be doing this in 4, even with the ability to move your base, but sort of just don't. So again, it seems to be just yet another way in which the game is simply trying to be friendly and more accessible.
There's a new achievement tracking system by which your are rewarded with currency for meeting small incremental goals. This sucks. I don't need artificial pats on the back for simply playing the game. The ritual of loading up the hub and talking to 6 bland characters and mashing through their dialogue to collect rewards isn't what I'd call fun. It doesn't help that this system literally spoils the game for you. Every time you update the "explore X maps" or "collect X onions" goals, it actually signposts that the game isn't over before the story has a chance to do this naturally. Good job guys, sure you thought that one through.
The game is full of shallow callbacks to Pikmin 1 and 2. Things they seem to be doing out of tradition or homage without understanding why that thing left an impression in the first place. What if we did the submerged castle again! Doesn't matter that the Water Wraith was effective for being a SURPRISE in 2, let's use the same name, same theme, same music, same floor layouts, and have a description that literally signposts that he's going to show up to remove that surprise. Also let's handicap his AI and make him incredibly unimposing thanks to how Oatchi works (we'll GET TO IT). Oh let's bring back Smokey Progg! But lest he be to difficult let's give him a slow projectile move and make him move around less so his smoke trail doesn't make anybody sad. Man At Legs! Puffstool is back! But he practically can't kill your Pikmin since we removed it's ability to inflict the novel and unique curse status that was so memorable... eh oh well. It's just frustrating to see all your favorite moments defanged and dragged out in display to dance for your amusement.
Making a spiritual successor to something should be about trying to reproduce the feelings the original made you feel by providing NEW, NOVEL experiences that feel motivated by a similar set of developer goals. Not simply a best hits track. And for all it's gallivanting about trying to be Pikmin 2, what NEW is there in 4 that exemplifies the spirit of Pikmin 2 in any way, shape, or form? I fail to think of anything.
As alluded to earlier the final boss of 4 for some reason commits the sins of Pikmin 3's bosses. It has phases, damage caps, cutscenes... It doesn't even let you carry Louie to the ship at the end. It's also just continued character assassination for Louie while also just not being a very cool setpiece? The fight's slow and cycle driven and gives the player no control over the pacing. Also isn't part of what always made Pikmin unique fighting bugs and strange creatures? Straying from the contemporary? How did we end up fighting dogs while rock music plays? I'll give it props for being possibly the only thing in the game with an effect that can insta-kill Pikmin. But all this really incentivized was doing the entire fight with Oatchi. Maybe that was intentional?
Oh hey why not take a moment to also wine about the farlic system? I like collecting the various colored onions to add new Pikmin to my lexicon, but lowering the maximum Pikmin count so aggressively just makes half the game feel like you've got training wheels on. Well, because you do.
A comment helped remind me of something I had a hard time putting my finger on. Which is why it is Pikmin 2 manages to feel moderately tenser and more time sensitive despite the lack of any true time limit. It's because enemies respawn. You'd always feel pressure to finish raking in treasure under threat that you'll have to clean out the level again if you failed to finish doing so before nightfall. Pikmin 4's friendly choice to never respawn enemies removes this tension, while also thematically sacrificing a bit of Pikmin's relation of the indifference of nature. Hell, they used to destroy your bridges and structures over subsequent days as well, keeping you ever vigilant to the idea that any progress you've fought for can and will be scraped back by nature's cold embrace if you don't keep a watchful eye.
Oh this is a big one, I almost forget to mention the "3 Pikmin type limit" slumped on this game. What in the hell were they thinking here. What does this... I don't, I just don't understand. It has so many knock-on effects. In prior games you would plan ahead and try to have enough of each type to have a versatile team of your favorites ready to take on any challenge... but you can't do that now. As such, the level designers had to assume you only had 3 types and design around that explicitly. Well with the designers hands tied, might as well just tell the player which 3 Pikmin types to take... so they do. So now team building is removed as a factor as well. Each level just prescribes what you should take.
You know in 2 I always brought whites in all situations because I enjoyed how fast they were, and saving time by using them to move most treasures was part of my strategy, at the trade off of having less Pikmin for other uses. That was a playstyle I chose and the game empowered me to explore. But the possibility space for how you play 4 has now been chucked in the bin, and for what? More restrictive level design? Well I know the answer is accessibility and not overwhelming the player in lieu of having 9 types of Pikmin AND Oatchi to contend with. But that's interesting, I'd rather you lean in on that and let me decide whether or not I want to play it simple or come up with complicated team builds. Thanks, I hate it.
Pikmin also "cheat" in these newer games. Their movement and capabilities no longer consistent and tangible in a way you have to play around and manage. Notice how newly called Pikmin rubber band and run faster than their base speed to catch up to the captain, notice how they teleport into your hand when you go to throw them. Notice how they never trip or lag behind when they have leaves. Take account of how they path around the map using the nav network on their own, minimalizing the importance of player management so they don't get "stuck" like they did in 1 and 2. But the pathing is also sometimes pretty bad and Pikmin take longer to get to you than they would have if they just ran in a straight line. Everything is so over-engineered. I can't believe the amount of reviews I see complaining about how unruly the Pikmin were in 1 and 2, and praising 3 for "fixing" it. THAT WAS THE POINT. You people don't understand this series.
A shocking amount of enemies including a lot of the new ones simply can't kill your Pikmin. That's not a new thing, but in past games nuisance enemies would be paired with genuinely dangerous enemies to create interesting scenarios that were genuinely challenging. This game seems allergic to the idea of placing even 2 difficult enemies within any degree of proximity, rendering a lot of the encounters pointless when Pikmin aren't in any danger.
People complain about electricity in 2, but I think there needs to be more consideration in this series as to what actually makes hazards different. Spamming whistle to make your Pikmin essentially invincible when encountering any hazard is yet another degenerative design degradation exacerbated by the more generous hazard timers in 3 and 4. And say what you will about electricity in 2 but you can't say it didn't make your butthole pucker and take those hazards VERY SERIOUSLY. Is it wrong to want to feel something?
This game just wants you to succeed so much. It's so friendly and eager to give you tools and tricks that remove or minimize how much you need to actually plan or pay attention. The obfuscation of upgrades to a shop really exacerbates the problem. In past game's abilities were doled out at a controlled rate and were kept in check from a usefulness perspective, tending to avoid power creep. They were also exciting to retrieve as immediate rewards for defeating bosses or reaching milestones. But now everything you do rewards the same resource and defers the true payout until later, dulling the experience. This is also one way in which the scope and length of Pikmin 4 works to it's detriment, as the designers have been incentivized to invent new abilities to pad out the shop.
The "Idler's Alert" is super useful and can be used to strategize, I'm torn on it. But It can't be denied that it gives me far less reason to keep track of where my Pikmin are, and gives me far less reason to split up my captains, which was often done in the past to babysit Pikmin and ensure that I am covering more of the map and that a captain would never be to far from a Pikmin in need. But it's really useful during Dandori challenges. The "Homesick Signal" however is so clearly an "easy button" that further degrades Pikmin's identity as a series. Making sure Pikmin didn't get lost and die to nightfall has been a memorable staple in Pikmin since day 1. But this basically can't happen any longer so long as you push this one button in your item menu before the day ends...
There's so many defensive buffs you can pile on, and they're relatively cheap. I think your average Pikmin 4 player will have been long immune to most hazards before the game ever presents them with fire or wind or poison. Why did they even bother? I never got close to getting myself downed.
Top that off with the introduction of consumables. If you want you can just buy your way out of any situation by loading up on bombs in the shop or what have you. But don't worry, the game will rain scrummy bones and spicy spray on you like it's Christmas morning so you won't really need to bother.
Almost every use of spray in Pikmin 2 was a tactical decision with which you committed a vital resource you had harvested yourself. In this game I found myself using spray in every fight and still had an excess of 50+ sprays by the end of the game. This is no longer a tactical choice, it's a game now taken over by dominant strategy. But don't worry if there was any part of you left concerned their might be a chance you have to think or plan ahead, as spicy spray now applies to all your Pikmin at infinite distance, map wide! Sure, why not I guess!
Well speaking of DOMINANT strategy. We have to break down the elephant in the room. Our boy Oatchi. I want to like him, he's a good boy. Asymmetrical captains is a great Idea. But, he's just so good. He's TO good, he single handedly transforms Pikmin 4 from an RTS into a MOBA.
He is so strikingly overkill as a way to manage Pikmin it's shocking they didn't account for it. The managed chaos that I've called out as key to this series ceases to exist when you ride Oatchi. Boss and enemy patterns that once capitalized on the chaotic spread out nature of your Pikmin army as it follows you is rendered mute by this scrummy bingus. All your Pikmin are now packaged up part and parcel into a single unit that you control directly.
Man-at-legs machine gun got you down? Don't sweat, just pack up on Oatchi and run circles around him dodging every shot. Water in your way? No blues truly needed, just toss any Pikmin color into the lake off Oatchi's back and then call them back (rock Pikmin should really just die instantly if they touch water, they're a little to good when tossed off Oatchi). An entire series predicated on enemy and environmental hazard designs based around the presumption that you have an unruly clump of barely compliant children at your heel, but Oatchi so thoroughly solves the problem that you're just not playing a Pikmin game.
The frustrating thing is that it's not an unsalvageable idea. Oatchi just needed to be handled as a tradeoff with upsides and downsides. He already has some great tradeoffs that make sense! He can jump and the captain can't. He can't fit past grates but he CAN go in pipes. This is all good stuff! It adds new nuance to level design. So expanding upon this should be easy, no? Here, I'll start:
Oatchi can whistle, but let's change it so he can't throw. I mean he doesn't have hands, why can he do that anyhow? But in return he can use the Charge Horn! To balance this out, the captain can't use the Charge Horn but they have SWARM, giving him a unique tactical tradeoff incentive to switch between Oatchi and your captain. While we're at it, Oatchi can only carry roughly 10-20 Pikmin, making him useful for scouting and strike teams but not allowing him to render your entire Pikmin army immune to hazards, and making him worse at tackling bosses.
These would be some sensible balance tweaks! But they don't address the true pièce de résistance, the steaming pile sitting under this elephant that I've been waiting even longer to discuss. Oatchi's RUSH. The dominant strategy to end all dominant strategies. If you thought Pikmin 2 had a dominant strategy in the form of Purples, get ready to sweat. At least Purples were a coveted resource you were afraid to lose.
Oatchi's rush allows you to sprint forward and slam through / into obstacles. It's used for gating content in levels, but can also be used effectively in combat. It instantly kills many smaller enemies, and later on can even be upgraded to stun enemies and bosses similarly to purple Pikmin. It's low risk, high reward, as Oatchi takes little damage and can't permanently die. But none of this is the real problem, the real problem is that any Pikmin on Oatchi's back will instantly deathball onto the enemy or obstacle he hits. That's 100 Pikmin, of any color, all hitting an enemy simultaneously (while also stunning them!?). All the nuance and challenge of getting Pikmin onto the opponent in other ways by throwing, swarming, or even charging, can't survive being tactically compared to this.
In my entire playthrough there were almost no threats that could survive long enough when subjected to Oatchi's wrath to even attempt to fight back. Some bosses would be fell instantly by this (particularly when combined with my infinite pack of spicy sprays, which I can generously apply AFTER charging since they work from any distance) , let alone every normal enemy and threat in the game. This was it, this killed Pikmin 4. You don't need to think, just rush, it'll work out. If it's not reliable enough already, toss 20 or so ice Pikmin into the mix so that you can stack Oatchi's initial stun with a follow up icing. What, freezing erases the body and prevents Pikmin propagation? Doesn't matter, you'll only ever need 100 Pikmin since they will never die.
I really don't understand how this made it to ship. It has the same effect on Pikmin 4 as it would any game with an overwhelmingly dominant strategy. It makes it boring. I kind of like Oatchi, but looking at his scrummy little face unfortunately leaves me with a twinge of idle resentment I wish I didn't feel. I never have to ask "how will I kill this enemy?", there's only 1 answer. It turns fun into tedium. With so little resistance, Pikmin 4 quickly stops feeling like a game and starts feels like busy work. The Pikmin equivalent of power wash simulator.
And with that we've finished digging the grave for Pikmin's gameplay. It was a long road but we can finally brush our hands off and discuss the other half of this experience. The worldbuilding, art, presentation, story, and tone.
I just don't understand what this series is going for any longer. Soul may be a nearly meaningless buzzword that gets tossed around with quite a bit of abandon, but if there's anything I can say about Pikmin 1 and 2, it's that the soul of it's developers are on full display. It's a collective effect of the music, art, gamefeel, writing, the odd mechanics and enemies, the small surprising touches that give it character, everything. I feel the fingerprints of the people who made it. And I can tell they cared.
Pikmin 3 and 4 have a distinct corporate stink to them. It doesn't feel like it's being made by people who want to be there. It's cold and sterile. These are products that insisted upon themselves to be made. Everything about them mentally evokes rounded corners, crossed T's and dotted I's. Brand management, audience testing, shareholder appeasement. Miyamoto. There's a strict and enstrangling agenda to be unassuming, cute, unchallenging, light and low on stakes. To evoke only happy emotions and to eschew confusion or surprise.
The cute pup Oatchi, Pink Pikmin, happy sunshine basked forests. A colorful energetic cast of affable gormless goofballs who bumble in and out of problems and a looked up to heroic captain whom everyone knows and trusts guiding them. This isn't what I associate with Pikmin.
Pikmin was about strange inhospitable worlds, about the questionable moral quality of using others for personal gain and corporate greed. About finding comfort and solace in places you least expected it. About uphill battles and managed chaos. Pikmin evoked dark foreboding groves, strange creatures, and a put upon everyman with a scientific mind navigating it through wit and a sheer will to survive and see his family again. It evoked true emotions. You pushed forward because the plot and world compelled you to ask "will this turn out ok?" and "what nightmare will I run across next while trying to make sure it does?".
