NeonManta
ADHD: the game. Wacky and wild with the different kinds of microgames that show up, and something you can breeze through in a day. Gameplay is overall alright, but the charm and bonus content bump it up that extra point. Mad respect to the Kat level for having all its text be untranslated Japanese.
Suffers the same trappings as other FPS arcade games in that you get bombarded with damage that feels impossible to fully prevent, but the novelty of the Poltergust controller and the haptic feedback of sucking up ghosts and items with it bumps up the experience. Honestly the fact that it's not only a genuine Nintendo arcade game, but Luigi's Mansion of all things gives it such undeniable charm.
2018
It's a good time but like most of these FPS arcade games, they like to cheat you out of health with some bullshit hits you feel like you can't possibly prevent. Feels doubly lame when you remember Halo has a recharging shield mechanic they consciously chose to leave out for this game.
2023
This review contains spoilers
That's it. I've done it. I've 100%-ed the entire Pikmin quadrilogy (fuck Hey Pikmin). So now we come to the most important question: is Pikmin 4 the best one? Answer: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh...
I might need to replay Pikmin 3 Deluxe again to know for sure, but I think I miiiiiiight prefer that one. But 4 is definitely top 2 Pikmin games, no question.
Let's start with Pikmin 4's strengths. Graphics? Beautiful. The settings are so lovingly detailed and the art direction is arguably the strongest its ever been. Theming the entire campaign around the outside of a once lived-in suburban house was already plenty fun, but finally letting us fulfill the ultimate "little people in our relatively big world" fantasy and explore the INSIDE of the house, from the living room to the kitchen? Muah. When it comes to the environments, I think I just slightly prefer 3's hyper-realistic nature settings, but in terms of art direction, Pikmin 4 is the cream of the crop. The quality of life features also makes this the most accessible Pikmin game. The little buffer that prevents you from throwing more than the required number of Pikmin at an object, being able to move bases, free camera movement, and the best Pikmin AI to date. It's all good... maybe too good...
Once again, I may have to replay 3 Deluxe to confirm- especially on the Ultra-Spicy mode I haven't tried yet- but I think 4 might be the easiest game in the series. Autolocking removes a good chunk of the strategy when it comes to combat, and not even having an option to disable it means you're always laser-focused on your enemies so long as they're within your line of sight. And when you unlock Oatchi's stun charge? Forget it. If you're not one of the big jumbo bosses, you're getting a dog rammed straight up your ass with a barrage of Pikmin DPS-ing your face into ground beef. Combat is never boring, since the act of throwing or even charging at enemies is still inherently fun, but I was definitely the least threatened by enemies I've ever felt in a Pikmin game. And maybe it's unfair to levy that entirely against 4, since part of the reason I feel threatened by enemies in Pikmin 1 is because the AI is so shit that game, I have to factor that into fights, but between stun charging and auto-locking, I only ever lost groups of Pikmin to new bosses with unfamiliar patterns or an occasional mistake, either from my own error or auto-lock prioritizing something else from what I wanted.
Speaking of Oatchi, I'm mixed on if his inclusion was an a net positive. On one hand, putting a dog in any video game automatically makes it better, especially one that has good AI and is the MVP of your team (Dandori clutch god). On the other hand, his upgrades can turn him from a good boy helper to a nigh unstoppable god. Stun charge, powerful DPS, swimming, the ability to carry 100 weight, and carrying 100 Pikmin at once, even over water removes a lot of the agency of the Pikmin. Sure, you can have 100 Pikmin vs just one Oatchi, but if he wasn't transporting my entire squadron on his back with no downsides (should've had a weight limit) he was a canine trebuchet for my little kill legion. I think on my next playthrough in a few years I will purposefully not buy certain upgrades for Oatchi... but then Dandori stages would get crazy hard so I'm kinda stuck.
