Really interesting and cool story, but holy moly I can only run through so many forests fighting the same old dudes for so long. I'm very excited for the sequel. I trust Remedy to expand on the good and fix the bad from a gameplay and environment perspective.

I specifically hope the manuscript pages make a return, though I'm not sure how it will work narratively. It's definitely the highlight of the game for me. A diegetic way of learning more about side characters, what's happening "off-camera", and even what will happen later through a prose presentation was a super unique and well executed little slice of the gameplay pie. More of that please. Fatten me up Alan, I'll be your little piggy.

I loved the rap songs. Every time one of those played it really boosted the atmosphere. Voice acting and story were also pretty cool. The rest of the game was just alright. It's repetitive but the gameplay is satisfying and fun but definitely not fun enough to justify the repetitiveness. End of the day I had a good time with it but didn't leave too much of an impression. Wish I had more to say :( the game oozes cool but there is something lifeless in the core gameplay. The main dude IS cool but he doesn't make ME feel cool playing as him.

Pikmin 2 is definitely a grower. At first I was seriously considering giving the game 2 stars, I was just so annoyed with it, but pushing through I started see what the hubub was all about.

First the bad.

I despise the narrative framing of this game. I get the whole anti-capitalism shtick it’s going for but I don’t think it is done particularly well. The debt angle opposed to the survival angle makes me feel like a parasite on the planet, taking advantage of the pikmin for my own personal gain, rather than working together. Which like...I get it, that’s what they are going for, but while Olimar’s curiosity in the first game I find infinitely charming, the constant disgust for nature from the rest of the cast in Pikmin 2 was exhausting and annoying. The letters received at the end of the days are so soulless, I derived very little joy from reading them. The ship’s constant bickering was deeply irritating and Louie’s dumb little meme faces just felt gross. I did not find any of it particularly funny or clever or interesting. It felt old and dry as soon as it was introduced and it sacrificed my favorite aspect of the other 3 games: the juxtaposition between the severity of the goal and the intrigue of the world. The debt has no stakes and the character’s intrigue is non-existent.

This game also starts that trend of needing to add a new pikmin type to every game. I think this trend might be bad actually. In the first game there is a really good balance between the three guys. Red fights good, Yellow throws high, and Blue can go into the water. They are very tactile to the environment and core aspects of the gameplay. The Purple pikmin being as strong as 10 pikmin is a pretty good addition but all the ones after that kind of stink. Like they don’t add to the gameplay in any meaningful way they are just little keys. Now instead of a generic wall you have a poison wall, or an electric wall, or an ice wall, or a glass wall. It kind of only makes the game experience worse and more tedious not to mention aesthetically incoherent. The electric walls are so jarring. The worst thing Pikmin 2 does is dedicate digging to the white pikmin. It’s way too important of a task to dedicate to a rare pikmin you only find in tunnels. The amount of time spent just watching 5 white pikmin dig - tedious.

Okay, I’m done pooping in my diaper. Now for the sort of good.

Boy this is like not even Pikmin. But also what even is Pikmin? I thought I knew what Pikmin was. I thought Pikmin was a game about multitasking and delegating tasks in big open areas but I guess not. Pikmin 2 gets rid of all of that and focuses on combat. At first I didn’t like this but the more I played the more interesting it became. Pikmin mechanically is very unique when approached as an action game. The war of attrition going into a tunnel and slowly losing pikmin as you descend is a very tense experience. I would approach tunnels so meticulously and on more than one occasion would reach the end with just enough pikmin to carry the last treasure. It was a wholly unique and deep satisfaction that only a game like Pikmin could provide. Not knowing how many floors the tunnels had made it very easy to get emotionally invested. You’d reach floor 7 with 40ish pikmin and think “surely this next one is the last one, I can’t take much more of this”.

The tunnels themselves work really well overall. While I think they trivialize the overworld, they also really create a threatening and cramped environment that compliments the combat. The large enemy variety was really cool too. Going deeper and deeper and discovering all the different little freaks. The deeper you go the freakier they get.

The procedural floor layouts were also pretty neat. You’d get a bunch of dead ends and empty tunnels but I like that crap. I like it when a game is inconvenient and kind of dumb. Dead ends feel very real. If everything leads to something it just feels like a game with programming and numbers but having the occasional dead end makes the tunnels feel hostile, not designed for life.

I also didn’t mind the cheapness in this game. I think it compliments the narrative framing. Some bullshit would happened and half of me was irritated but the other half felt like I deserved it. Olimar and co. are playing dirty so I don’t see why the planet can’t as well.

These tunnels, while a lot of the times very tedious, are so uniquely "PIKMIN". There is nothing else like Pikmin and more specifically there is nothing else like Pikmin 2.

Overall this game is weird as heck. I think I hate it. Some of that hate is why I love it. Some of the hate is why I hate it. I think it would be neat if Nintendo made a Pikmin 2 rogue-lite.

SIDE NOTE:
NOWITSREYNTIME17, if you decide to comment on this review please @ me so I can get that badge. Thanks.