The stories of 3 and 4 lean on humor, contrivance, and dramatic irony. It's insultingly juvenile and completely lacking that smidge of depth and nuance that made the first two games timeless. The characters ask "where's Olimar", but you the player already know, he's right fucking there. There's nothing to worry about. It's played as a joke but leaves you with no driving cause or concern with which to press ahead, and no mystery to uncover. You know things will be fine. Characters flanderize into tropes of their former selves. Olimar is elevated to a pedestal and became even more competent, also I guess he's famous now (wasn't he just a trucker?), and he must always crash land so we can laugh because that's just what he does! Louie can't simply be a spacey and odd character who makes genuine mistakes, he has to be an agent of chaos who acts with true malice, working against the interests of and endangering the people around him.
The cast of 3 is friendly, affable, and inoffensive. I don't hate them, but they're not exactly interesting. And I never quite understood why they added new planets to the lore, it feels a bit contrived and unnecessary. But 4 really takes the cake with how it dilutes the lore, adding dozens of new random planets to the lexicon. These poor wiki writers. The cast is comprised of a vast array of dozens and dozens of colorful new characters all with the emotional content of a pile of sand. 4 Introduced a character creator, but then used that to generate all the supporting cast. It's understandable to fill out the survivor list with generative characters, but named primary characters I'm supposed to engage with are decently likely to look the same as the character you created. It's quite off-putting.
The game manages to make these new characters all the more unlikeable by forcing you through a sieve of excessive tutorials and dialogue scenes where they state the obvious, make vapid jokes, and literally tell you how useless they are as if it's supposed to be cute that they stand around and do nothing. These scenes never let up, and often come in batches of anywhere from 2 to 6 back to back, with some loading screens thrown in for good measure. Oh and don't forget that characters act as mandatory gateways you have to mash through to access the world map, check the Piklopedia, or turn in achievements. Yeah no way that will get old and leave me somehow resenting them even more. Doesn't help that menus and text have large mandatory delays so mashing through isn't even fast, either.
If that wasn't enough to get you to resent them, they constantly chime in to tell you how to play the game, disrespect your intelligence, and block 20% of your field of vision while making annoying noises. These messages are also incredibly repetitive and prescriptive for how the player should feel. I'm not allowed to have my own emotional response when I lose Pikmin, Colin must chime in literally every single time to make a sad face and tell me to feel bad... :( But don't worry we'll just prescribe that you travel back in time 30 seconds and save scum to fix it, because you're certainly also incapable of having the idea to reset your game of your own volition. You know part of what made this series compelling was how the first 2 games left you to contemplate how to feel about your exploitation of Pikmin. Olimar's plight in 1 evoked an extremely different feeling to the capitalistic exploitation of 2. But the game let you come to those conclusions on your own, and form a personal connection to your Pikmin. If you felt bad when they died, that was on you for having empathy, not something you were ever TOLD to feel.
Well never mind all that, there are sales figures to consider!
And how could I forget! This game randomly decided to retcon the past 3! I really have no words for why they would do this. There's nothing about the events of this game's plot that would have been incompatible with the stories of 1 through 3. But boy I sure am glad that the much more compelling stories of the series roots have been overwritten for this corporate drivel!
The levels in Pikmin 3 and 4 have failed to explore particularly new or interesting settings. Pikmin 1 remains the game with the most variety in terms of level theme and design. Nowhere else in the series is as dark, foreboding, and congested as The Forest Navel. Nowhere as open and serene as The Distant Spring. Nowhere as striking as the Wistful Wild or as quiet as the Valley of Repose in 2.
The most notable location in 3 or 4 is Hero's Hideaway. Finally a change of local the series really needed, but Pikmin 4 doesn't utilize the interior of a large house to communicate any sense of tension, nor does it amplify the once questionably apocalyptic nature of the world of Pikmin. Pikmin 4 uses this level to present a clean, sterile, safe, and welcoming location meant to make you go "awww it's like they're running around on my carpet!" rather than create compelling gameplay or narrative engagement. While also seeming almost tactically implemented to dissuade and debunk the idea that the world of Pikmin exists in a world where humanity has met it's downfall. I can basically hear Miyamoto telling his team to ensure it's clean as a way to rain on the fanbases parade and make sure they know that the world of Pikmin is a happy, welcoming place for all. And don't forget to visit Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in sunny Hollywood, California!
Beyond this one level all the locations of 4 amount to some different flavor of "sunny forest or beach". They look pretty but I sure am bored. The final level in 4 initially peaks interest when it seems to be fungal themed, but once you dig your teeth in you'll find that it's merely another fairly mundane forest with like 3 mushroom themed enemies. I don't understand why it's so reserved, but it's not a very strong note to close 4 out on. Would it kill them to tear the chastity belt off and make something bold and fantastical? I would guess not but maybe it would have been to liberal for Miyamoto's brand integration.
Also the music sucks. It's really weird to be saying that about a first party Nintendo game. I just can't help but feel this really is indicative of how little anyone on this project was inspired to make this. The music is unremarkably passive and constrained. I fail to remember almost any of the music in 3 other than the main theme so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. The only highlights were whenever the soundtrack harkened back to better music in 1 or 2.
Oh and this game has the weakest offerings for multiplayer co-op of any game since the first, lacking any sort of mission/challenge mode or a way to play through the campaign with a friend. (for real, not little brother mode with the rocks or whatever that junk is) Frankly this isn't a big problem, and I say that because I gaurentee this game will get support later down the line and recieve these features in the form of an update or DLC. So I'll tweak this review to strike this passage out once that happens.
This game is OK. Sometimes I was sort of having fun. It's better than 3. But this isn't a promising vector on which the series will travel into the future. Even if the gameplay was fantastic and uncompromising in sticking to the series core tenants (which it isn't), I would be left feeling empty and lost from how little humanity and soul is present here. Am I out of touch? To cynical? Or is the praise 3 and 4 have received just indicative of a decline in critical appreciation of the arts? In an era where Nintendo has generally been bringing on fresh young talent and crafting inspired resonant refreshes of their flagship series, I don't know how Pikmin 4 happened. Was the A-team busy? Is Miyamoto's direction just that toxic? I'm just not sure.
Ultimately who cares right? It's just a product. Consume it, get your dopamine, fill out those checklists. But I can't help but feel something is lost here.
Very long story short, this game's praise is incredibly overblown. It's nice that Pikmin has found a new audience, but at what cost? I think this series has lost it's soul and hollowed into a corporate mess that has rounded off so many corners that it now fails to evoke any sort of emotional response. It's not a bad game, but it is often boring, and makes me feel empty and sad.
It's probably useful to start by prefacing that I don't care for 3 very much at all, I never really understood the praise it got. In contrast I'm at least fairly conflicted when it comes to 4, but how in the world are people praising it as the peak of this series? I don't know what planet you're from but it sure as hell isn't PNF-404. This game IS confidently better than 3, and how middling I felt about it only served to push my opinion of 3 further down. I don't know why I bother but it's just hard to watch a series I care about flounder while Nintendo pins it down to lobotomize, declaw, and defang it.
So before I dirty myself and climb into the muck, I'll start with what good I found in Pikmin 4.
The game is pretty meaty. This is the most Pikmin bang for your buck that you're going to get in this series. That praise comes with some caveats, however. Depending on your outlook more isn't always better. Besides, art shouldn't be judged from the cynical perspective of value judgements based on cost. Do better and judge things based on the overall experience of engaging with it.
I'm really glad to be ditching the 3rd captain. I never personally cared for how much it complicated planning and management, 2 was just enough. Making the 2 captains asymmetric is also a nice change of pace, splitting up has more strategic weight to it. But it's a great idea that is clumsy in it's execution. (we'll GET to talking about Oatchi)
Loading zones were removed from 3, which is good. They broke up levels to much and tended to spoil and signpost boss encounters before they even began, they also tended to over incentivize the use of the "go here" map screen commands. (I don't want a game that plays itself for me, OK?)
Moving the ship to new bases is an interesting albeit odd addition. Sometimes a cool tactical option, and does allow more sprawling level design I guess? I think I like how it effects cave design more than main stages. It's a mechanic that has the strong potential to bolster puzzle and scenario building... But doesn't really get used for such, mostly operating as yet another design that feels as if it's there more out of a desire to keep the player comfortable than to give their brain a workout. If it has any merit, it's that it may be interesting in time challenges and speedruns where people are attempting to maximize their efficiency.
Bosses were returned to how they used to operate in 1 and 2. Pikmin 3 added phases, damage caps, and cutscenes which slowed the gameplay down and stole away the Pikmin series' unique experience of running into bosses in a diegetic fashion. Thanks to the removal of the damage phase caps, bosses once again reward skillful play by letting you kill them faster. Well, almost all the bosses, anyhow. 4 still committed this sin right at the end, just to spit in my dinner.
Dandori battles feel a bit arbitrary at times but are sort of fun, the versus mode from previous games having now been rolled into the primary experience.
On the other hand, Dandori CHALLENGES may be my favorite addition. It's really satisfying to work under tight restrictions and execute a plan to clean house, barely bringing in the final few items as the last few seconds tick down. (A feeling the series used to work towards facilitating more often). And these aren't afraid to get difficult either, refreshing!
There's actually some really cool new puzzle and environmental hazard additions that give both old and new Pikmin a lot of new strategic options and spice up the level design. Fire pinecones, deep water, pipes, fans, basically everything Ice Pikmin can do, fences and buttons. But they never quite get used to their full potential.
The Piklopedia is finally back. It was a gaping hole in Pikmin 3's overall experience, and it was sorely missed. It has new features too! Being able to fight anything is great. The new characters (we'll get to them much later) aren't interesting to listen to... But Olimar and Louie's logs remain as entertaining as they were in 2.
Olimar says sperm, we take those.
I love Groovy Long Legs. Best thing in the game. See, I don't just hate fun.
The Olimar mode almost makes me feel as If I'm playing a real Pikmin game, if only for the tension of a true time limit and the nostalgia bait it evokes with music and other references to Pikmin 1, but it's shallow praise that says more about Pikmin 1 than it does 4.
This is where that praise ends. Pikmin 4 inherited a lot of problems from 3, changed or fixed only some of them, but introduced some problems of it's own in the process. I can't help but use the word degenerate to describe the way this series has developed, in the most traditional sense of the word. There's so many little touches where in an effort to make the series more accessible or easier to play, they've sacrificed what made it special in the first place, rendering entire systems at the core of Pikmin pointless.
Controls are a big part of this problem, it's quite a can of worms. But I'm opening it, deep breath...
I'm going to start by calling out lock-on as a problematic addition to the Pikmin series. Pikmin is a game that's difficulty and intrigue is predicated on MANAGED CHAOS, and aiming your Pikmin to land where you need them was always a huge part of that. Maps full of hazards, large enemies for which what part of the body you throw Pikmin onto makes the difference between life or death, throwing Pikmin was always a focused and nuanced challenge that rewarded accuracy under pressure.
Then 3 added lock-on... and threw that all out the window. No longer do you need to split your attention between avoiding hazards and throwing Pikmin, or carefully aim to keep your Pikmin from soaring off cliffs or into water. Simply lock on, run in circles, and mash A. It's easier, less stressful, more friendly to new players! ...But you've now rendered enemy and map design as an afterthought you can mentally disengage with due to the confidence you now have that your Pikmin will just go exactly where you expect them to. What's even the point of snitchbugs, skitter leafs, dwarf bulborbs, snagrets, breadbugs, beady longlegs (and the family), honeywisps, iridescent glint beetles, ( I think you get the point ) in a world with lock on? Almost all the enemy design of Pikmin is RELIANT on the skill based aiming, and fighting these enemies went from engaging to literally mindless since 3 came out. Yet they're still here for some reason.
4 Is no different in this regard, but somehow they've managed to make it worse. 4 has an aggressive auto lock-on that is our first example of the many ways in which this game attempts to guess and/or assume player intent, and make choices FOR YOU. Throwing a Pikmin will often trigger the game to eagerly and automatically lock on to objects. The lock-on is also sticky, often frustratingly refusing to unlock from objects. When under pressure from time or enemies, you'll often find yourself mashing lock-on in a futile attempt to wrestle control back from the game, as it jumps to locking on to other objects you didn't intend... you might start to see the problem, but it doesn't end there.
The other half of this problem is the THROW CAP, one of the most baffling additions in Pikmin 4... So someone at Nintendo thought it was a little sad that you had to count out the Pikmin you threw onto objects, and decided a friendly change would be that when locked onto an object, the game will STOP LETTING YOU THROW once you hit the default Pikmin count required to interact with that object. Sure, it lets you mash indiscriminately without thought, but also removes an entire vector of control by which you could make strategic choices (or fail to do so). Also pressing throw and having NOTHING HAPPEN is one of the grossest gamefeel faux pas I've experienced in a long time. Just another way in which you can mentally disengage with the things in front of you, and let the game play itself. But it also completely fails to acknowledge that there is perfectly valid reasons to throw extra Pikmin onto an object.
Pikmin has always had the concept of "overloading", in which you would commit Pikmin beyond the minimum pickup count. A tradeoff to move the item faster in exchange for keeping more of your Pikmin busy. A feature I often strategically made use of to maximize the games precious Dandori. But the game tells me this is invalid (despite the feature still being there) and puts on the training wheels to prevent me from making mistakes. But you know what? It was also just downright satisfying to skillfully count out the exact amount of Pikmin to pick up a part, and it was also memorable when you flubbed it. Of course, you can still achieve overloads by not locking on... But recall the aforementioned issues with lock-on, and you can see that doing so has become so inconvenient as to render an entire staple feature present since the first game nearly unusable. The game fights being played in the way you want.
To add insult to injury, I've observed that idle Pikmin don't treat nearby tasks with equal weight, prioritizing certain tasks over others, and that overloading not only has a lower awareness range, but is lowest priority for idle Pikmin. So that is to say that the game continues to fight back even when you try to play around the lock on and do overloads in other ways. While this sucks for overloading, it's worth calling out how this exemplifies a change in priorities in this series away from player agency and planning, and towards convenience and pre-descriptive play.
The fact that Pikmin tasks aren't treated equally and neutrally based on distance means that the game is making value calls for the importance of tasks beyond the player's means. Not only does this degenerate design continue to undermine the original goals of the series, but it means the player now has to play around these predictions. I can't just throw 2 Pikmin down and expect them to move to the nearest task, I have to somehow guess the games preferences for the "better" task, and base my plans around that. A great example of this in action? Try to fight just about any enemy in the presence of slime molds, and note how your Pikmin will aggressively prioritize destroying the molds over the enemy.