This may be a minor gripe to some, but I'm not a fan of Pikmin 4 wiping its ass with the series canon. We literally JUST GOT 3 Deluxe adding in story content and introducing a whole new install base to Pikmin, only to wipe the slate clean and create a new timeline where the events of 1 were altered, and 2 and 3 never happened at all, lmao. I certainly hope you weren't wishing for the decade-long comebacks of Alph, Brittany and Charlie, cause they've been retconned out of existence, replaced with impostors (or descendants, idk it's weird and dumb). These new characters are okay; the only standouts being the slightly timid captain Shepard and the dubious doctor Yonny, but even then they're pretty one-note. Being able to create your own character is nifty but doesn't really affect the game in any meaningful way.
The postgame is meaty. Truncating the entirety of Pikmin 1 to a remixed Pikmin 4 reskin/mod with a 15 day time limit is easily the best part of the game. Two additional maps and the first multi-phase boss fight in the series squeezes a good number of hours that's just as fun at the other four maps, and completing them 100% is addicting. Including old mechanics as post-game rewards is cool, but feels less special since you get them after you've done pretty much everything. Pluckophone is back, Pikmin 1/2's old swarm feature is back, and the funniest prank in the entire series (outside of Hey Pikmin's announcement/existence) is Louie's post-postgame side questline reward. Fucking outstanding troll.
I could go on, like with caves and side quests, and while it seems like I've been hard on the game this whole time, it's still a Pikmin game, and the core gameplay loop of Pikmin is stupidly addicting, and this game sucked away a good 50 hours of my life to 100%. It's in desperate need of a patch/DLC that offers hard options/harder modes, but as far as being an evolution of Pikmin 2 goes, it's a godsend. Hopefully we don't have to wait another decade before Pikmin 5 :))))))))))))((((((
I might need to replay Pikmin 3 Deluxe again to know for sure, but I think I miiiiiiight prefer that one. But 4 is definitely top 2 Pikmin games, no question.
Let's start with Pikmin 4's strengths. Graphics? Beautiful. The settings are so lovingly detailed and the art direction is arguably the strongest its ever been. Theming the entire campaign around the outside of a once lived-in suburban house was already plenty fun, but finally letting us fulfill the ultimate "little people in our relatively big world" fantasy and explore the INSIDE of the house, from the living room to the kitchen? Muah. When it comes to the environments, I think I just slightly prefer 3's hyper-realistic nature settings, but in terms of art direction, Pikmin 4 is the cream of the crop. The quality of life features also makes this the most accessible Pikmin game. The little buffer that prevents you from throwing more than the required number of Pikmin at an object, being able to move bases, free camera movement, and the best Pikmin AI to date. It's all good... maybe too good...
Once again, I may have to replay 3 Deluxe to confirm- especially on the Ultra-Spicy mode I haven't tried yet- but I think 4 might be the easiest game in the series. Autolocking removes a good chunk of the strategy when it comes to combat, and not even having an option to disable it means you're always laser-focused on your enemies so long as they're within your line of sight. And when you unlock Oatchi's stun charge? Forget it. If you're not one of the big jumbo bosses, you're getting a dog rammed straight up your ass with a barrage of Pikmin DPS-ing your face into ground beef. Combat is never boring, since the act of throwing or even charging at enemies is still inherently fun, but I was definitely the least threatened by enemies I've ever felt in a Pikmin game. And maybe it's unfair to levy that entirely against 4, since part of the reason I feel threatened by enemies in Pikmin 1 is because the AI is so shit that game, I have to factor that into fights, but between stun charging and auto-locking, I only ever lost groups of Pikmin to new bosses with unfamiliar patterns or an occasional mistake, either from my own error or auto-lock prioritizing something else from what I wanted.
Speaking of Oatchi, I'm mixed on if his inclusion was an a net positive. On one hand, putting a dog in any video game automatically makes it better, especially one that has good AI and is the MVP of your team (Dandori clutch god). On the other hand, his upgrades can turn him from a good boy helper to a nigh unstoppable god. Stun charge, powerful DPS, swimming, the ability to carry 100 weight, and carrying 100 Pikmin at once, even over water removes a lot of the agency of the Pikmin. Sure, you can have 100 Pikmin vs just one Oatchi, but if he wasn't transporting my entire squadron on his back with no downsides (should've had a weight limit) he was a canine trebuchet for my little kill legion. I think on my next playthrough in a few years I will purposefully not buy certain upgrades for Oatchi... but then Dandori stages would get crazy hard so I'm kinda stuck.
