I haven’t played Pikmin 4, but may experience with Pikmin 3 was, that game is interresting to play with a friend, but i try the single player mode a lot later. I don’t know, didn’t feel fun with it anymore. I feel the tutorial was terrible childish, because i have already played the game so it was horrible. I didn’t like the camera view anymore (don’t know why that wasn’t a problem with the wii U). I don’t feel the game with it’s characters and world. Maybe it was just the wrong time for the game for me. I could try Pikmin 4 if i ever get it cheaper. But i don’t think it’s difficult
Thankfully, in the Pikmin 4 demo you can skip all cutscenes which include cutscene tutorials. The tutorial section is still pretty long, but skipping the cutscenes makes it much more bearable.
I feel like it’s a lot like the weapon breaking in Breath of the Wild - one of those systems that imposes heavy limits on players to enforce their creativity and flexibility in their approach.
I know a lot of people approach every game in a completionist, meticulous way where they do every quest, never use any consumable items, etc; and it often ruins the fun. It’s also why Ubisoft had the somewhat crazy idea in Far Cry 5 of actually forcing you to do story missions after game progress, trying to use designer mechanics to push some variety into people’s game sessions.
In Pikmin’s case, and I think Dead Rising / Persona too, the time limit is meant to get you to prioritize path planning so you get as much as you can done in a certain span. The core gameplay of Pikmin just isn’t all that interactive when you have all the time in the world for it - it’s built around the benefits of delegation and synchronization.
I haven't played Pikmin but when it comes to BotW/TotK I still would prefer if weapons didn't break. Seems to me that it creates grind and it takes away flexibility, because more situational options take the same slots as raw power, and get spent just as quickly. Comes to mind also how XCom 2 insisted on turn limits, and one of the first mods it got was to remove the turn limits.
Sometimes designers insist on certain limits to prevent that players "optimize the fun away" but they don't realize that some players legitimately do have more fun without those limits.
There’s certainly been tons of moments through gaming history when designers attempted to force a playstyle and it didn’t work out. It’s still hard to say for me where XCOM would lie on that, because there’s at least one other tactics game, Steamworld Heist, that I think worked out much better with a semi-turn-limit; I felt much more accomplished when I managed to escape those levels within a certain turn limit.
There’s mods out there for emulated Breath of the Wild to turn off weapon degradation, and I’m actually curious how the reviews go for mods like that. You lose out on moments where you actually enjoy finding a 90-attack weapon, because you’d find it and go “Meh…I already have a 100-damage weapon.” And because the game isn’t promoting constant power progression, it doesn’t have a ton of different things to reward you with for quests and exploration if you’re never losing things from your inventory - so you’d pretty quickly be ending quests with “Man I don’t even want this”.
I get that it’s important for designers to hear out their players, but there have been many times gamers were wrong about what exactly it was they thought they wanted. Nintendo in general has to be really careful about making sure they don’t betray expectations on certain series. Pikmin in particular had a winning formula in their first game. Even if they make changes/additions, if they damage that initial element, it can hurt the enjoyability of the experience, even if it adds freedom.
It's hard to say where the balance lies for every game, so I can't say for sure what's best for Pikmin without having played but more options never hurt anyone.
But as far as Zelda goes, I have heard all the arguments and maybe they might fit perfectly with a chunk of that audience, but that's definitely not the experience that I had. So much so I bounced off of BotW twice until I finally started to enjoy it.
You lose out on moments where you actually enjoy finding a 90-attack weapon, because you’d find it and go “Meh…I already have a 100-damage weapon.” And because the game isn’t promoting constant power progression, it doesn’t have a ton of different things to reward you with for quests and exploration if you’re never losing things from your inventory - so you’d pretty quickly be ending quests with “Man I don’t even want this”.
But it's because that I had a 100 attack weapon that the 90 one feels like routine upkeep rather than a reward, and anything less might as well be a stick. A lot of quests in those games gave me that “Man I don’t even want this” feeling. Every chest with middling weapons. Every quest that rewards me with food or a pittance of rupees. If not for shrines and their permanent upgrades, I wouldn't feel that motivated to explore.
I feel the same way. My current BoTW save has a bunch of semi-unique or rare weapons in my inventory and I don't have any more slots. Whenever I want to fight something now I have to ask myself "which thing should I break and never get back?"
Oh some basic mobs to clear? Oh well, all I have are these super high damage weapons. It discourages me from getting into fights because I feel like my weapons aren't balanced for the enemies at hand, I gotta save them for tougher fights.
It really feels like a waste to take rare and strong weapons to go against regular bokoblins. Breaking the unique champion weapons just feels bad. No wonder so many people just put them on a wall.
Comes to mind also how XCom 2 insisted on turn limits,
I mean I would argue sure they were a bit too tight and I'm 100% down for increasing them but Xcom (2013) did have a problem with overwatch creep. Where people were legitimately optimizing the fun out of the game. Time limits force you to make less than optimal decisions where it works very well with the setting of Xcom 2 where you are a rebellion force, you don't have the luxury of taking things at your pace. You need to strike and get out before a larger response force come in to take you out. The only negative to the turn limits is you being forced to trigger pods early and pods waking up give them a free move action.
I get the reasoning in theory, but... it doesn't work for everyone.
Speaking for myself, I don't appreciate the anxiety. I only played XCom EU but the timed missions were the ones I hated the most. I just didn't want to play a game that was just that every time. It doesn't make me thrilled, it makes me stressed. I do actually want to inch my way through every mission, so I can stay prepared for danger, since the game will pop out a bunch of enemies with free actions at any moment. I felt like the commander of an elite team whenever I managed to badly damage any enemy even before they got the chance to attack.