To me changes like these are so obviously flawed that it's shocking to see a modern Nintendo game making them. Sometimes simple is better, the honest and raw heuristics by which this series historically operated on has always prioritized player agency. Why would you want to change that? Why over engineer and re-invent the wheel?
Speaking of which I now have to get on my soap box to similarly dismay Pikmin 3's addition of CHARGE. Charge sure is convenient! But I'm going to once again argue that managed chaos is the point of this series. Charge is to reliable, it's to good. Getting Pikmin on enemies was once a huge part of the challenge. And for that, we had SWARM. Swarm was exemplary of what Pikmin is supposed to be about, it could accomplish what Charge does, but only if you were a skilled player which carefully considered your Pikmin's positions and speeds, and were diligent in clumping them up and moving them to safe positions around enemies.
Plenty of enemies were also designed with swarm counters or immunities, in which hitting an enemies ankles versus their upper body did not reward the same amount of damage. Additionally since swarm took no account of Pikmin types, it was a TRADEOFF compared to throwing, in that it didn't allow you to be as selective with which Pikmin you were using. But Charge has no downsides, you can make sure to only charge with the type of your choice, and don't have to worry about Pikmin speed or clumping. Swarm was also not instant, more akin to a flow of Pikmin as apposed to a wrecking ball. I think it should be pretty obvious how charging the enemy reliably with a large group of exactly the type of Pikmin you want to use trivializes most encounters, and runs counter to this idea of Managed Chaos.
And just to kick me while I'm down, Pikmin 4 brought back swarm!... but stuck it in the post game. You get it so late that there's no time to use it. But also it's worth noting you can't use it on Oatchi... and well, when we get to talking about Oatchi it will become clear why even once you get swarm you STILL don't use it.
I also can't help but lament that due to 4's lock on issues, assigning Pikmin to pick up large groups of small objects has become excessively annoying. A problem that used to be solved through swarm, and that charge can't account for. As it stands the best solution in 4 for this problem is to dismiss your Pikmin, but that requires you to then wait for the others to move before calling the rest back.
Oh and speaking of calling! Let's discuss the whistle. I think a lot of people would likely respond "what's there to complain about with the whistle?, it's no different than in 1 and 2." Well, the main thing to note is that the minimum radius of the whistle has been increased since 3. Basically, tapping the button to do a small whistle no longer allows you to pinpoint and select small groups of 1-3 Pikmin. The whistle starts so large that you'll almost always select more Pikmin than you intend if you're trying to be precise. Just another way in which the game removes player agency.
Oh but why stop there? The whistle now has verticality as a factor. It's no longer infinitely tall along the Y axis. I believe this was an addition inherited from 3 due to the addition of flying Pikmin. Basically, the whistle doesn't extend up or down until reaching it's maximum radius, requiring you to hold it for multiple seconds to select Pikmin below or above you. It's not useful, hooray! It just slows down gameplay and makes it frustrating when using flying Pikmin or blues in deep water. Thanks, I hate it!
And that leads into another fantastic addition from 3 that still persists here. The "task pausing" behavior they've graciously added to the whistle. So in 1 and 2, a quick whistle could call Pikmin off any object. And you could be precise due to the small starting radius. But in 3 and 4, Pikmin carrying an object takes 2 whistles to call off. Huh?. Well, first if you whistle anywhere near Pikmin carrying something, they "Pause" their progress. And only after that can you whistle a second time to actually call them off. It's tedious and I fail to understand the advantage this has. The intent must be to prevent you from canceling carrying Pikmin when trying to call other idle Pikmin nearby, but this is a problem they manufactured when they made the whistle less accurate??? On top of that it's so easy to trigger by accident that you'll often find that while performing other tasks, you'll accidentally pause your Pikmin, wasting both their time as well as blocking other carrying Pikmin behind them. Thanks, I hate it!
Needless to say when it comes to Nintendo, but there's no options to tailor this half of the experience. I'd have little to complain about if I could disable lock on, throw caps, toggle whistle height scaling or task pausing. Maybe disable tutorials... But you can't. Thanks, I hate it.
I'll also take a moment to talk about the night missions. It's almost a fun idea? Pikmin tower defense? Sign me up. But they're pretty mindless, repetitive, and easy. There's not much strategy, just increase your glow Pikmin count and spam charge. But frankly the biggest reason I don't feel compelled to play them is something that will feel extremely familiar if you've played a lot of shrines in Zelda's last 2 outings. You can't just play a night mission, you have to talk to a character, watch / skip spam through about 2 cutscenes, wait through a loading screen, skip 2 more cutscenes, and then when you're done, you'll skip 2 more cutscenes, watch another loading screen, then skip 2 more cutscenes, watch the characters cure a captain, skip that, and then finally skip the cutscene to begin the next day. It's as excessive as it sounds and frankly I have a hard time emotionally telling you whether the mode really is that boring or if I'm just so sick of skipping through this much fluff that I have PTSD.
Y'know when I first saw some rumors that Pikmin 4 would allow you to play at night I was excited at the prospect of this being a broad change to the formula that would allow for more intricate strategies in stages and was well integrated into the story. But what we actually got is dissapointing. To top it off glow seeds are handed out like candy and while using glow Pikmin in caves is a fun idea as well, the reality is that it only serves to place another safety net under the pampered asses of an already outrageously spoiled playerbase.
I'm going to be a little rebel and also bring up the ability to move your ship/base as a negative. As I stated before they don't really do much with it, it could have been cool. But the thing I couldn't help but notice is that it sort of robs the game of the tension inherent to getting really far from your ship in previous games. Maps once used the distance to the ship as a way to wrack up tension, placing difficult enemies, stressfull scenarios, and treasures/ship parts far away where you were at your most vulnerable and most pressed for time. They could still be doing this in 4, even with the ability to move your base, but sort of just don't. So again, it seems to be just yet another way in which the game is simply trying to be friendly and more accessible.
There's a new achievement tracking system by which your are rewarded with currency for meeting small incremental goals. This sucks. I don't need artificial pats on the back for simply playing the game. The ritual of loading up the hub and talking to 6 bland characters and mashing through their dialogue to collect rewards isn't what I'd call fun. It doesn't help that this system literally spoils the game for you. Every time you update the "explore X maps" or "collect X onions" goals, it actually signposts that the game isn't over before the story has a chance to do this naturally. Good job guys, sure you thought that one through.
The game is full of shallow callbacks to Pikmin 1 and 2. Things they seem to be doing out of tradition or homage without understanding why that thing left an impression in the first place. What if we did the submerged castle again! Doesn't matter that the Water Wraith was effective for being a SURPRISE in 2, let's use the same name, same theme, same music, same floor layouts, and have a description that literally signposts that he's going to show up to remove that surprise. Also let's handicap his AI and make him incredibly unimposing thanks to how Oatchi works (we'll GET TO IT). Oh let's bring back Smokey Progg! But lest he be to difficult let's give him a slow projectile move and make him move around less so his smoke trail doesn't make anybody sad. Man At Legs! Puffstool is back! But he practically can't kill your Pikmin since we removed it's ability to inflict the novel and unique curse status that was so memorable... eh oh well. It's just frustrating to see all your favorite moments defanged and dragged out in display to dance for your amusement.
Making a spiritual successor to something should be about trying to reproduce the feelings the original made you feel by providing NEW, NOVEL experiences that feel motivated by a similar set of developer goals. Not simply a best hits track. And for all it's gallivanting about trying to be Pikmin 2, what NEW is there in 4 that exemplifies the spirit of Pikmin 2 in any way, shape, or form? I fail to think of anything.
As alluded to earlier the final boss of 4 for some reason commits the sins of Pikmin 3's bosses. It has phases, damage caps, cutscenes... It doesn't even let you carry Louie to the ship at the end. It's also just continued character assassination for Louie while also just not being a very cool setpiece? The fight's slow and cycle driven and gives the player no control over the pacing. Also isn't part of what always made Pikmin unique fighting bugs and strange creatures? Straying from the contemporary? How did we end up fighting dogs while rock music plays? I'll give it props for being possibly the only thing in the game with an effect that can insta-kill Pikmin. But all this really incentivized was doing the entire fight with Oatchi. Maybe that was intentional?
Oh hey why not take a moment to also wine about the farlic system? I like collecting the various colored onions to add new Pikmin to my lexicon, but lowering the maximum Pikmin count so aggressively just makes half the game feel like you've got training wheels on. Well, because you do.
A comment helped remind me of something I had a hard time putting my finger on. Which is why it is Pikmin 2 manages to feel moderately tenser and more time sensitive despite the lack of any true time limit. It's because enemies respawn. You'd always feel pressure to finish raking in treasure under threat that you'll have to clean out the level again if you failed to finish doing so before nightfall. Pikmin 4's friendly choice to never respawn enemies removes this tension, while also thematically sacrificing a bit of Pikmin's relation of the indifference of nature. Hell, they used to destroy your bridges and structures over subsequent days as well, keeping you ever vigilant to the idea that any progress you've fought for can and will be scraped back by nature's cold embrace if you don't keep a watchful eye.
Oh this is a big one, I almost forget to mention the "3 Pikmin type limit" slumped on this game. What in the hell were they thinking here. What does this... I don't, I just don't understand. It has so many knock-on effects. In prior games you would plan ahead and try to have enough of each type to have a versatile team of your favorites ready to take on any challenge... but you can't do that now. As such, the level designers had to assume you only had 3 types and design around that explicitly. Well with the designers hands tied, might as well just tell the player which 3 Pikmin types to take... so they do. So now team building is removed as a factor as well. Each level just prescribes what you should take.
You know in 2 I always brought whites in all situations because I enjoyed how fast they were, and saving time by using them to move most treasures was part of my strategy, at the trade off of having less Pikmin for other uses. That was a playstyle I chose and the game empowered me to explore. But the possibility space for how you play 4 has now been chucked in the bin, and for what? More restrictive level design? Well I know the answer is accessibility and not overwhelming the player in lieu of having 9 types of Pikmin AND Oatchi to contend with. But that's interesting, I'd rather you lean in on that and let me decide whether or not I want to play it simple or come up with complicated team builds. Thanks, I hate it.
Pikmin also "cheat" in these newer games. Their movement and capabilities no longer consistent and tangible in a way you have to play around and manage. Notice how newly called Pikmin rubber band and run faster than their base speed to catch up to the captain, notice how they teleport into your hand when you go to throw them. Notice how they never trip or lag behind when they have leaves. Take account of how they path around the map using the nav network on their own, minimalizing the importance of player management so they don't get "stuck" like they did in 1 and 2. But the pathing is also sometimes pretty bad and Pikmin take longer to get to you than they would have if they just ran in a straight line. Everything is so over-engineered. I can't believe the amount of reviews I see complaining about how unruly the Pikmin were in 1 and 2, and praising 3 for "fixing" it. THAT WAS THE POINT. You people don't understand this series.
A shocking amount of enemies including a lot of the new ones simply can't kill your Pikmin. That's not a new thing, but in past games nuisance enemies would be paired with genuinely dangerous enemies to create interesting scenarios that were genuinely challenging. This game seems allergic to the idea of placing even 2 difficult enemies within any degree of proximity, rendering a lot of the encounters pointless when Pikmin aren't in any danger.
People complain about electricity in 2, but I think there needs to be more consideration in this series as to what actually makes hazards different. Spamming whistle to make your Pikmin essentially invincible when encountering any hazard is yet another degenerative design degradation exacerbated by the more generous hazard timers in 3 and 4. And say what you will about electricity in 2 but you can't say it didn't make your butthole pucker and take those hazards VERY SERIOUSLY. Is it wrong to want to feel something?
This game just wants you to succeed so much. It's so friendly and eager to give you tools and tricks that remove or minimize how much you need to actually plan or pay attention. The obfuscation of upgrades to a shop really exacerbates the problem. In past game's abilities were doled out at a controlled rate and were kept in check from a usefulness perspective, tending to avoid power creep. They were also exciting to retrieve as immediate rewards for defeating bosses or reaching milestones. But now everything you do rewards the same resource and defers the true payout until later, dulling the experience. This is also one way in which the scope and length of Pikmin 4 works to it's detriment, as the designers have been incentivized to invent new abilities to pad out the shop.
The "Idler's Alert" is super useful and can be used to strategize, I'm torn on it. But It can't be denied that it gives me far less reason to keep track of where my Pikmin are, and gives me far less reason to split up my captains, which was often done in the past to babysit Pikmin and ensure that I am covering more of the map and that a captain would never be to far from a Pikmin in need. But it's really useful during Dandori challenges. The "Homesick Signal" however is so clearly an "easy button" that further degrades Pikmin's identity as a series. Making sure Pikmin didn't get lost and die to nightfall has been a memorable staple in Pikmin since day 1. But this basically can't happen any longer so long as you push this one button in your item menu before the day ends...
There's so many defensive buffs you can pile on, and they're relatively cheap. I think your average Pikmin 4 player will have been long immune to most hazards before the game ever presents them with fire or wind or poison. Why did they even bother? I never got close to getting myself downed.
Top that off with the introduction of consumables. If you want you can just buy your way out of any situation by loading up on bombs in the shop or what have you. But don't worry, the game will rain scrummy bones and spicy spray on you like it's Christmas morning so you won't really need to bother.
Almost every use of spray in Pikmin 2 was a tactical decision with which you committed a vital resource you had harvested yourself. In this game I found myself using spray in every fight and still had an excess of 50+ sprays by the end of the game. This is no longer a tactical choice, it's a game now taken over by dominant strategy. But don't worry if there was any part of you left concerned their might be a chance you have to think or plan ahead, as spicy spray now applies to all your Pikmin at infinite distance, map wide! Sure, why not I guess!
Well speaking of DOMINANT strategy. We have to break down the elephant in the room. Our boy Oatchi. I want to like him, he's a good boy. Asymmetrical captains is a great Idea. But, he's just so good. He's TO good, he single handedly transforms Pikmin 4 from an RTS into a MOBA.