This may be a minor gripe to some, but I'm not a fan of Pikmin 4 wiping its ass with the series canon. We literally JUST GOT 3 Deluxe adding in story content and introducing a whole new install base to Pikmin, only to wipe the slate clean and create a new timeline where the events of 1 were altered, and 2 and 3 never happened at all, lmao. I certainly hope you weren't wishing for the decade-long comebacks of Alph, Brittany and Charlie, cause they've been retconned out of existence, replaced with impostors (or descendants, idk it's weird and dumb). These new characters are okay; the only standouts being the slightly timid captain Shepard and the dubious doctor Yonny, but even then they're pretty one-note. Being able to create your own character is nifty but doesn't really affect the game in any meaningful way.
The postgame is meaty. Truncating the entirety of Pikmin 1 to a remixed Pikmin 4 reskin/mod with a 15 day time limit is easily the best part of the game. Two additional maps and the first multi-phase boss fight in the series squeezes a good number of hours that's just as fun at the other four maps, and completing them 100% is addicting. Including old mechanics as post-game rewards is cool, but feels less special since you get them after you've done pretty much everything. Pluckophone is back, Pikmin 1/2's old swarm feature is back, and the funniest prank in the entire series (outside of Hey Pikmin's announcement/existence) is Louie's post-postgame side questline reward. Fucking outstanding troll.
I could go on, like with caves and side quests, and while it seems like I've been hard on the game this whole time, it's still a Pikmin game, and the core gameplay loop of Pikmin is stupidly addicting, and this game sucked away a good 50 hours of my life to 100%. It's in desperate need of a patch/DLC that offers hard options/harder modes, but as far as being an evolution of Pikmin 2 goes, it's a godsend. Hopefully we don't have to wait another decade before Pikmin 5 :))))))))))))((((((
Clever design and integration of Shovel Knight's mechanics, but dragging out the game's length with roguelike randomness and special checklist requirements hamper an ultimately mindless time.
1995
Played at CEO 2023. Thought I’d enjoy this shmup more than DoDanPachi since there’s less bullets and your ship moves faster, but now the ship sprite actually is a whole hurtbox so I died even more times than DoDanPachi. Different weapon types are worthless, the bomb to counter shots with has a delay which is retarded for split-second shmups, and by the time you hit the last couple stages, classic bullshit bullet hell patterns are back.
I think I’mma stick to Galaga.
I think I’mma stick to Galaga.
2002
Played a cabinet at CEO 2023. While I am capable of enjoying shmups, I think I just dislike bullet hells. I hate having to dodge 100 projectiles and panicking when they close in only to realize my ship’s hurtbox is only a few pixels, so shots will definitely touch my sprite but not kill and it throws me the hell off. There were also a number of times I was cornered by bullets with actually no way out. You need a goddamn paycheck to beat this game.
At the very least, it does have that innate feeling of power in shmups when you somehow thread the needle through a barrage of bullets and then return fire with lasers and missiles that cover the entire screen.
At the very least, it does have that innate feeling of power in shmups when you somehow thread the needle through a barrage of bullets and then return fire with lasers and missiles that cover the entire screen.
2019
Played co-op with a friend. While the funny factor is enhanced with a shared experience, any difficulty this game has is bent in half by the addition of a second goose. You can easily brute force and/or cheese many missions just by causing simple distractions or through tandem goose harassment. The humor of the game is quaint, but there's a god-tier payoff at the end of the game. You also unlock a postgame with a bunch of new missions, but both my friend and I had our fill of the game's stiff controls by that point. A funny few hours, but nothing that'll keep you hungry to come back.