I gave the game about an hour before I pulled up a map online. That hour was pretty fun, just meandering in the 3D space. The game is an absolute joy to exist in. The platforming is butter smooth and the PS1 aesthetic is perfect for these big open areas and polygonal obstacles that give you the room to operate but also do a good job translating the destination and platforms.

Once I pulled up the map online I had a lot more direction and it only took 2 or 3 more play sessions to beat the game. The aloofness of the world and narrative was all complemented by the soundtrack and environments. It really maximizes the aesthetic benefits of the PS1's limitations while also maintaining all the modern sensibilities in the controls and camera.

I don't really hold 3D platformers in the same regards as 2D platformers. I think 2D platformers have a lot more room to be precise and challenging without feeling cheap due to limitations in camera and that extra dimension, but damn this game is tight tight tight. Really making me eat my words. Looking forward to replaying this one.

"Here I am, stranded on a toxic planet, fighting to survive, and yet I'm intrigued...I must research this fascinating creature!"

The first Pikmin game is so pure in it's design. The man had a vision and they let him cook. It gains so much in its simplicity. The levels are open and beautiful and have so much variety in their challenges utilizing the core three pikmin. The 30 day time limit provides a really comfortable amount of time to accomplish your goals but also creates a very visceral end point and deadline. The arcade feel with the short run time and multiple different leaderboards promotes replays. Even the terrible little pikmin who get caught on the tiniest of corners - what should annoy me only endears me more. I loved reaching my destination only to turn around and realize 5 or 10 of my guys got left behind under some bridge. I'd think "what are they stupid.....oh well yeah I guess they kind of are"

Pikmin is such a one of a kind game. Olimar is just this tiny tiny dude who overcomes fear and isolation with curiosity. The world is equal parts dangerous and beautiful. The man does not know if he is ever going to see his wife and kids again but he can't worry about that cause the blue pikmin just tilted its head to the side a little bit. My dog does the same exact shit.

Having the Wii U gamepad on my lap and holding a wiimote/nunchuck for the first time in years. What a time to be alive 2013 was. The gamepad was definitely Nintendo flying a little too close to the sun with their zany ideas but dang I love this goofy thing. I actually think the controller is really comfortable and I played a ton of games remotely with it back in the day. Pikmin 3 utilizes the gamepad in a fun and compelling way. Getting little calls, reading reports, and directing your companions. It's charming as heck.

Pikmin 3 is all charm. The environments are detailed and beautiful. They are a real joy to exist in. The characters are all fun and them chatting in their fake little language interspersed with recognizable words like "PEEEKMIN" and "CAP-TEN" was really delightful. The Pikmin vibes are all intact. It strikes the balance between the fear of starvation and safety with the joys of exploration and learning. Alph and co. need to get food for their planet, which is a very serious and dangerous mission, but they cannot help but be delighted and curious about this world they are exploring and these little color coded plantmen.

Great vibes, the vibes are good but what about the gameplay. Coming off Pikmin 4 the gameplay had some stuff I liked and some stuff I didn't like. Bosses in this game are very grand. They are a big deal and it feels like a big deal when you beat one. The little halls right before a boss where the camera is fixed and angled up was very cool. I like the bosses in this game quite a lot. They make you feel very small and what I want out of my gameplay in Pikmin is to feel small and perform complex dandori.

Speaking of complexity I liked that aspect too. With the 3 captains and the ability to move them around the map using the gamepad I was able to perform some pretty efficient levels of dandori, directing captains/pikmin on opposite corners of the map. The water pikmin are introduced pretty late and I think that was smart. It made revisiting earlier maps a real fun treat because you could assign all your blue pikmin to one captain and have them explore the water and then have the other two captains clean up any other fruits you missed on your first go around. Swapping between the parties and multitasking is intuitive and feels good.

The maps themselves are varied and look really great. I think there is a lot of work that went into them and it shows but I was a bit disappointed with how many walls there are. The maps feel like a lot of hallways and bridges looping out of and back into the main base. They are not very open. Going down corridors and across bridges that are very intentionally captain/pikmin sized makes the world feel designed for me which is everything I DON'T want in a Pikmin game. Having the world feel designed for me makes Alph and co. feel "normal" sized instead of small and feeling small is kind of what it's all about.

Overall the game rules but I always feel a bit disappointed when I leave a game that has all the makings of a "most favorite special boy 5 star game" just thinking it's "really good". I look forward to revisiting this game in the future though, I think it could grow on me.

This was my first Pikmin game and as an introduction to the series I'm very impressed. I ordered the 3rd game and blew the dust off my Wii U. I am officially in on PIkmin. I wanna be a Pikmin guy. Pikmin captures "nature" so effectively. It balances the quiet beauty, indifferent cruelty, and sheer BIGNESS all in one tasty gumbo. The cute aesthetic juxtaposed with the games willingness to display mortality was chef's kiss. This is a game for people in their 30s who do yard work and go to funerals. That's me baby.