He is so strikingly overkill as a way to manage Pikmin it's shocking they didn't account for it. The managed chaos that I've called out as key to this series ceases to exist when you ride Oatchi. Boss and enemy patterns that once capitalized on the chaotic spread out nature of your Pikmin army as it follows you is rendered mute by this scrummy bingus. All your Pikmin are now packaged up part and parcel into a single unit that you control directly.
Man-at-legs machine gun got you down? Don't sweat, just pack up on Oatchi and run circles around him dodging every shot. Water in your way? No blues truly needed, just toss any Pikmin color into the lake off Oatchi's back and then call them back (rock Pikmin should really just die instantly if they touch water, they're a little to good when tossed off Oatchi). An entire series predicated on enemy and environmental hazard designs based around the presumption that you have an unruly clump of barely compliant children at your heel, but Oatchi so thoroughly solves the problem that you're just not playing a Pikmin game.
The frustrating thing is that it's not an unsalvageable idea. Oatchi just needed to be handled as a tradeoff with upsides and downsides. He already has some great tradeoffs that make sense! He can jump and the captain can't. He can't fit past grates but he CAN go in pipes. This is all good stuff! It adds new nuance to level design. So expanding upon this should be easy, no? Here, I'll start:
Oatchi can whistle, but let's change it so he can't throw. I mean he doesn't have hands, why can he do that anyhow? But in return he can use the Charge Horn! To balance this out, the captain can't use the Charge Horn but they have SWARM, giving him a unique tactical tradeoff incentive to switch between Oatchi and your captain. While we're at it, Oatchi can only carry roughly 10-20 Pikmin, making him useful for scouting and strike teams but not allowing him to render your entire Pikmin army immune to hazards, and making him worse at tackling bosses.
These would be some sensible balance tweaks! But they don't address the true pièce de résistance, the steaming pile sitting under this elephant that I've been waiting even longer to discuss. Oatchi's RUSH. The dominant strategy to end all dominant strategies. If you thought Pikmin 2 had a dominant strategy in the form of Purples, get ready to sweat. At least Purples were a coveted resource you were afraid to lose.
Oatchi's rush allows you to sprint forward and slam through / into obstacles. It's used for gating content in levels, but can also be used effectively in combat. It instantly kills many smaller enemies, and later on can even be upgraded to stun enemies and bosses similarly to purple Pikmin. It's low risk, high reward, as Oatchi takes little damage and can't permanently die. But none of this is the real problem, the real problem is that any Pikmin on Oatchi's back will instantly deathball onto the enemy or obstacle he hits. That's 100 Pikmin, of any color, all hitting an enemy simultaneously (while also stunning them!?). All the nuance and challenge of getting Pikmin onto the opponent in other ways by throwing, swarming, or even charging, can't survive being tactically compared to this.
In my entire playthrough there were almost no threats that could survive long enough when subjected to Oatchi's wrath to even attempt to fight back. Some bosses would be fell instantly by this (particularly when combined with my infinite pack of spicy sprays, which I can generously apply AFTER charging since they work from any distance) , let alone every normal enemy and threat in the game. This was it, this killed Pikmin 4. You don't need to think, just rush, it'll work out. If it's not reliable enough already, toss 20 or so ice Pikmin into the mix so that you can stack Oatchi's initial stun with a follow up icing. What, freezing erases the body and prevents Pikmin propagation? Doesn't matter, you'll only ever need 100 Pikmin since they will never die.
I really don't understand how this made it to ship. It has the same effect on Pikmin 4 as it would any game with an overwhelmingly dominant strategy. It makes it boring. I kind of like Oatchi, but looking at his scrummy little face unfortunately leaves me with a twinge of idle resentment I wish I didn't feel. I never have to ask "how will I kill this enemy?", there's only 1 answer. It turns fun into tedium. With so little resistance, Pikmin 4 quickly stops feeling like a game and starts feels like busy work. The Pikmin equivalent of power wash simulator.
And with that we've finished digging the grave for Pikmin's gameplay. It was a long road but we can finally brush our hands off and discuss the other half of this experience. The worldbuilding, art, presentation, story, and tone.
I just don't understand what this series is going for any longer. Soul may be a nearly meaningless buzzword that gets tossed around with quite a bit of abandon, but if there's anything I can say about Pikmin 1 and 2, it's that the soul of it's developers are on full display. It's a collective effect of the music, art, gamefeel, writing, the odd mechanics and enemies, the small surprising touches that give it character, everything. I feel the fingerprints of the people who made it. And I can tell they cared.
Pikmin 3 and 4 have a distinct corporate stink to them. It doesn't feel like it's being made by people who want to be there. It's cold and sterile. These are products that insisted upon themselves to be made. Everything about them mentally evokes rounded corners, crossed T's and dotted I's. Brand management, audience testing, shareholder appeasement. Miyamoto. There's a strict and enstrangling agenda to be unassuming, cute, unchallenging, light and low on stakes. To evoke only happy emotions and to eschew confusion or surprise.
The cute pup Oatchi, Pink Pikmin, happy sunshine basked forests. A colorful energetic cast of affable gormless goofballs who bumble in and out of problems and a looked up to heroic captain whom everyone knows and trusts guiding them. This isn't what I associate with Pikmin.
Pikmin was about strange inhospitable worlds, about the questionable moral quality of using others for personal gain and corporate greed. About finding comfort and solace in places you least expected it. About uphill battles and managed chaos. Pikmin evoked dark foreboding groves, strange creatures, and a put upon everyman with a scientific mind navigating it through wit and a sheer will to survive and see his family again. It evoked true emotions. You pushed forward because the plot and world compelled you to ask "will this turn out ok?" and "what nightmare will I run across next while trying to make sure it does?".
The stories of 3 and 4 lean on humor, contrivance, and dramatic irony. It's insultingly juvenile and completely lacking that smidge of depth and nuance that made the first two games timeless. The characters ask "where's Olimar", but you the player already know, he's right fucking there. There's nothing to worry about. It's played as a joke but leaves you with no driving cause or concern with which to press ahead, and no mystery to uncover. You know things will be fine. Characters flanderize into tropes of their former selves. Olimar is elevated to a pedestal and became even more competent, also I guess he's famous now (wasn't he just a trucker?), and he must always crash land so we can laugh because that's just what he does! Louie can't simply be a spacey and odd character who makes genuine mistakes, he has to be an agent of chaos who acts with true malice, working against the interests of and endangering the people around him.
The cast of 3 is friendly, affable, and inoffensive. I don't hate them, but they're not exactly interesting. And I never quite understood why they added new planets to the lore, it feels a bit contrived and unnecessary. But 4 really takes the cake with how it dilutes the lore, adding dozens of new random planets to the lexicon. These poor wiki writers. The cast is comprised of a vast array of dozens and dozens of colorful new characters all with the emotional content of a pile of sand. 4 Introduced a character creator, but then used that to generate all the supporting cast. It's understandable to fill out the survivor list with generative characters, but named primary characters I'm supposed to engage with are decently likely to look the same as the character you created. It's quite off-putting.
The game manages to make these new characters all the more unlikeable by forcing you through a sieve of excessive tutorials and dialogue scenes where they state the obvious, make vapid jokes, and literally tell you how useless they are as if it's supposed to be cute that they stand around and do nothing. These scenes never let up, and often come in batches of anywhere from 2 to 6 back to back, with some loading screens thrown in for good measure. Oh and don't forget that characters act as mandatory gateways you have to mash through to access the world map, check the Piklopedia, or turn in achievements. Yeah no way that will get old and leave me somehow resenting them even more. Doesn't help that menus and text have large mandatory delays so mashing through isn't even fast, either.
If that wasn't enough to get you to resent them, they constantly chime in to tell you how to play the game, disrespect your intelligence, and block 20% of your field of vision while making annoying noises. These messages are also incredibly repetitive and prescriptive for how the player should feel. I'm not allowed to have my own emotional response when I lose Pikmin, Colin must chime in literally every single time to make a sad face and tell me to feel bad... :( But don't worry we'll just prescribe that you travel back in time 30 seconds and save scum to fix it, because you're certainly also incapable of having the idea to reset your game of your own volition. You know part of what made this series compelling was how the first 2 games left you to contemplate how to feel about your exploitation of Pikmin. Olimar's plight in 1 evoked an extremely different feeling to the capitalistic exploitation of 2. But the game let you come to those conclusions on your own, and form a personal connection to your Pikmin. If you felt bad when they died, that was on you for having empathy, not something you were ever TOLD to feel.
Well never mind all that, there are sales figures to consider!
And how could I forget! This game randomly decided to retcon the past 3! I really have no words for why they would do this. There's nothing about the events of this game's plot that would have been incompatible with the stories of 1 through 3. But boy I sure am glad that the much more compelling stories of the series roots have been overwritten for this corporate drivel!
The levels in Pikmin 3 and 4 have failed to explore particularly new or interesting settings. Pikmin 1 remains the game with the most variety in terms of level theme and design. Nowhere else in the series is as dark, foreboding, and congested as The Forest Navel. Nowhere as open and serene as The Distant Spring. Nowhere as striking as the Wistful Wild or as quiet as the Valley of Repose in 2.
The most notable location in 3 or 4 is Hero's Hideaway. Finally a change of local the series really needed, but Pikmin 4 doesn't utilize the interior of a large house to communicate any sense of tension, nor does it amplify the once questionably apocalyptic nature of the world of Pikmin. Pikmin 4 uses this level to present a clean, sterile, safe, and welcoming location meant to make you go "awww it's like they're running around on my carpet!" rather than create compelling gameplay or narrative engagement. While also seeming almost tactically implemented to dissuade and debunk the idea that the world of Pikmin exists in a world where humanity has met it's downfall. I can basically hear Miyamoto telling his team to ensure it's clean as a way to rain on the fanbases parade and make sure they know that the world of Pikmin is a happy, welcoming place for all. And don't forget to visit Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in sunny Hollywood, California!
Beyond this one level all the locations of 4 amount to some different flavor of "sunny forest or beach". They look pretty but I sure am bored. The final level in 4 initially peaks interest when it seems to be fungal themed, but once you dig your teeth in you'll find that it's merely another fairly mundane forest with like 3 mushroom themed enemies. I don't understand why it's so reserved, but it's not a very strong note to close 4 out on. Would it kill them to tear the chastity belt off and make something bold and fantastical? I would guess not but maybe it would have been to liberal for Miyamoto's brand integration.
Also the music sucks. It's really weird to be saying that about a first party Nintendo game. I just can't help but feel this really is indicative of how little anyone on this project was inspired to make this. The music is unremarkably passive and constrained. I fail to remember almost any of the music in 3 other than the main theme so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. The only highlights were whenever the soundtrack harkened back to better music in 1 or 2.
Oh and this game has the weakest offerings for multiplayer co-op of any game since the first, lacking any sort of mission/challenge mode or a way to play through the campaign with a friend. (for real, not little brother mode with the rocks or whatever that junk is) Frankly this isn't a big problem, and I say that because I gaurentee this game will get support later down the line and recieve these features in the form of an update or DLC. So I'll tweak this review to strike this passage out once that happens.
This game is OK. Sometimes I was sort of having fun. It's better than 3. But this isn't a promising vector on which the series will travel into the future. Even if the gameplay was fantastic and uncompromising in sticking to the series core tenants (which it isn't), I would be left feeling empty and lost from how little humanity and soul is present here. Am I out of touch? To cynical? Or is the praise 3 and 4 have received just indicative of a decline in critical appreciation of the arts? In an era where Nintendo has generally been bringing on fresh young talent and crafting inspired resonant refreshes of their flagship series, I don't know how Pikmin 4 happened. Was the A-team busy? Is Miyamoto's direction just that toxic? I'm just not sure.
Ultimately who cares right? It's just a product. Consume it, get your dopamine, fill out those checklists. But I can't help but feel something is lost here.
2023
It's worth noting that I am reviewing the full release, not the demo, of Pseudoregalia that launched in late July, 2023.
Games like this don't get made. If this game was merely a straight through 3D platformer it would already be one of the best out there, but it doesn't stop there.
3D metroidvanias barely exist, 3D metroidvanias where there is genuine flexibility in progression are even rarer ( let alone 2D ones ). Rarer then that yet is a game with such fantastic gamefeel, flow, and style with which those things are presented.
Stringing together the moveset in this game became such a simple joy. I reached a pure state of flow and expression, flying through these environments and finding new ways to shmoove, break progression, and get the genuine satisfaction of truly earning items and secrets through my own skill, and not a developers ill conceived and contrived attempts to artificially make me feel special.
The combat, while perhaps it's weakest link, benefits just enough from the games fundamentally fantastic gamefeel to get a pass. It ultimately still feels satisfying, providing a smidge of flexibility when dealing with encounters, while not overstaying it's welcome.
Top that off with some economic but attractive visuals and a great soundtrack that evokes all the right feelings from the era it draws inspiration from and there's very little left to complain about. If anything could be considered a shortcoming it's the simple nature of the games world and story, but that could also be considered an advantage in some regards for how little it gets in the way or distracts from the game's strengths.
In the end I can't really recommend it enough.
Games like this don't get made. If this game was merely a straight through 3D platformer it would already be one of the best out there, but it doesn't stop there.
3D metroidvanias barely exist, 3D metroidvanias where there is genuine flexibility in progression are even rarer ( let alone 2D ones ). Rarer then that yet is a game with such fantastic gamefeel, flow, and style with which those things are presented.
Stringing together the moveset in this game became such a simple joy. I reached a pure state of flow and expression, flying through these environments and finding new ways to shmoove, break progression, and get the genuine satisfaction of truly earning items and secrets through my own skill, and not a developers ill conceived and contrived attempts to artificially make me feel special.
The combat, while perhaps it's weakest link, benefits just enough from the games fundamentally fantastic gamefeel to get a pass. It ultimately still feels satisfying, providing a smidge of flexibility when dealing with encounters, while not overstaying it's welcome.
Top that off with some economic but attractive visuals and a great soundtrack that evokes all the right feelings from the era it draws inspiration from and there's very little left to complain about. If anything could be considered a shortcoming it's the simple nature of the games world and story, but that could also be considered an advantage in some regards for how little it gets in the way or distracts from the game's strengths.
In the end I can't really recommend it enough.