1984
Boring ass pinball table with wonky phsyics.
Starts off fun but the endgame puzzles are stupidly difficult and I swear you have to rely on chance come Special. Also the Wario puzzles are just trial and error picross which is as fun as counting the number of grains of rice in a box.
String me up on the cross and jab me with hedgehog dildos, Sonic fans, but I don't think this is the worst game ever made. The physics are wonky and the music is poorly mixed, but no lie, the level design is a little decent and the air-dash plus homing attack is great. I want to see more 2D Sonics with the homing attack, it can set up for some incredible fast-paced platforming, as evidenced by this game. And if I'm being truly honest... this game is much less frustrating to play than the original trilogy. Granted, this game has like 15 years over those, so QoL was inevitable, but I will die on this hill: Sonic 4 E1 > Sonic 1.
2021
Fuck this game and fuck all the clone games it inspired because these are the exact type of time-sink games I play to procrastinate important shit.
2022
Starts out surprisingly fun and addictive at first with an interesting gambling system to determine rank, and to its credit, does a good job at first of hiding how retardedly pay-to-win it is. Then you reach either a high enough rank or high enough collector level and realize if you're not spending $20+ a month, you're not winning games consistently.
When it can take upwards of days at a time before you can unlock ONE NEW RANDOM CARD without paying, reevaluate your life and why you haven't ended it.
When it can take upwards of days at a time before you can unlock ONE NEW RANDOM CARD without paying, reevaluate your life and why you haven't ended it.
1994
TEN YEARS. AFTER TEN YEARS, I'VE PUT THE DEMON TO REST.
2013: Wii U VC, didn't know there was a run button, got stuck on the grass zone crumbling floor bridge.
2016: Tried again, got stuck somewhere else, got sick of backtracking, quit.
2021: Bought a SNES and the OG game cart, battery was fucked, died on opening spawn, got it replaced, replacement battery was old, got to Kraid, battery died, save file wiped.
Now, after an attempt that took me TWO YEARS, I have finally beaten Super Metroid and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. There's a lot of cryptic bullshit and the controls are way stiff, but it has an atmosphere that can't be matched by just about any game of its time. The endgame in particular is some great wordless storytelling.
2013: Wii U VC, didn't know there was a run button, got stuck on the grass zone crumbling floor bridge.
2016: Tried again, got stuck somewhere else, got sick of backtracking, quit.
2021: Bought a SNES and the OG game cart, battery was fucked, died on opening spawn, got it replaced, replacement battery was old, got to Kraid, battery died, save file wiped.
Now, after an attempt that took me TWO YEARS, I have finally beaten Super Metroid and I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. There's a lot of cryptic bullshit and the controls are way stiff, but it has an atmosphere that can't be matched by just about any game of its time. The endgame in particular is some great wordless storytelling.
2022
UPDATE: they cancelled PvE, lmao fuck Blizzard.
How the mighty have fallen. Everything that was accessible and rewarding about this game has crumbled into dust. Free to play eviscerates any replay value by locking rewards behind a battle pass (that you have to buy EVERY season) and drip feeds currency at the slowest rate imaginable. Played since launch and haven't been able to buy a common skin. New robot push mode is horribly designed, characters are still wildly unbalanced and 5v5 makes games less complex and more "who can get off their ultimate first?" All of the custom modes are infinitely better because they were designed with fun in mind.
Fuck Blizzard, I salivate for the day they finally burn to the ground.
How the mighty have fallen. Everything that was accessible and rewarding about this game has crumbled into dust. Free to play eviscerates any replay value by locking rewards behind a battle pass (that you have to buy EVERY season) and drip feeds currency at the slowest rate imaginable. Played since launch and haven't been able to buy a common skin. New robot push mode is horribly designed, characters are still wildly unbalanced and 5v5 makes games less complex and more "who can get off their ultimate first?" All of the custom modes are infinitely better because they were designed with fun in mind.
Fuck Blizzard, I salivate for the day they finally burn to the ground.