When they "fixed" me "optimizing the fun out of the game", they just took me out of the game entirely. What they see as fun or not fun is not universal.
Some might say that if this is how I think maybe that's not the game for me. But if having both possibilities is an alternative, why shouldn't I be able to play the way I actually like it?
I don't know if difficult is the word I'd use, but I couldn't stand Pikmin 3, and I imagine I couldn't stand Pikmin 1 either, because of the time limits. I want to be able to take my time, strategize, and explore at my own pace. It ruins the fun to know that I only have 30 days, or that I'll lose if I don't collect X amount of fruit per day.
Pikmin 2 is so far the best game in the series, in my opinion. If I want to spend three days building up my Pikmin army and stockpiling the sprays, I can do it without worry that I'm running behind now. I don't need to rush through the game, and can take it at my own pace.
If only there were a mod for Pikmin 3 that removes the juice mechanic, or gives unlimited juice from the start.
Never played pikmin 3, but I had a funny experience with the day limit in pikmin 1. You have way more than enough time to complete the game in the day limit, even if you play very suboptimally.
Despite that, in my initial playthrough I still hated it for all the reasons you listed. Theoretically, I could see how a day-limit could be good for the game. Adding tension and the like. But on that first playthrough when I had no idea how much time is worth, I always felt the need to rush. As it turned out, I could have easily taken a few days to just explore or strategize. But there's no way to know that at the start. Maybe it could work better if the game could communicate somehow if you're ahead of schedule or something.
Give me OOT with the systems created with BotW /TotK. There is so much potential here for freedom here the way you could complete dungeons in different orders, while still adhering to a classic dungeon-with-items Zelda formula. Lighting fires with bombs vs arrows vs thrown torches. Reflecting light with mirrors or a mirror shield. Even using enemies’ attacks or weapons to do so. If this was part of the core design of the game, it could be treated like how sequence breaking is now sanctioned in Metroid games and part of its design.
I think a 3rd party might be able to do this while Nintendo charges forth with their new vision, and this would probably be my favorite style of Zelda game.
What exactly from OoT are you missing in those two games, though? I’m honestly curious, because there’s very little that is objectively ‘missing’ compared to OoT
As someone who thinks BOTW and TOTK have a TON of glaring flaws that modern game journalism refuses to critique, this is disapointing to hear. I fear they’re just gonna keep making BOTW clones with different powers and I’m never gonna get a traditional zelda game that isn’t a remake again.
The worlds are largely empty and boring to explore even compared to some much older open world titles
movement/controls are clunky
the combat system is incredibly simplistic especially compared to other games and makes combat largely uninteresting and unchallenging
the weapon durability system is terrible and not only discourages exploration (to save your good weapons), but also prevents more complex combat mechanics from existing at all
the plots really aren’t good at all
the shrines are repetitive
the side quests have no good rewards and often aren’t worth bothering with. This is due to any substansial rewards (health and stamina) being locked to shrines, main tools being given to you at the start, a lack of proper progression, and other tools like weapons being disposible.
Because they give you all the tools at the start of the game, there’s really no sense of progression making the game feel stale a lot more quickly then it otherwise should
TOTK doesn’t really address any of these problems from BOTW. It does address things like enemy variety, and dungeons/bosses (barely), but both games share so many of the same issues I struggled to get through TOTK.
I disagree with all and every single point you made, to the point that I think the complete opposite about most of them. So I guess those are subjective, not objective issues, and the game is not for everyone. I don’t think every game has to be for everyone, but it’s clear looking at popularity, sells, and cultural impact, that both BotW and TotK are liked by a huge amount of people just as they are. And I for one would definitely like to have a third installment.
The final point really gets to me. New items and abilities were such a great part of pre-BotW era Zelda games. I get why they did it. The open world being so large means you aren’t likely to want to re-explore the same location again once you get the requisite item. It’s a sacrifice they made to avoid gating content off and allowing you to go anywhere and do anything at any time. I just don’t really think that sacrifice is worth it.
I have long given up on guessing Nintendo’s next move. One thing I’d bet on is they’ll shake things up sooner or later. Zelda isn’t stuck in this precise genre forever. It’s always been in their DNA to surprise us.
Eh, other developers are already basically making Zelda games minus the name, and you can play them without giving nintendo money. Unsighted, Death’s Door, and Crosscode are all great and take strong inspiration from Zelda, just to name a few.
Keep your eyes open for Mina the Hollower hopefully later this year, it wears its Link’s Awakening inspiration on its sleeve. Adorable mouse character and healthy dose of Castlevania mashup from the developers of Shovel Knight, I’ll be surprised if it turns out anything other than a slam dunk.
I would loooove if we could get top down Zelda games occasionally between BotW-style games. Like how we get 2D and 3D Mario games. I definitely don’t need an Ocarina of Time type of Zelda anymore though. That version aged and doesn’t hold up very well anymore IMO.
I really enjoy the new games but I had concerns with the company’s direction back when A Link Between Worlds came out. They were so excited to break the linear formula and that started the “destruction” of the metroidvania aspect of Zelda. For me, that is a core aspect of the IP.
I loved BotW enough to buy it twice, but it definitely lost a lot of the Zelda “feel” so it only deepened my concerns. I will admit that TotK feels more like a proper Zelda title than BotW. But I still miss the item gating puzzle style progression.
Anyways, I just hope their takeaway is not hyper focused on open world sandboxes forever.
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