2021
I was drawn in by the whimsical art and premise, but was disappointed to find that in execution, the game really fails to deliver and lacks an attention to detail. The world and characters didn't charm or grip me, and ultimately I felt no desire to finish it and put it down for good after a few hours.
When viewed in stills, the game manages to present pretty well, but once it's in motion there's a certain desolation to the rigid animation, underdone effects, and empty soundscapes that makes the game feel oddly sterile. The gamefeel is pretty stiff and when put through it's paces the combat proves to be fairly repetitive and lacking in nuance.
Overall Death's Door just feels undercooked, even for something so simple. It's nothing offensive but I'd say give it a miss.
When viewed in stills, the game manages to present pretty well, but once it's in motion there's a certain desolation to the rigid animation, underdone effects, and empty soundscapes that makes the game feel oddly sterile. The gamefeel is pretty stiff and when put through it's paces the combat proves to be fairly repetitive and lacking in nuance.
Overall Death's Door just feels undercooked, even for something so simple. It's nothing offensive but I'd say give it a miss.
2000
I want to like this game. I SEE why people like it, I see what they enjoy about it. The story is decently charming, I like the creepy mysterious entity that is Rudy, It's cool watching the world map evolve, there's a decent sense of a coherent little world, and you get a nice sense of progression as you gain abilities. But I just can't being myself to say that I like it, the game just goes out of it's way to ensure sure you don't have a good time. And I'm going to try and even out the discourse surrounding this thing a bit.
On PAPER the idea of a wario-vania is enticing, but the execution is so problematic that it fails to function as intended. It's a shame too, because most of the issue lives within the level design, which from a philosophy standpoint is so inherently flawed that it would ruin any game, not just a Wario Land. But on top of that, this philosophy impressively manages to run counter to what makes a backtracking metroidvania with unlockable abilities work, and shits on the potential it had. If you're an aspiring level designer, take notes. Because this game wrote the book on how not to do it.
Let's start by addressing the way individual rooms and chunks of content work in Wario Land 3. In almost any area in this game, you are presented with a small gauntlet of tricky platforming navigation impeded by frequent enemy spawns. Sounds normal, but in this game the levels are crafted in a very intentional way to ensure that if any singular enemy nicks you, it is basically guaranteed that you will bounce, float, roll, teleport, or melt your way back to square one, at the start of the gauntlet. This is Wario Land 3's solution to having a character that does not die. You don't pay in health or money, you pay with progression and time. They are so committal to this idea that often the level designers have carefully placed enemies and platforms in just such a fashion as to ensure that this happens.
Ok, sounds like it could be a bit annoying. But what's wrong with a challenge? Plenty of areas in Wario Land 2 share this prospect, even many of the areas in 4. Well what's wrong is that every OTHER aspect of the games design does not support this part of the design philosophy.
So let's break this down, due to being a Wario-Vania, you often enter stages lacking crucial skills and powers that you need to fully explore the level. Now, in a metroid-vania, you probe the map for what you can currently do, eventually stumbling into difficult content and challenges that you can tackle with your available toolkit. All the while, the game foreshadows new abilities that you'll attain later by placing enticing detours out of your reach. Now, Wario Land 3 often does this as well, but there's a catch. A sin other games usually avoid. In other games, normally if your toolkit allows you to access a difficult chunk of content, there is a really strong degree of trust and understanding that completing it will reward you with something, whether it be a progression item or powerup.
But not in this game. No no no, in Wario Land 3, progression gates are often placed at the END of difficult gauntlets, instead of before them. Can you extrapolate why this is an issue? In this game you suffer through a frustrating room only to be greeted by a big middle finger informing you that you'll have to come back later and do it AGAIN. There's a reason most metroidvanias place their progression checks at crossroads or detours, and that's because it prevents THIS scenario.
And it gets WORSE, on top of the possibility that you don't have the ability required to proceed, there's a second level of obfuscation. You may not have the KEY, since every reward is locked in a chest. Meaning that more often than not in this game, you will complete a challenge and be rewarded with NOTHING. And when you're exploring a level for the first time and run across a difficult room, there's really no way to know if completing the room will reward you with a CHEST or a KEY, or if you'll have the ability needed to finish it. Doing anything in this game, ( a game where most challenges are inherently frustrating or annoying by design ) is essentially just rolling a dice with a 2/3'rds chance that you wasted your time.
And just to add needless insult to injury, KEYS ARE NOT KEPT WHEN YOU LEAVE A STAGE. I can't comprehend why this is, but nothing stung worse then completing a hard room, getting a key, and then later opening a different chest, only to realize you'll have to re-collect that other key later. WHY!?
It's such an inherent failing to capitalize on the strengths of a metroid-vania progression structure that it's pretty hard to believe that nobody identified the problem while making it. This is the primary issue with Wario Land 3, but I can nitpick more. Frankly Wario Land 2 is just so superior that it makes my job a simple act of comparison.
In Wario Land 2, the design of rooms and enemy placement is actually pretty reserved. Most enemies are placed such that you can see the threat coming and adequately respond, and generally most exist not to merely obstruct you, but serve as a mechanical key to a puzzle or challenge, they are there because you need them, or as a navigational test. Seeing an enemy enlists the thought "hmm, wonder what I need to do with this guy?"
In 3, most rooms are lousy with more enemies then need be. Not only that, but often they cheekily attack the moment they come on screen. There's the ceiling guys who fire a bullet the frame they spawn, the zombies who simply jump scare the player by spawning with a delay ( and often right next to Wario ) , and plenty of guys placed in just such a fashion that when you jump to a platform off screen they will greet you as you land, etc, etc. And may I remind you that the punishment for being so much as nicked by any one of these cheekily placed bastards will be almost guaranteed to reset your progress on the room. Hell, why stop there? Often times not just that room! But the previous room too! And perhaps even the one before that if the designers are feeling saucy! You'll fall to your dismay in some sort of masochistic nightmare dreamed up by Bennett Foddy. The act of getting reset is often times long and obnoxious to boot, and running around on fire, bouncing uncontrollably, or toddling around slowly while fat or a zombie gets incredibly old the 100th time. And don't you dare forget that actually suffering through the experience might present you with nothing to show for your anguish.
This gung-ho enemy distribution also has the knock-on effect of often obscuring that some of those enemies might ACTUALLY be important for solving a puzzle or progressing, making it easy to overlook. Whereas in 2 it was so consistently assumed to be the case simply through the diligent consistency of minimal design.
Levels in 2 are also full of fun secrets, tunnels, coins, and even alternate routes and exits, such that exploring and prodding the bounds of the level is fun and rewarding. Somehow 3, despite being billed as a metroidvania which should be about exploring while recalling cool hidden routes you should backtrack too, manages to feel less open and satisfying.
2 also rewards you for finding those secrets with bonus levels, alternate routes, more bosses, more versions of the story, additional cutscenes and endings, AND makes going for 100% of the treasures a natural joy that I felt compelled to do. And to top it off the game rewarded me for THAT as well, with an ultimate level and final ending to really provide a sense of closure. 3 rewards you for suffering through it's schlock with a single screen saying "perfect!" and nothing else of note.
Wario Land 3 also has no top down convenient way to track your collection progress across the entire game, without having to check every level individually. ( Unlike... 2, surprise! )
The game also inherits one of the few misses in the design of Wario Land 2, that being the bosses, which in having a 1 strike you're out philosophy were always a slight pain. The same goes here, but I find it forgivable in both games at the end of the day.
The day-night mechanic was a missed opportunity. A few cute changes in a few stages but largely left me wondering why they bothered. At it's worst it's yet another vector by which the game could say "oh sorry you did this room, you wasted your time! come back later!".
I feel like people complain about the Golf Mini-Game all the time, but it's not awful in a vacuum and I think the reason people dislike it is the often overlooked weirdest part about it. It's randomized. I don't get why they did this. It'd be nice to fail and master a set golf challenge that is tied to the location, but you have no opportunity here to do so since as soon as you think "ok I know what swings to do to beat this stage next time", you remember that when you go back down that pipe it will be different. But also, why golf? It's so thematically dissonant and weird.
Also what's the point of money in this game??? There's no end game ranking really, and I guess golf is the only money sink? But I always had 999 coins by halfway through and there isn't THAT MUCH golf? Sure makes exploring even more boring since why should I even be excited to find coins??? In 2 I was DEFINITELY glad to find coins, making every small secret a treat. Did I miss something????
I also didn't find the game to have much of a thematic through-line. I prefer the enemies in 2 which all have a bit of a pirate theming to tie in with Captain Syrup, as do some of the levels. 3 lacks a bit in having any kind of identity. I will say I like Rudy, he's creepy and fun, but isn't really in the game much, and none of the enemies even foreshadow his clowniness in any sort of way.
If I'll give Wario Land 3 anything, it's that it's problems start to sting less as you round out your ability list, since you'll find yourself unequipped to complete a challenge less frequently... although this does nothing to address the key situation. But I can admit that I was enjoying myself a smidge more towards the end of the game. So pour one out for WL3.
To start wrapping this review up, I'll say that at time of writing, there is currently a resurging discourse surrounding this game heralding it as brilliant, and a lost treasure in the Nintendo catalogue. I don't really understand it. I can only chalk it up to it's recent release on the switch virtual console subscription service, coinciding with a current Wario backed revitalized interest in puzzle platformers sparked by the success of indie darling Pizza Tower.
But I can't see it as any more than a combination of rose-tinted nostalgia from the veteran fans, and a bias of omission by new players for whom this is the only currently available Wario Land on the switch... Playing anything else in this series paints it in a very bad light, I would argue that of even Wario Land 1, as there's nothing wrong with a simple and well executed romp that lacks major flaws. Whereas by comparison I found 3 to mostly be defined by those flaws.
Ultimately the praise 3 gets is largely undeserved. Despite Wario Land 3 having some inspired but undelivered upon concepts, it's not awful by any means. Still better than most games, particularly on the Gameboy. But actually playing it is far to often a futile exercise in frustration.
On PAPER the idea of a wario-vania is enticing, but the execution is so problematic that it fails to function as intended. It's a shame too, because most of the issue lives within the level design, which from a philosophy standpoint is so inherently flawed that it would ruin any game, not just a Wario Land. But on top of that, this philosophy impressively manages to run counter to what makes a backtracking metroidvania with unlockable abilities work, and shits on the potential it had. If you're an aspiring level designer, take notes. Because this game wrote the book on how not to do it.
Let's start by addressing the way individual rooms and chunks of content work in Wario Land 3. In almost any area in this game, you are presented with a small gauntlet of tricky platforming navigation impeded by frequent enemy spawns. Sounds normal, but in this game the levels are crafted in a very intentional way to ensure that if any singular enemy nicks you, it is basically guaranteed that you will bounce, float, roll, teleport, or melt your way back to square one, at the start of the gauntlet. This is Wario Land 3's solution to having a character that does not die. You don't pay in health or money, you pay with progression and time. They are so committal to this idea that often the level designers have carefully placed enemies and platforms in just such a fashion as to ensure that this happens.
Ok, sounds like it could be a bit annoying. But what's wrong with a challenge? Plenty of areas in Wario Land 2 share this prospect, even many of the areas in 4. Well what's wrong is that every OTHER aspect of the games design does not support this part of the design philosophy.
So let's break this down, due to being a Wario-Vania, you often enter stages lacking crucial skills and powers that you need to fully explore the level. Now, in a metroid-vania, you probe the map for what you can currently do, eventually stumbling into difficult content and challenges that you can tackle with your available toolkit. All the while, the game foreshadows new abilities that you'll attain later by placing enticing detours out of your reach. Now, Wario Land 3 often does this as well, but there's a catch. A sin other games usually avoid. In other games, normally if your toolkit allows you to access a difficult chunk of content, there is a really strong degree of trust and understanding that completing it will reward you with something, whether it be a progression item or powerup.
But not in this game. No no no, in Wario Land 3, progression gates are often placed at the END of difficult gauntlets, instead of before them. Can you extrapolate why this is an issue? In this game you suffer through a frustrating room only to be greeted by a big middle finger informing you that you'll have to come back later and do it AGAIN. There's a reason most metroidvanias place their progression checks at crossroads or detours, and that's because it prevents THIS scenario.
And it gets WORSE, on top of the possibility that you don't have the ability required to proceed, there's a second level of obfuscation. You may not have the KEY, since every reward is locked in a chest. Meaning that more often than not in this game, you will complete a challenge and be rewarded with NOTHING. And when you're exploring a level for the first time and run across a difficult room, there's really no way to know if completing the room will reward you with a CHEST or a KEY, or if you'll have the ability needed to finish it. Doing anything in this game, ( a game where most challenges are inherently frustrating or annoying by design ) is essentially just rolling a dice with a 2/3'rds chance that you wasted your time.
And just to add needless insult to injury, KEYS ARE NOT KEPT WHEN YOU LEAVE A STAGE. I can't comprehend why this is, but nothing stung worse then completing a hard room, getting a key, and then later opening a different chest, only to realize you'll have to re-collect that other key later. WHY!?
It's such an inherent failing to capitalize on the strengths of a metroid-vania progression structure that it's pretty hard to believe that nobody identified the problem while making it. This is the primary issue with Wario Land 3, but I can nitpick more. Frankly Wario Land 2 is just so superior that it makes my job a simple act of comparison.
In Wario Land 2, the design of rooms and enemy placement is actually pretty reserved. Most enemies are placed such that you can see the threat coming and adequately respond, and generally most exist not to merely obstruct you, but serve as a mechanical key to a puzzle or challenge, they are there because you need them, or as a navigational test. Seeing an enemy enlists the thought "hmm, wonder what I need to do with this guy?"
In 3, most rooms are lousy with more enemies then need be. Not only that, but often they cheekily attack the moment they come on screen. There's the ceiling guys who fire a bullet the frame they spawn, the zombies who simply jump scare the player by spawning with a delay ( and often right next to Wario ) , and plenty of guys placed in just such a fashion that when you jump to a platform off screen they will greet you as you land, etc, etc. And may I remind you that the punishment for being so much as nicked by any one of these cheekily placed bastards will be almost guaranteed to reset your progress on the room. Hell, why stop there? Often times not just that room! But the previous room too! And perhaps even the one before that if the designers are feeling saucy! You'll fall to your dismay in some sort of masochistic nightmare dreamed up by Bennett Foddy. The act of getting reset is often times long and obnoxious to boot, and running around on fire, bouncing uncontrollably, or toddling around slowly while fat or a zombie gets incredibly old the 100th time. And don't you dare forget that actually suffering through the experience might present you with nothing to show for your anguish.
