Pikmin 4 Nears Completion

[Ludendorkk]

In 2015, Shigeru Miyamoto shot his mouth off to Eurogamer that not only were they making a Pikmin 4, but it was ""very close to completion".

Fast forward to the present day...

Just a teaser at this point, but Miyamoto teases they are going to change the gameplay perspective, which is potentially exiting. At this point it's good to know it still exists!

 

[Mogri]

My son is ecstatic.

 

[Ludendorkk]

[Miyamoto bursts into the room, writes the word "DOG" on the whiteboard and circles it, and leaves]


Launches July 21, 2023

 

[Kazin]

I wish the dog had four legs, ngl

Anyway I'll be all over this. Pikmin finally clicked for me, and I just played through the first two games and started the third on Switch yesterday. The series rules!

 

[Patrick]

It's very good!

I played Hey! Pikmin last year and I enjoyed it. It's a pretty mellow game and none of the challenges are very difficult, but it's still a nice way to spend a few hours guiding some Pikmin around a 2d world.

I should probably pick up Pikmin 3 at some point.

 

[Kazin]

I should probably pick up Pikmin 3 at some point.

I just played Pikmin 3 all night and had an absolute blast. I haven't played Hey! Pikmin yet, but I'm pretty sure 3 is my favorite in the series. It's extremely well designed.

I just noticed that Pikmin 4 appears to be bringing back purple and white Pikmin from 2, which is interesting... I wonder why they got dropped from 3? It's also weird that in 3, any Pikmin can pick up bombs, which are back from 1 but weren't in 2.

 

[Ludendorkk]

I just played Pikmin 3 all night and had an absolute blast. I haven't played Hey! Pikmin yet, but I'm pretty sure 3 is my favorite in the series. It's extremely well designed.

I just noticed that Pikmin 4 appears to be bringing back purple and white Pikmin from 2, which is interesting... I wonder why they got dropped from 3? It's also weird that in 3, any Pikmin can pick up bombs, which are back from 1 but weren't in 2.

Purple and White are in the non-campaign modes in 3. Hopefully 4 lets us play with every Pokemon type in the story mode this time.

 

[karzac]

4 better have multiplayer. Pikmin multiplayer is so much fucking fun.

 

[Kazin]

Purple and White are in the non-campaign modes in 3. Hopefully 4 lets us play with every Pokemon type in the story mode this time.

Ah, okay, I haven't really tried those yet, thanks. I beat the first set of Olimar missions, though I haven't started the second, so maybe they appear there.

Rolled credits on Pikmin 3 - it's a good length for one of these games, not a sometimes tiring slog like Pikmin 2 can be if going for 100%. I missed 20 fruits - I didn't think the game would end after that boss battle and not let me return to the planet to get everything else, so hopefully I don't have to play the whole game over again to try to get those 20 other fruits. In any case, the game is fantastic, and is definitely my favorite in the series overall, even though that last boss battle is super weird. The other boss battles, though, are absolutely incredible, great design.

I played some Hey! Pikmin, too, and it seems decent, if not quite as fun as the main series. I'm not sure if I'll finish it (apparently its like 9+ hours, which seems a bit long, but who knows, maybe it'll get super fun later on).

 

[Patrick]

Not really. It’s just a bunch of very simple puzzles. I wanted some Pikmin vibe & something easy when I played it, so I had a good time. But, it’s definitely not on the same level as the main series.

 

[Kazin]

Just 100%ed Pikmin 3 Deluxe, the story mode anyway. Kinda sucks that you have to re-fight the final boss to get the best ending, but oh well, it went better this time since I generally knew what to do. Turns out most of the fruit I missed were obvious ones, I collected most of the clearly "puzzle" ones lol.

The whole dang series is really, really high quality. I realize there's only 4 total games so far prior to Pikmin 4, but each one of them seems good (with Hey! Pikmin being an oddity, but a decent one, it seems). I'll try to pick away at that over the next week or so, see if I can at least beat it. It seems perfectly fine.