The biggest point of contention I see from the Pikmin diehards is Oatchi. From my perspective as a new player I would say Oatchi is implemented very well. He is certainly very powerful but he really eases the player into Pikmin's most complicated gameplay mechanic of splitting up the playable characters. Oatchi is strong enough to get a new player through the main game without splitting up the playable character and Oatchi to perform anything too complicated, but the option is still there and in a lot of the higher level challenges is necessary. Also he's a cute little doggy so like how could he be bad for the game guys, c'mon guys.

A mechanic that I did have mixed feelings towards was the multiple base locations. I think it splits the maps into subsections and made them feel a bit smaller. I think a single centralized base would have been more effective at promoting more complicated Dandori techniques. You never feel all that far away from a base at any point in the game, which does damper the exploration which is a huge part of the appeal. The further you get from a base the more tedious and dangerous the environment becomes, the more you need to spread your Pikmin out. To me multiple bases made the game feel smaller and less complicated and that is in direct opposition to the Pikmin mission statement.

Overall the game is a banger and I now have the sickness. The frustration and anxiety that not enough people have played these games and they all really really need to. In a weird way Pikmin as a franchise is a fascinating reflection of itself. Beautiful and fun but also conscious of its own mortality. Ten years is a long time.

It was a really fun game :D

now imagine this next sentence in really small text








could have worked on the pacing in the middle chapters and the humor got a bit exhausting :3

Playing on anything other than a PS2 controller is just sub-optimal. I'm playing this on my Steam Deck and it's...alright. The sticks are at least parallel. Playing on the Switch with those pathetic little joysticks is a complete non-starter. I could maybe buy some sort of USB to PS2 adaptor but like...my original PS2 is right there and it literally has We Love Katamari in it.

My actual review of the game ummm. It looks nice, runs nice, you can turn off the new aesthetic, and they put in a bunch of quality of life changes. It's a remake of literally one of the top 5 games of all time. It's Good.

If you are interested in this game this website has all of the content you're looking for in a more digestible format:

https://laingame.net/index.php?site=0#l4

Start from the bottom and work your way up.

It's a fascinating alternative timeline to an already fascinating
anime. Unfortunately some of the vibes are lost consuming it in this way and Lain as an IP is heavy on the vibes but it's better to lower the barrier of entry and actually interact with the media than just forever have it on the list of things to get around to. At least for me.

I'm not big brained enough to understand Lain going in raw. I watched the anime in college a long time ago and kind of hated it but luckily the anime and the game both have a very lovely hand holdy fanbase willing to explain it all to a dumb dumb like me. After a re-watch of the anime and a playthrough of the game, I get the hubbub. It's all very neato.

My first foray into the Xenoblade series and it's the expansion, prequal, DLC to the second game of a trilogy and I don't think I'd have it any other way. It was short and simple and felt like a perfect introduction to a series that is a bit overwhelming from the outside looking in.

I had a lot of trepidations going in. There's a lot of videos out there making fun of Xenoblade. Weird voice acting and awkward deliveries, walls of tutorials and systems, overly dramatic moments, one liners on repeat, and the boobs. The cans on some of these gals put me in an absolute cold sweat hoping my wife wouldn't walk into the room. But really if you go in with your good time hat on, all of these things I thought I'd hate just came off as incredibly charming. I was being charmed left and right by this cornball cast of characters and their overly complicated lives and gameplay mechanics. I couldn't get enough of it. When Lora says "aren't we intrepid?" for the 500th time I was on my couch just hollering "hell yeah, we are intrepid as fuck!" I haven't played the other games so the blue guys come on the screen and say a bunch of silly words about whatever and I'm just snacking. Say more nonsense at me I love it. A whole cutscene just talking about how Lora and Haze kind of look like sisters, why not!

You put the good time hat on and the fun don't stop.

I've always viewed the Xenoblade games from a gameplay perspective as kind of a single player MMO. You've got attacks and cooldowns and random people online just champing at the bit to explain it all to you. Once you've got the rhythm of it all it feels amazing. You've got to time your attacks so they chain into each other while also keeping track of 3 bars that fill up and do one thing and another 5 menus that pop up and do another thing, all while the game is exploding in colors and numbers and just screaming directly into your face. Juggling all this nonsense "I won't lie, it feels good".

So yeah, I was really surprised to be so smitten by all the stuff I thought I wouldn't like. But even better than all of that is the stuff that I WAS excited for. The worlds are huge and beautiful and the game is just a joy to exist in. At the end of the game when you climb to the highest point and overlook the massive desert and city you just spent hours in at the ground level, and in your peripheral the mountains are moving and you realize the whole world is literally breathing because your on the back of this massive beasty, and it's all true to scale and lovingly crafted. I was in awe. This is Xenoblade baby.

NOTES:
I like that the characters have distinct colors and big gaudy weapons. They all look like action figures and toys. It fits with their over the top nobility and niceness. They are all pretty predictable character archetypes and I like that. I want an Addam and Lora toy and I want to smash them together and make them kiss.

Mythra's tits are out of this world. Then at the end you get a quick glimpse at Pyra and holy shit. I think Mythra is a really interesting and cool character with great voice acting and her giant rack really does her a disservice. But I guess I also don't want to contribute to like...large breast erasure or anything. They are just so distracting lmao