This gung-ho enemy distribution also has the knock-on effect of often obscuring that some of those enemies might ACTUALLY be important for solving a puzzle or progressing, making it easy to overlook. Whereas in 2 it was so consistently assumed to be the case simply through the diligent consistency of minimal design.
Levels in 2 are also full of fun secrets, tunnels, coins, and even alternate routes and exits, such that exploring and prodding the bounds of the level is fun and rewarding. Somehow 3, despite being billed as a metroidvania which should be about exploring while recalling cool hidden routes you should backtrack too, manages to feel less open and satisfying.
2 also rewards you for finding those secrets with bonus levels, alternate routes, more bosses, more versions of the story, additional cutscenes and endings, AND makes going for 100% of the treasures a natural joy that I felt compelled to do. And to top it off the game rewarded me for THAT as well, with an ultimate level and final ending to really provide a sense of closure. 3 rewards you for suffering through it's schlock with a single screen saying "perfect!" and nothing else of note.
Wario Land 3 also has no top down convenient way to track your collection progress across the entire game, without having to check every level individually. ( Unlike... 2, surprise! )
The game also inherits one of the few misses in the design of Wario Land 2, that being the bosses, which in having a 1 strike you're out philosophy were always a slight pain. The same goes here, but I find it forgivable in both games at the end of the day.
The day-night mechanic was a missed opportunity. A few cute changes in a few stages but largely left me wondering why they bothered. At it's worst it's yet another vector by which the game could say "oh sorry you did this room, you wasted your time! come back later!".
I feel like people complain about the Golf Mini-Game all the time, but it's not awful in a vacuum and I think the reason people dislike it is the often overlooked weirdest part about it. It's randomized. I don't get why they did this. It'd be nice to fail and master a set golf challenge that is tied to the location, but you have no opportunity here to do so since as soon as you think "ok I know what swings to do to beat this stage next time", you remember that when you go back down that pipe it will be different. But also, why golf? It's so thematically dissonant and weird.
Also what's the point of money in this game??? There's no end game ranking really, and I guess golf is the only money sink? But I always had 999 coins by halfway through and there isn't THAT MUCH golf? Sure makes exploring even more boring since why should I even be excited to find coins??? In 2 I was DEFINITELY glad to find coins, making every small secret a treat. Did I miss something????
I also didn't find the game to have much of a thematic through-line. I prefer the enemies in 2 which all have a bit of a pirate theming to tie in with Captain Syrup, as do some of the levels. 3 lacks a bit in having any kind of identity. I will say I like Rudy, he's creepy and fun, but isn't really in the game much, and none of the enemies even foreshadow his clowniness in any sort of way.
If I'll give Wario Land 3 anything, it's that it's problems start to sting less as you round out your ability list, since you'll find yourself unequipped to complete a challenge less frequently... although this does nothing to address the key situation. But I can admit that I was enjoying myself a smidge more towards the end of the game. So pour one out for WL3.
To start wrapping this review up, I'll say that at time of writing, there is currently a resurging discourse surrounding this game heralding it as brilliant, and a lost treasure in the Nintendo catalogue. I don't really understand it. I can only chalk it up to it's recent release on the switch virtual console subscription service, coinciding with a current Wario backed revitalized interest in puzzle platformers sparked by the success of indie darling Pizza Tower.
But I can't see it as any more than a combination of rose-tinted nostalgia from the veteran fans, and a bias of omission by new players for whom this is the only currently available Wario Land on the switch... Playing anything else in this series paints it in a very bad light, I would argue that of even Wario Land 1, as there's nothing wrong with a simple and well executed romp that lacks major flaws. Whereas by comparison I found 3 to mostly be defined by those flaws.
Ultimately the praise 3 gets is largely undeserved. Despite Wario Land 3 having some inspired but undelivered upon concepts, it's not awful by any means. Still better than most games, particularly on the Gameboy. But actually playing it is far to often a futile exercise in frustration.
2021
A very simple and compelling little metroid-vania with tight controls and combat. It's got a charming and effective aesthetic, cute characters, and an impressively broad soundtrack of boppin' music that follows you front to back.
It's hard to find anything to complain about, I casually 100%'d this and had fun the entire time. The plus side of being a game with such a simple premise is that it's hard to say it didn't achieve all the goals it set out to reach. There's a lot of areas, plenty of enemy variety, great movement and combat options, extremely open and player driven progression, and a satisfying spattering of secrets.
If there's anything to nitpick it's just that a few of the enemies get a little stale by the end, (particularly wizards) but it makes it all the more satisfying when you get better weapons and smash them into pulp.
Anyhow this dev clearly has a sense of flair and really good design intuition, will keep an eye on this one.
It's hard to find anything to complain about, I casually 100%'d this and had fun the entire time. The plus side of being a game with such a simple premise is that it's hard to say it didn't achieve all the goals it set out to reach. There's a lot of areas, plenty of enemy variety, great movement and combat options, extremely open and player driven progression, and a satisfying spattering of secrets.
If there's anything to nitpick it's just that a few of the enemies get a little stale by the end, (particularly wizards) but it makes it all the more satisfying when you get better weapons and smash them into pulp.
Anyhow this dev clearly has a sense of flair and really good design intuition, will keep an eye on this one.
2021
Returnal is a very cool game. It is confident, poetic, and high-brow. It knows what it is and never pretends to be anything it isn't. Perhaps that's a strange statement, but I find it to be a rare quality in modern games.
The gamefeel, audio, visuals, monster and set design, they all paint a compelling picture that draws me in at every turn, demanding me to play more. The combat is fast, visceral, and engaging. The UI, menus, controls, and interfacing all feel practically invisible. With so little barriers, you can easily find a flow state playing Returnal.
The game makes impressive use of the DualSense. Playing this game on PS5 genuinely feels like an enhanced next generation experience thanks to the systems unwavering performance and the games intelligent use of the controller. Haptic triggers, controller audio, and well considered vibration feedback can draw you into a game just as much as HDR or a good surround system, every controller needs to catch up. Developers need to start respecting the third dimension of player feedback available to them through the controller. Every action in this game sputters sound and vibrates my hands in a dance that creates synesthesia that at times borders on the uncanny.
I have a particularly poignant memory that sticks with me, in which during a cutscene a character plucks a single harmonic note on a piano, and the controller vibrated in such a way that it perfectly simulated the feeling of the resistance of the key and the way it reverberates when the hammer falls. The feeling was so familiar and accurate that for an odd second my brain was genuinely tricked into thinking I was touching a piano and not a controller.
The only flaw this game has is that it's not a particularly good roguelike, or lite, if that's the way you like to spin things. There simply isn't a lot of replay value. As someone with a lot of experience with games of this ilk, I beat my very first run, and then beat my second with nary a few deaths. I never died to any of the bosses. Having now exhausted most of the story, the game now had no real incentive or variety to keep me playing. I had seen all the bosses and enemies, all the maps, and all the weapons. After giving the Sisyphean tower a few good tries I decided to simply put it down and remember it fondly for the good experience it was. There's nothing wrong with that inherently, but it's an unusual trait in this genre.
Story didn't quite go in the direction I was hoping, but it was presented so tastefully I fail to really have any specific complaint.
Can't wait to see what these guys do next. Hopefully if this comes to PC, it will maintain it's DualSense features. The game sings with it.
The gamefeel, audio, visuals, monster and set design, they all paint a compelling picture that draws me in at every turn, demanding me to play more. The combat is fast, visceral, and engaging. The UI, menus, controls, and interfacing all feel practically invisible. With so little barriers, you can easily find a flow state playing Returnal.
The game makes impressive use of the DualSense. Playing this game on PS5 genuinely feels like an enhanced next generation experience thanks to the systems unwavering performance and the games intelligent use of the controller. Haptic triggers, controller audio, and well considered vibration feedback can draw you into a game just as much as HDR or a good surround system, every controller needs to catch up. Developers need to start respecting the third dimension of player feedback available to them through the controller. Every action in this game sputters sound and vibrates my hands in a dance that creates synesthesia that at times borders on the uncanny.
I have a particularly poignant memory that sticks with me, in which during a cutscene a character plucks a single harmonic note on a piano, and the controller vibrated in such a way that it perfectly simulated the feeling of the resistance of the key and the way it reverberates when the hammer falls. The feeling was so familiar and accurate that for an odd second my brain was genuinely tricked into thinking I was touching a piano and not a controller.
The only flaw this game has is that it's not a particularly good roguelike, or lite, if that's the way you like to spin things. There simply isn't a lot of replay value. As someone with a lot of experience with games of this ilk, I beat my very first run, and then beat my second with nary a few deaths. I never died to any of the bosses. Having now exhausted most of the story, the game now had no real incentive or variety to keep me playing. I had seen all the bosses and enemies, all the maps, and all the weapons. After giving the Sisyphean tower a few good tries I decided to simply put it down and remember it fondly for the good experience it was. There's nothing wrong with that inherently, but it's an unusual trait in this genre.
Story didn't quite go in the direction I was hoping, but it was presented so tastefully I fail to really have any specific complaint.
Can't wait to see what these guys do next. Hopefully if this comes to PC, it will maintain it's DualSense features. The game sings with it.
2022
This game was a very relaxing way to escape through a few rough nights. The atmosphere is really pleasant, and the simple little story is charming for what it is.
There's lots of great little technical details in the visuals, and some fantastic audio design.
I can't say it excels to much at anything in particular. The enemies were goofy and under-developed, and the movement was pretty restrictive.
But I enjoyed my time with it, would still recommend. Great thing to vibe to.
There's lots of great little technical details in the visuals, and some fantastic audio design.
I can't say it excels to much at anything in particular. The enemies were goofy and under-developed, and the movement was pretty restrictive.
But I enjoyed my time with it, would still recommend. Great thing to vibe to.
2022
This review contains spoilers
This game's a joke. I understand the direction they're trying to take the series in, but this is half-baked. The best I can even do is give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to being incredibly rushed. I feel bad for the devs, but nothing but animosity for the leadership at Game Freak. Even with mismanagement factored in, it's still hard to ignore how uninspired and creatively bankrupt this series is. And this isn't a new problem.
The frustrating thing is that the performance of this game, as bad as it is, will be used as a scapegoat to defend it's poor design. "If it weren't for the glitches and lag, it'd be great!". That's a load, this game is bad. People are just desperate for anything fresh in this series. I guess if you get bored enough of chess, scattering the pieces on the floor is a welcome surprise.
Pokémon is still incredibly dated and slow, even for an RPG. They've never addressed the glacial pace at which things happen in these games. Every action in a battle is pain, stat changes, weather reports, attacks, switching, using items, there's so many unnecessary pauses and delays. And in the overworld the game frequently interrupts you with unnecessary cutscenes and dialogue that still lacks skipping in a modern era. The trainer AI still can't switch, use items, or strategize. Gym leaders still have 3 Pokémon. There's so many technical issues and small experiential thorns on this experience, mistakes an amature developer wouldn't make that hurt game feel and waste your time further. I could list them for hours, I'll spare you and myself.
None of this is news for this series, it's just worth noting none of it is addressed here in SV, and playing it is like grinding your teeth on sandpaper. Worse yet they've removed a number of QoL options that used to exist to help ease that pain, including battle animation and switch mode toggles. There also continues to be no difficulty options.
Moving on to what's new, most of it's ideas are simply worse incarnations of better ideas from older games:
The movement and realtime battles/capturing, which is better handled in Arceus ( which is also a terrible game, people defending that tire-fire are bafflingly in-denial, it's a weird toy I can excuse if it were 15 bucks, not a AAA title ).
An artistic direction that's been on a downhill spiral since SuMo, bucking stylistic shaders and hand tailored lighting for a PBR stack that looks bad, and likely was laborious to update and apply to every individual Pokémon. (This may help to account for the even further cut-down dex). I'll only briefly mention the continued decline in Pokémon designs as well. Instead I'm more interested in calling out some of the most hideous, generic, and poorly masked heightmaps I've ever seen in a game. From any distance all you see is spaghettified vertices and egregiously tiling textures masked by 0 ambiance or atmospherics. It's embarrassing. There's almost 0 bespoke or interesting landmarks to dot this mess and add character, either.
"Boss" encounters which still merely amount to normal Pokémon with larger healthbars, even SuMo at least had bosses with adds. Pokémon remains an RPG lacking any true unique bosses or encounters.
Another new gimmick that while mechanically functional, is embarrassing to look at relative to Megas or Dynamax. It's underutilized by in-game NPC's who always Terastallize on the last turn, and predictably always into their signature type, removing any surprise or challenge.
Gym fights that try to ape on sword and shields presentation and music, but are less exciting. We also continue to miss out on Gym rooms / puzzles in lieu of "tests" that often lack battles.
The openness results in 0 incentive to fight trainers, I fought none in my entire run. They stand out in the middle of nowhere and have no mechanical recourse to lock you into battles.
On top of the aforementioned pointless trainers, there's no dungeons or battle gauntlets that test your resolve, offer opportunities for puzzles, or any sense of isolation or tension anywhere in this large open world. You'll find more of that in Gen1 than here. I miss routes, forests, caves, victory roads. I don't need more of those exact things, but something that can fill the gaping void that is the lack of tension.
Half baked new QoL features like auto-heal, which while a nice time saver cannot relieve status ailments or revive Pokémon for some reason.
It's hard to think what advancements this game brings to the series other than just cracking open the progression. It does very little with this new structure, there's almost no interesting ramifications of the open world. You'd hope that unlocking a new movement option for your mount would be at the least as exciting as acquiring a new HM in past generations, but impressively enough acquiring HM's in Gold & Silver is genuinely more exciting and opens more exploration options then learning to climb in SV.
Game Freak brought 0 innovative or inspired new ideas to the Pokémon formula here. They simply tacked on the barest implementation of ideas fans have been naively calling on for years.
