It feels very indicative of Pikmin 4's overall gentleness that the game feels like it ends at what seems to be the halfway point content wise, the immediate post-game feels like it opens things up far more but it's completely confident it's done its job if you wanna wrap it up having finished the "primary mission" as it were.
I should probably preface before going further that I have not played any other Pikmin games prior to this, I saw let's plays of Pikmin 1 and 2 over a decade ago and was intrigued but never quite enough to give it a firsthand shot.
I don't think I would've really liked them at the time anyway, it was a bit too esoteric for my taste at the time even as someone who grew up with RTSes, it doesn't fit that mold nearly as cleanly as people make it out to be (mostly considering that the player has to physically exist in tandem with the Pikmin and can't just be an omnipotent commander that can effectively teleport wherever to bark orders).
Also I still had a pretty strong aversion to game timers and Pikmin being able to die felt very jarring for a Nintendo game. They just seemed like they'd be too much pressure to really have any actual fun with.
So a new Pikmin entry that's meant to be as accessible and open-ended as most of Nintendo's other outings sounded like a good place to start if any, finally putting a wrap on having at least tried every major Nintendo franchise, and honestly I don't think there could've been a better time and place for this.
There's a real zen to organizing the tasks of a couple groups of separated Pikmin and then coming back and forming them back up for the full squad, it probably doesn't come as a surprise then that the solo Dandori Challenges were easily my favorite thing in the world.
Stuff is constantly just getting done and when it isn't, the wait is not long to get some Pikmin back and give them new objectives.
In any other instance, a game like this would exhaust the hell out of me or make me feel like my setup or planning isn't good enough to keep going (apologies to Factorio, Satisfactory etc, I've tried and failed this subgenre often) but I don't know, it wasn't happening this time.
Even when I was very conscious of me not doing things optimally, notably the bosses, there was never any internal pressure to do it better even when the game gives you a chance to try again.
I think this more than anything makes me incredibly curious to try the previous games just to see if this was just result of the new design ethos Nintendo's been etching onto their games since the Switch's launch or if Pikmin has just always been like this, albeit definitely less lax and more off-kilter aesthetically. The suburban garden aesthetic of this one was very nice but there's no denying it makes everything feel very different compared to the feral almost jungle-y vibe of 1 and 2.
I wanna get as far as I can with this one and then I guess I'll find out how it stacks up when I inevitably play through the others. Heavily betting they'll just feel different as a result of different design goals but we'll see.
I should probably preface before going further that I have not played any other Pikmin games prior to this, I saw let's plays of Pikmin 1 and 2 over a decade ago and was intrigued but never quite enough to give it a firsthand shot.
I don't think I would've really liked them at the time anyway, it was a bit too esoteric for my taste at the time even as someone who grew up with RTSes, it doesn't fit that mold nearly as cleanly as people make it out to be (mostly considering that the player has to physically exist in tandem with the Pikmin and can't just be an omnipotent commander that can effectively teleport wherever to bark orders).
Also I still had a pretty strong aversion to game timers and Pikmin being able to die felt very jarring for a Nintendo game. They just seemed like they'd be too much pressure to really have any actual fun with.
So a new Pikmin entry that's meant to be as accessible and open-ended as most of Nintendo's other outings sounded like a good place to start if any, finally putting a wrap on having at least tried every major Nintendo franchise, and honestly I don't think there could've been a better time and place for this.
There's a real zen to organizing the tasks of a couple groups of separated Pikmin and then coming back and forming them back up for the full squad, it probably doesn't come as a surprise then that the solo Dandori Challenges were easily my favorite thing in the world.
Stuff is constantly just getting done and when it isn't, the wait is not long to get some Pikmin back and give them new objectives.
In any other instance, a game like this would exhaust the hell out of me or make me feel like my setup or planning isn't good enough to keep going (apologies to Factorio, Satisfactory etc, I've tried and failed this subgenre often) but I don't know, it wasn't happening this time.
Even when I was very conscious of me not doing things optimally, notably the bosses, there was never any internal pressure to do it better even when the game gives you a chance to try again.
I think this more than anything makes me incredibly curious to try the previous games just to see if this was just result of the new design ethos Nintendo's been etching onto their games since the Switch's launch or if Pikmin has just always been like this, albeit definitely less lax and more off-kilter aesthetically. The suburban garden aesthetic of this one was very nice but there's no denying it makes everything feel very different compared to the feral almost jungle-y vibe of 1 and 2.
I wanna get as far as I can with this one and then I guess I'll find out how it stacks up when I inevitably play through the others. Heavily betting they'll just feel different as a result of different design goals but we'll see.