 

[Kazin]

Beat Hey! Pikmin. Ended up liking it, but don't have the desire to 100% right now. It's alright!

I'm all caught up with the series and ready for Pikmin 4. Hooray!

 

[Ludendorkk]

Hey! Pikmin is a perfectly cromulent Pikmin skit dispenser. Also has this:

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I'm thinking it might finally be time for me to Pik a Min. Is Pikmin 3 the best place to jump in? I don't have any good way to grab the first two right now, since they're kind of expensive on the secondary market and my Wii isn't modded.

 

[Kazin]

I think Pikmin 3 is a good place to start, yeah. It's probably the best in the series so far as well, and it's not like the plot of any of the games is that substantial, so you're fine on that front. Do give the first game a shot if you have the ability at some point, though, it's right up there with 3 for me.

 

[Ludendorkk]

3 is the best one so far, it might make it a tad harder to go back to the other games for missing QoL but it's a good entry point.

 

[Mogri]

If you jump in with 3, you should at least read a primer on the characters in 1 and 2. (I think there are only two of them.)

 

[Paul le Fou]

I'm thinking it might finally be time for me to Pik a Min. Is Pikmin 3 the best place to jump in? I don't have any good way to grab the first two right now, since they're kind of expensive on the secondary market and my Wii isn't modded.

I never played P1 or 2 and had a good time with 3; I think grabbing the Switch version and jumping in is a perfectly fine way to get ready for 4.

 

[Kazin]

So who else bought Pikmin 1 & 2 today off the eShop? lol

(I didn't watch any Pikmin 4 content since I've already got that game preordered and am looking forward to it regardless of whatever they showed)

 

[Ludendorkk]

I still own the Gamecube original and recently bought the Wii Version of 2, so no need for me. Now they just need to port Hey! Pikmin for Switch to be the Ultimate Pikmin Machine

New trailer:

Just GOBS of new stuff going on here.

 

[Kazin]

Played like five minutes of Pikmin 1 and I like it but it's going to take some getting used to holding the L button and using the right stick to point Pikmin around, now that you can manually control the camera without holding L. Maybe you can change that, dunno, didn't try.

 

[Mogri]

Isn't Luminol the stuff you spray on blood to make it glow in the dark?

 

[Kazin]

Alright so Pikmin 1 HD is a pretty good port, I just beat the game and got all the ship parts in 18 days (not my best score, I've done it in 16. Oh well). There are some weird sound issues with Pikmin entering and exiting water sometimes, even if they're blue Pikmin, and I did see a Pikmin zoom across the screen unnaturally after I threw it, but that happened once in the first level, and everything else worked great and as you'd expect it to on Gamecube.

What a fantastic game.

 

[Ludendorkk]

 

[Ludendorkk]

 

[Ludendorkk]

Developer interviews for Pikmin 4, part one and part two

I like they have a footnote explaining who Tim Burton is

 

[Kazin]

I've barely scratched the surface - I've played for maybe two hours - but there's a good chance Pikmin 4 will end up being my favorite Pikmin. The devs were clearly thinking about how to improve upon Pikmin 2 with this one, and so far it seems they really have. They brought back dungeons, but now if you leave early you can resume where you left off, which makes descending them much less dangerous (and, I suppose, far easier, although as I said I've barely scratched the surface so who knows, maybe they'll get much harder). I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the new dog guy but his abilities seem to fit really well with the Pikmin (and I'm glad to see he's not native to this planet, meaning Olimar didn't just... miss him on his previous trips).

 

[Violentvixen]

Played a little last night, with me as P2 shooting pebbles at things. It's definitely fun to watch so far.

 

[Aleryn]

Same, helped with the first player's game. Seems like a tighter-built game than 3 was, so far. I'll be curious to try the 2players versus computer mode as well.

 

[Ludendorkk]

Beat this, 35hours for 100%. The ideal Pikmin experience, the devs put a ton of thought into how to improve the series experience while keeping the Dandori essense intact. My favorite game of the year so far!