Gameplay aside, the narrative elements of this game are incredibly confusing. The academy framing this game is hung on is pretty lame, limits the games plot, denies player expression (gotta wear your uniform!), and to top things off, it's hilariously ill-fitting for the first open world Pokémon game. It's like oil and water, They created a game about going to an academy which once left you will never think about or return to. It doesn't help that the school is simply a large segmented hall of tutorials full of load screens. They could have made an open world game focused around an academy entirely, where the school and surrounding grounds are the focus of the entire plot. Think Hogwarts in some of the better Harry Potter games.
Instead, as it is, the entire idea should have been scrapped as it has a number of awful knock-on effects. It somehow results in the worst opening 2 hours in a series known for awful openings, nothing but exposition and text boxes establishing a setting you never want to re-visit. The school setting also results in the least impactful and most pathetic enemy team in any entry in this series. Team Star is so inconsequential and annoying I tried to go out of my way to ignore their questline until the game forced me to in order to see the ending. Their flaccid plot tries to get you to empathize with a plight that is never even shown. These horrible bullies that apparently incentivized team Star to form are never named nor seen, why should we care. They clearly think the bit with the headmaster being in disguise is a lot funnier than it is, too.
The baffling part of all this, is that there is an interesting story buried in SV, and it's Arven's. The game suddenly gets interesting and has stakes in it's very last hour. I was surprised! Unfortunately, the academy, Team Star, and even the journey to becoming champion have 0 cohesion with this plotline. They are 100% isolated from one-another, and don't build on one-another naturally, resulting in a whiplash of an ending that is cool but unearned. It's a shame, too, because the dynamic portrayed between the main cast in that last hour shows real potential. The team has chemistry. It's to bad none of these characters had time to mingle prior to this point, and that they couldn't have arrived at this point due to some sort of aligned goals or principles, as apposed to convenient contrivance.
There's so much missed potential in the mystery of the paradox Pokémon. They should have been running amok across the region, intersecting with every plot and impacting the lives of the characters. This should have been the main thrust of this story, and would have placed Arven center stage as the only one who seemed to have even the slightest idea what was going on. Team star could have been re-framed as a group of students who shirked class duties to help people in need because of the crisis or something. Perhaps Nemona, the gym leaders, and the league could have been struggling to maintain normalcy despite the crisis. The source of terrestrialization should have been a much greater source of mystery and controversy, too. It's simply a much more interesting story.
In the end, this is all to little to late. All the plots come off as jokes and then ask me to take them seriously at the eleventh hour. It almost works. But almost is almost. And despite that, it can't make up for what is otherwise a sloppy, gruelingly slow, uninspired, barely functioning, and clearly rushed experience that once again lowers the bar for a series who's bar is already on the ground. This is less than the bare minimum effort.
The only excuse for giving this drivel the time of day is if nostalgia has hewn a Pokémon shaped hole in your Pokémon shaped heart, as it has mine.
BotW came out on the same system, 5 years ago.
I pirated this game. Stop buying them.
The frustrating thing is that the performance of this game, as bad as it is, will be used as a scapegoat to defend it's poor design. "If it weren't for the glitches and lag, it'd be great!". That's a load, this game is bad. People are just desperate for anything fresh in this series. I guess if you get bored enough of chess, scattering the pieces on the floor is a welcome surprise.
Pokémon is still incredibly dated and slow, even for an RPG. They've never addressed the glacial pace at which things happen in these games. Every action in a battle is pain, stat changes, weather reports, attacks, switching, using items, there's so many unnecessary pauses and delays. And in the overworld the game frequently interrupts you with unnecessary cutscenes and dialogue that still lacks skipping in a modern era. The trainer AI still can't switch, use items, or strategize. Gym leaders still have 3 Pokémon. There's so many technical issues and small experiential thorns on this experience, mistakes an amature developer wouldn't make that hurt game feel and waste your time further. I could list them for hours, I'll spare you and myself.
None of this is news for this series, it's just worth noting none of it is addressed here in SV, and playing it is like grinding your teeth on sandpaper. Worse yet they've removed a number of QoL options that used to exist to help ease that pain, including battle animation and switch mode toggles. There also continues to be no difficulty options.
Moving on to what's new, most of it's ideas are simply worse incarnations of better ideas from older games:
The movement and realtime battles/capturing, which is better handled in Arceus ( which is also a terrible game, people defending that tire-fire are bafflingly in-denial, it's a weird toy I can excuse if it were 15 bucks, not a AAA title ).
An artistic direction that's been on a downhill spiral since SuMo, bucking stylistic shaders and hand tailored lighting for a PBR stack that looks bad, and likely was laborious to update and apply to every individual Pokémon. (This may help to account for the even further cut-down dex). I'll only briefly mention the continued decline in Pokémon designs as well. Instead I'm more interested in calling out some of the most hideous, generic, and poorly masked heightmaps I've ever seen in a game. From any distance all you see is spaghettified vertices and egregiously tiling textures masked by 0 ambiance or atmospherics. It's embarrassing. There's almost 0 bespoke or interesting landmarks to dot this mess and add character, either.
"Boss" encounters which still merely amount to normal Pokémon with larger healthbars, even SuMo at least had bosses with adds. Pokémon remains an RPG lacking any true unique bosses or encounters.
Another new gimmick that while mechanically functional, is embarrassing to look at relative to Megas or Dynamax. It's underutilized by in-game NPC's who always Terastallize on the last turn, and predictably always into their signature type, removing any surprise or challenge.
Gym fights that try to ape on sword and shields presentation and music, but are less exciting. We also continue to miss out on Gym rooms / puzzles in lieu of "tests" that often lack battles.
The openness results in 0 incentive to fight trainers, I fought none in my entire run. They stand out in the middle of nowhere and have no mechanical recourse to lock you into battles.
On top of the aforementioned pointless trainers, there's no dungeons or battle gauntlets that test your resolve, offer opportunities for puzzles, or any sense of isolation or tension anywhere in this large open world. You'll find more of that in Gen1 than here. I miss routes, forests, caves, victory roads. I don't need more of those exact things, but something that can fill the gaping void that is the lack of tension.
Half baked new QoL features like auto-heal, which while a nice time saver cannot relieve status ailments or revive Pokémon for some reason.
It's hard to think what advancements this game brings to the series other than just cracking open the progression. It does very little with this new structure, there's almost no interesting ramifications of the open world. You'd hope that unlocking a new movement option for your mount would be at the least as exciting as acquiring a new HM in past generations, but impressively enough acquiring HM's in Gold & Silver is genuinely more exciting and opens more exploration options then learning to climb in SV.
Game Freak brought 0 innovative or inspired new ideas to the Pokémon formula here. They simply tacked on the barest implementation of ideas fans have been naively calling on for years.
Gameplay aside, the narrative elements of this game are incredibly confusing. The academy framing this game is hung on is pretty lame, limits the games plot, denies player expression (gotta wear your uniform!), and to top things off, it's hilariously ill-fitting for the first open world Pokémon game. It's like oil and water, They created a game about going to an academy which once left you will never think about or return to. It doesn't help that the school is simply a large segmented hall of tutorials full of load screens. They could have made an open world game focused around an academy entirely, where the school and surrounding grounds are the focus of the entire plot. Think Hogwarts in some of the better Harry Potter games.
Instead, as it is, the entire idea should have been scrapped as it has a number of awful knock-on effects. It somehow results in the worst opening 2 hours in a series known for awful openings, nothing but exposition and text boxes establishing a setting you never want to re-visit. The school setting also results in the least impactful and most pathetic enemy team in any entry in this series. Team Star is so inconsequential and annoying I tried to go out of my way to ignore their questline until the game forced me to in order to see the ending. Their flaccid plot tries to get you to empathize with a plight that is never even shown. These horrible bullies that apparently incentivized team Star to form are never named nor seen, why should we care. They clearly think the bit with the headmaster being in disguise is a lot funnier than it is, too.
The baffling part of all this, is that there is an interesting story buried in SV, and it's Arven's. The game suddenly gets interesting and has stakes in it's very last hour. I was surprised! Unfortunately, the academy, Team Star, and even the journey to becoming champion have 0 cohesion with this plotline. They are 100% isolated from one-another, and don't build on one-another naturally, resulting in a whiplash of an ending that is cool but unearned. It's a shame, too, because the dynamic portrayed between the main cast in that last hour shows real potential. The team has chemistry. It's to bad none of these characters had time to mingle prior to this point, and that they couldn't have arrived at this point due to some sort of aligned goals or principles, as apposed to convenient contrivance.
There's so much missed potential in the mystery of the paradox Pokémon. They should have been running amok across the region, intersecting with every plot and impacting the lives of the characters. This should have been the main thrust of this story, and would have placed Arven center stage as the only one who seemed to have even the slightest idea what was going on. Team star could have been re-framed as a group of students who shirked class duties to help people in need because of the crisis or something. Perhaps Nemona, the gym leaders, and the league could have been struggling to maintain normalcy despite the crisis. The source of terrestrialization should have been a much greater source of mystery and controversy, too. It's simply a much more interesting story.
In the end, this is all to little to late. All the plots come off as jokes and then ask me to take them seriously at the eleventh hour. It almost works. But almost is almost. And despite that, it can't make up for what is otherwise a sloppy, gruelingly slow, uninspired, barely functioning, and clearly rushed experience that once again lowers the bar for a series who's bar is already on the ground. This is less than the bare minimum effort.
The only excuse for giving this drivel the time of day is if nostalgia has hewn a Pokémon shaped hole in your Pokémon shaped heart, as it has mine.
BotW came out on the same system, 5 years ago.
I pirated this game. Stop buying them.
2002
Chulip is an extremely flawed game, but it's one that I really do love. It's infectiously charming, and at times the puzzle design can also be incredibly gratifying. I'm still making my way through much of Love-de-Lic ( and it's successors ) output, and this game is a really interesting and valuable bullet point between Moon and Chibi-Robo. I'm going to begin by largely singing it's praises, but as you can tell by the rating, there's a lot more to say beyond that.
To best this game is to love this world and it's characters -in fact- the game practically demands that you do. It's arguable that this game should be classified as a detective game, not an Adventure/RPG, and learning about the townsfolk is both the most important and rewarding goal. The majority of the problem solving and even the finale of the game tests you on that basis. How much are you paying attention? Are you rushing through life? -Or- are you stopping to smell the flowers, appreciating the little things, and digesting those small moments we don't tend to appreciate in our day to day lives. If you are- well, you may find you very infrequently got -stuck-, and better yet, you may breeze through much of the game. In some sense, the more you relax and enjoy yourself, the less friction you will encounter. It's a game that only gives back as much as you put in.
You'll likely hear a lot of people try to pin this game for having bad adventure-game "moon logic" puzzles, unfairly misattributing traits from Lucas-Arts games that aren't truly present here. As such, there is a common wisdom that this game should be played with a guide, present in most playthroughs, reviews, and let's plays. This is a crime, and for it you will be sent to the graveyard. I will counter these criticisms and say that the puzzles were quite grounded, there's nothing you can't solve with real world logic or some investigative information gathering. (with exception, I will address this later in this review) The real fault is that the card system isn't better tutorialized, and having played Moon before Chulip gave me a leg up, greasing the wheels of my success with it. If you play this, just make a mental note that the resident cards are important.
Making progress in this game is it's own reward, delivering scenes that never fail to be novel, surprising, and charming. But the thing that really sells this charm is that these events, as far as I see it, avoid the typical trapping of being random or relying on shock value. As crazy as things get, the actions and events of the characters always seem to be driven by or point to some greater truth. Whether they reveal deeper layers to a character's life and history, or some even deeper philosophical ideal that the writers are trying to communicate about life, people, and culture, almost nothing is a throw-away or a one-off. When new information is revealed, even when at it's most absurd, for those characters it is their truth, and there's something to be said for how earnestly those ideas are presented.
What is happiness? We want to know. And so do the people of Long Life Town. It's not particularly high-brow or complex, but that raw simplicity is what makes it so humble. Chulip never once presumes that it can answer this question, in fact the game rejects the idea that there is an answer. It's a moving target that's different for everyone. Being a kid stinks. Oh, and surprise, being an adult also stinks. Maybe being alive just stinks. Actually maybe being dead somehow stinks, too. But the game just keeps asking the question anyhow. Like we all do. Because asking is the only way to make things stink a little less.
I saw one review lambasting the premise for being out of touch, dated, or offensive. Not sure if they were being earnest, or just willfully ignorant, but I want to take a second to reject this. To say that it's a bad take that just intensely misunderstands Chulip's intent. Your goal is -yes- to get the girl, sure. And you -can indeed- try to force yourself on anyone in the game. But it seems a bit like missing the forest for the trees when you forget that -everyone- REJECTS you for this. It's a game that from a mechanical standpoint is telling you that connecting with others takes concerted effort, it's an exchange. An ignorant kid with a childhood crush testing the bounds of what it means to love, being rejected, and going through a journey through which he learns to actually understand the girl he's vying for, connect with her parents, and ultimately only earns a hesitant kiss through mutual respect.
Anyhow, this is where we turn a corner. Chulip is a game with a very poor consideration for quality of life. At times it feels quite pointed and intentional, a balancing mechanism keeping the later areas in the game hard to access and more treacherous for low-level players. In many cases, I actually like this. The game utilizes health and damage as a mechanical and thematical extension of the games themes and ideas. The designers are constantly telling jokes at your expense, and aren't afraid to inconvenience you to make the joke land. For me, it works. I got so many hearty laughs when the game screwed me over, and if you can have a carefree attitude about this and let it slide off your back, I think you'll find it as entertaining as I did.
The designers say: "Yeah, life sucks. Isn't that just how things go? Sometimes you just take 1 step forward and then 2 steps back." "Some days you just don't win." "Some days you commit a social faux pas, or fall off your bike." ( I actually did fall off my bike the week I was playing this ). "Tough luck, buddy." And they're right. Not only does it sell the protag's mundane struggle, but it kind of forces you to relax and take things in stride. It also makes all the small victories feel huge, and adds so much tension as you attempt to make headway in a world fraught with inconveniences, just like our own.
But where this falls apart is the artificial ways in which the game fails to make this an enjoyable exchange. Death has to matter to hold any weight, and I wouldn't want auto-saves or checkpoints to cheapen that. But you can't skip or fast-forward ANY text or cutscenes. Half of why dying stings so bad is how egregious and long it is to load your save. Both the game over screen and title crawl are both just, slow and un-skippable. I didn't even mind losing progress.
I didn't use save-states in this game. But I did use a toggle that uncapped the framerate on the emulator, and I would toggle it off whenever something new or interesting was going on. While it feels like a shame that I played most of this game running at 300% speed, it just made things far more enjoyable, and I'm convinced you should do the same if you play this. I was originally playing the game without any modifications, but to give you an idea, the moment that broke the camels back for me was when I found the in-game sprint mechanic... which only made your already slow character like 15% faster.
Another gripe includes the fact that you can't pause or quit in this game. Often it would be time-saving to just load your save, but you have to reset the console or die. There's just no other way.
Another is that the only mechanic that lets you set what time it is involves sleeping... but sleeping involves waiting through 2 lengthy sleeping and waking animations, as well as your dad's extensive monologue. An entire spiel that you will see upward of 100 times before this game is over. There's even a gag related to how slow the text scrolls. I wouldn't even WANT to change that moment. Yeah, leave that as un-skippable! But the rest of the game doesn't gain anything by omitting text-skipping.
Another thing is that the only fast forward mechanic can only be used at like 3 locations. From a mechanical standpoint I understand that if you could use them anywhere it would often interfere with character routines and cause problems, but I don't know... add more locations then? Put one in every area.
I also want to specifically call out my frustration with the Funny Cola company mission not letting you skip the incredibly tedious entry puzzle once you complete the area. I spiritually vibe with the idea that this part of the game is intended to feel tedious and soul-sucking, and I enjoyed doing it... ONCE. But logically your reward for beating it should make it irrelevant and let you circumvent the system. Why doesn't the scanner just accept you? It FEELS like it should. Why do the guards still care? It almost even seems like an oversight. If you know this game, you should get what I mean. But I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free. This is the only reason I didn't 100% Chulip. I was pretty close, too.
And now I can finally address the true elephant in the room, that Chulip is done a considerable disservice by it's translation. It's a lazy hack-job that was clearly never tested. Nobody played this after it was translated and checked their work. This game is littered with typos, but that's the least of it's problems. Some lines are clearly mistakenly marked up or translated, and simply don't show at all or show debug text or junk adjacent memory. To give you an idea of how bad it can be, portions of the credits simply don't show due to what I presume is some botched markup. There are a number of small side-quests and puzzles that are hindered by a few instances of un-translated text that is just, still in Japanese. As well as some jokes, puns, and wordplay that were poorly translated and make a few puzzles harder then they SHOULD BE, but, at least not impossible to solve.
In the worst case, there is an important line that is COMPLETELY missing in the English translation that tells you the solution to a relatively simple puzzle that was never even intended to be difficult. As it currently stands, there is nothing in the game that hints or communicates how to solve this. I tried as hard as I could to solve this game un-aided, and was very close to succeeding, but the translation job made that impossible. If you want a spoiler free heads up for some of the game's worst translation botches, here's two of them that broke me and I had to look up:
First off there is one case in which the translation reads "Relax, and...", which I just don't think communicates the intent. It should say something more akin to "Goof-Off", "Play Around", or "Have some fun".
The other more egregious example is the puzzle with an aforementioned MISSING line that was just not included in the translation. This takes place atop a radio tower, and is related to a computer. The missing critical line simply stating: "Dempou Soccer." So There you go, you'll know when you need it.
Everything else in the gave me no -significant- issue in solving. But everyone is different. Also forewarning that I used a notebook, this is sometimes a pen and paper game, but I only had a page or two of notes.
Also, a heads up that you need analogue stick input. Either a controller, or a mod key on your emulator.
Also also, a warning not to read this game's manual. It kind of just tells you tons of expository information you are supposed to learn through experience, and can spoil many puzzles. Up to you if you want to read it, I avoided it.
Anyhow to start wrapping things up, I'll say that having grown up with Chibi-Robo and recently having enjoyed Moon RPG, I was really happy to find that soul and spirit alive and well here in Chulip.
I think adventure games have gotten a bad rap, with people acting as if mixing adventure game-esque gameplay into other types of games is akin to oil and water. The same goes in reverse, with adventure games also afraid to embrace more robust movement mechanics or think outside of inventory driven gameplay. But what I've found within the Love-de-Lic RPG's is a different flavor of adventure game gameplay that considers more then just your inventory, deeply focusing on character writing and rich interactions, in a way that's really pushed further by games such as Chibi-Robo. It's hard to find this in the industry, at a stretch I can site Majora's Mask or the first Psychonauts, and I think it's a shame there isn't more games crossing the genre boundaries we've artificially raised. I think Psychonauts 2 is a canary in the coalmine that makes it clear to me that this arbitrary line is stronger now then ever. But that's a different story.
I love Chulip, and even if you first have to forgive it of it's flaws and meet the game on it's own terms to enjoy it, just like the people of Long Life Town, it has a lot of love to offer in return.
To best this game is to love this world and it's characters -in fact- the game practically demands that you do. It's arguable that this game should be classified as a detective game, not an Adventure/RPG, and learning about the townsfolk is both the most important and rewarding goal. The majority of the problem solving and even the finale of the game tests you on that basis. How much are you paying attention? Are you rushing through life? -Or- are you stopping to smell the flowers, appreciating the little things, and digesting those small moments we don't tend to appreciate in our day to day lives. If you are- well, you may find you very infrequently got -stuck-, and better yet, you may breeze through much of the game. In some sense, the more you relax and enjoy yourself, the less friction you will encounter. It's a game that only gives back as much as you put in.
You'll likely hear a lot of people try to pin this game for having bad adventure-game "moon logic" puzzles, unfairly misattributing traits from Lucas-Arts games that aren't truly present here. As such, there is a common wisdom that this game should be played with a guide, present in most playthroughs, reviews, and let's plays. This is a crime, and for it you will be sent to the graveyard. I will counter these criticisms and say that the puzzles were quite grounded, there's nothing you can't solve with real world logic or some investigative information gathering. (with exception, I will address this later in this review) The real fault is that the card system isn't better tutorialized, and having played Moon before Chulip gave me a leg up, greasing the wheels of my success with it. If you play this, just make a mental note that the resident cards are important.
Making progress in this game is it's own reward, delivering scenes that never fail to be novel, surprising, and charming. But the thing that really sells this charm is that these events, as far as I see it, avoid the typical trapping of being random or relying on shock value. As crazy as things get, the actions and events of the characters always seem to be driven by or point to some greater truth. Whether they reveal deeper layers to a character's life and history, or some even deeper philosophical ideal that the writers are trying to communicate about life, people, and culture, almost nothing is a throw-away or a one-off. When new information is revealed, even when at it's most absurd, for those characters it is their truth, and there's something to be said for how earnestly those ideas are presented.
What is happiness? We want to know. And so do the people of Long Life Town. It's not particularly high-brow or complex, but that raw simplicity is what makes it so humble. Chulip never once presumes that it can answer this question, in fact the game rejects the idea that there is an answer. It's a moving target that's different for everyone. Being a kid stinks. Oh, and surprise, being an adult also stinks. Maybe being alive just stinks. Actually maybe being dead somehow stinks, too. But the game just keeps asking the question anyhow. Like we all do. Because asking is the only way to make things stink a little less.
I saw one review lambasting the premise for being out of touch, dated, or offensive. Not sure if they were being earnest, or just willfully ignorant, but I want to take a second to reject this. To say that it's a bad take that just intensely misunderstands Chulip's intent. Your goal is -yes- to get the girl, sure. And you -can indeed- try to force yourself on anyone in the game. But it seems a bit like missing the forest for the trees when you forget that -everyone- REJECTS you for this. It's a game that from a mechanical standpoint is telling you that connecting with others takes concerted effort, it's an exchange. An ignorant kid with a childhood crush testing the bounds of what it means to love, being rejected, and going through a journey through which he learns to actually understand the girl he's vying for, connect with her parents, and ultimately only earns a hesitant kiss through mutual respect.
Anyhow, this is where we turn a corner. Chulip is a game with a very poor consideration for quality of life. At times it feels quite pointed and intentional, a balancing mechanism keeping the later areas in the game hard to access and more treacherous for low-level players. In many cases, I actually like this. The game utilizes health and damage as a mechanical and thematical extension of the games themes and ideas. The designers are constantly telling jokes at your expense, and aren't afraid to inconvenience you to make the joke land. For me, it works. I got so many hearty laughs when the game screwed me over, and if you can have a carefree attitude about this and let it slide off your back, I think you'll find it as entertaining as I did.
The designers say: "Yeah, life sucks. Isn't that just how things go? Sometimes you just take 1 step forward and then 2 steps back." "Some days you just don't win." "Some days you commit a social faux pas, or fall off your bike." ( I actually did fall off my bike the week I was playing this ). "Tough luck, buddy." And they're right. Not only does it sell the protag's mundane struggle, but it kind of forces you to relax and take things in stride. It also makes all the small victories feel huge, and adds so much tension as you attempt to make headway in a world fraught with inconveniences, just like our own.
But where this falls apart is the artificial ways in which the game fails to make this an enjoyable exchange. Death has to matter to hold any weight, and I wouldn't want auto-saves or checkpoints to cheapen that. But you can't skip or fast-forward ANY text or cutscenes. Half of why dying stings so bad is how egregious and long it is to load your save. Both the game over screen and title crawl are both just, slow and un-skippable. I didn't even mind losing progress.
I didn't use save-states in this game. But I did use a toggle that uncapped the framerate on the emulator, and I would toggle it off whenever something new or interesting was going on. While it feels like a shame that I played most of this game running at 300% speed, it just made things far more enjoyable, and I'm convinced you should do the same if you play this. I was originally playing the game without any modifications, but to give you an idea, the moment that broke the camels back for me was when I found the in-game sprint mechanic... which only made your already slow character like 15% faster.
Another gripe includes the fact that you can't pause or quit in this game. Often it would be time-saving to just load your save, but you have to reset the console or die. There's just no other way.
Another is that the only mechanic that lets you set what time it is involves sleeping... but sleeping involves waiting through 2 lengthy sleeping and waking animations, as well as your dad's extensive monologue. An entire spiel that you will see upward of 100 times before this game is over. There's even a gag related to how slow the text scrolls. I wouldn't even WANT to change that moment. Yeah, leave that as un-skippable! But the rest of the game doesn't gain anything by omitting text-skipping.
Another thing is that the only fast forward mechanic can only be used at like 3 locations. From a mechanical standpoint I understand that if you could use them anywhere it would often interfere with character routines and cause problems, but I don't know... add more locations then? Put one in every area.
I also want to specifically call out my frustration with the Funny Cola company mission not letting you skip the incredibly tedious entry puzzle once you complete the area. I spiritually vibe with the idea that this part of the game is intended to feel tedious and soul-sucking, and I enjoyed doing it... ONCE. But logically your reward for beating it should make it irrelevant and let you circumvent the system. Why doesn't the scanner just accept you? It FEELS like it should. Why do the guards still care? It almost even seems like an oversight. If you know this game, you should get what I mean. But I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free. This is the only reason I didn't 100% Chulip. I was pretty close, too.
And now I can finally address the true elephant in the room, that Chulip is done a considerable disservice by it's translation. It's a lazy hack-job that was clearly never tested. Nobody played this after it was translated and checked their work. This game is littered with typos, but that's the least of it's problems. Some lines are clearly mistakenly marked up or translated, and simply don't show at all or show debug text or junk adjacent memory. To give you an idea of how bad it can be, portions of the credits simply don't show due to what I presume is some botched markup. There are a number of small side-quests and puzzles that are hindered by a few instances of un-translated text that is just, still in Japanese. As well as some jokes, puns, and wordplay that were poorly translated and make a few puzzles harder then they SHOULD BE, but, at least not impossible to solve.
In the worst case, there is an important line that is COMPLETELY missing in the English translation that tells you the solution to a relatively simple puzzle that was never even intended to be difficult. As it currently stands, there is nothing in the game that hints or communicates how to solve this. I tried as hard as I could to solve this game un-aided, and was very close to succeeding, but the translation job made that impossible. If you want a spoiler free heads up for some of the game's worst translation botches, here's two of them that broke me and I had to look up:
First off there is one case in which the translation reads "Relax, and...", which I just don't think communicates the intent. It should say something more akin to "Goof-Off", "Play Around", or "Have some fun".
The other more egregious example is the puzzle with an aforementioned MISSING line that was just not included in the translation. This takes place atop a radio tower, and is related to a computer. The missing critical line simply stating: "Dempou Soccer." So There you go, you'll know when you need it.
Everything else in the gave me no -significant- issue in solving. But everyone is different. Also forewarning that I used a notebook, this is sometimes a pen and paper game, but I only had a page or two of notes.
Also, a heads up that you need analogue stick input. Either a controller, or a mod key on your emulator.
Also also, a warning not to read this game's manual. It kind of just tells you tons of expository information you are supposed to learn through experience, and can spoil many puzzles. Up to you if you want to read it, I avoided it.
Anyhow to start wrapping things up, I'll say that having grown up with Chibi-Robo and recently having enjoyed Moon RPG, I was really happy to find that soul and spirit alive and well here in Chulip.
I think adventure games have gotten a bad rap, with people acting as if mixing adventure game-esque gameplay into other types of games is akin to oil and water. The same goes in reverse, with adventure games also afraid to embrace more robust movement mechanics or think outside of inventory driven gameplay. But what I've found within the Love-de-Lic RPG's is a different flavor of adventure game gameplay that considers more then just your inventory, deeply focusing on character writing and rich interactions, in a way that's really pushed further by games such as Chibi-Robo. It's hard to find this in the industry, at a stretch I can site Majora's Mask or the first Psychonauts, and I think it's a shame there isn't more games crossing the genre boundaries we've artificially raised. I think Psychonauts 2 is a canary in the coalmine that makes it clear to me that this arbitrary line is stronger now then ever. But that's a different story.
I love Chulip, and even if you first have to forgive it of it's flaws and meet the game on it's own terms to enjoy it, just like the people of Long Life Town, it has a lot of love to offer in return.
2021
It's like crack.