#platinum gamecube

[thefantastician]

Oodles and oodles of Pokemon

[thegeminisage]

what i miss about NOT being sober is the ability to become numb nearly instantly. times i have desperately wished for this ability: about 20 minutes ago when i discovered a days-old puddle of cat vomit on some of my semi-expensive electronics.

[goodolfashioncola55]

Let's Play Animal Crossing Episode 133: 3DS Homebrew and Re-watching Reg...

[moonknightproductions]

TEXT BORDER SELECTIONS

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023! Part 1: Pikmin 4

Something I really enjoyed doing for 2022 was making drawing to go with my top favorite games I played that year. So I wanted to do that again with 2023 and do a bit of writing to go along with it. I've always been meaning to try writing/documenting my thoughts so hopefully this isn't all just gibberish. Please enjoy!

PIKMIN 4

I got real into Pikmin for the first time ever over this past year. The series finally clicked with me both partially because of this game but also because of just seeing other people be excited about the series as well. I saw it in a lot of fan art or meme videos about bulborbs or Oatchi and so on and I just found it all charming and fun.

One thing in particular that got me to become a fan of the whole series was @hollowtones and @anonymouspuzzler 's streams of Pikmin 1 (https://youtu.be/Yu3Ev5aDZcI?feature=shared). A really fun streams that were also quite informative (surprisingly so) about how the series had a bit more depth to its world design than I ever really gave it credit for. That stream also got me to finally do something I couldn’t do when I was a kid and finally finish a playthrough of this Gamecube copy of Pikmin 1 I’ve had my whole life. That game rules except for a truly miserable final boss fight!

So all that lead me to want to finally check out Pikmin 4, a game that gave me the joy of dandori (something else I found people constantly joking about). To be reductive, the game is all about using your army of silly little guys to pick up all the trash you can get them to carry while avoiding death at the hands at colorful alien horrors beyond your comprehension. What made that collection focused gameplay really click with me in this series has been the time limit each game has and finding and honing the art to getting as much done with that time that I can. It’s what kept me coming back to completely 100%ing the game, getting all the stuff, getting platinums for all the challenges, and so on. While 4 never felt especially hard ever, I always found the aspect of trying to be as optimal with my time as possible to be a more than good enough replacement for a more typical difficulty.

The only real big disappointment I had with the game was with the characters I interacted with in the game, their long drawn out tutorial/introduction was unwanted and their game long constant need to pestering and nagging about any sort of mistakes they could observe grew extremely tiresome. I wish I liked them because the character designs of these funny little space guys are so charming, I even really liked my own player character despite how inconsequential they are.

The game also introduced Oatchi, the wonderful perfect doggy who could have absolutely ruined the the mechanical charm of the game by just always being the solution to just about any problem the game throws your way. I thought it stayed acceptable to me due to how he still felt fun use and was just a very charming guy. Just look at that dude! He goes ‘ufufufufufuf’ if you mash on the whistle button, how can you ever be mad at Oatchi? Love that guy, shouts out to Oatchi, dogthing of all time.

Pikmin 4 was just a delight to me to play a few hours of every night and just pick away at each area at a time, picking up all the cool junk i could find. A very happy surprise of a game after entering into 2023 not even considering the game in the first place.

[popfizzles]

okay so ideally to start a Ribbon Master quest (having a Pokemon with every ribbon on it ever), you would start with either Pokemon Colosseum or Gale of Darkness, and catch a Shadow Pokemon, which would get their first ribbon by being purified by Celebi and getting the National Ribbon.

in order to take a purified Pokemon out of Pokemon Colosseum (which is on the Gamecube), I'll first need a save of either Ruby, Sapphire, or Emerald on the Gameboy Advance to put them on.

I really wanted to use my Ruby game and start from the beginning so I can go through the story again for the novelty of it, but I have some Pokemon on there that I would like to move first before restarting (most importantly my first ever Shiny Pokemon, a Beautifly named Wade)

and in order to move the Pokemon off of my current Ruby save, I'll need a completed save of Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum on DS, to get them in the Pal Park, which would require me to beat the Elite Four and Champion Cynthia first.

and im pretty sure the farthest im in in any of my gen 4 copies is like. third badge

do you see how my life is in shambles already

[guardiangeologist]

Luigi's Uncharacteristically Large and also maybe Haunted House (3DS Edition): A Highly Professional Review

The entire time I've had this blog, I haven't really been sure what to use it for. I've settled on spewing my unscripted thoughts on whatever Game of the Week I've played most recently because, quite frankly, where else are they gonna go? I love my girlfriend, but these words are destined for a wider platform. I must expand my horizons. So here I am, talking about cartoon ghosts and green vacuum-wielding Italian men on the internet.

Now, let me tell you, this green man and his stupid house have been in control of my entire brain like some fucked up Italian Ratatouille for at least 10 years. I was a Luigi's Mansion Kid. What do I mean by that? I mean I roleplayed Luigi's Mansion on the school playground when I was in the 3rd grade. With the other Luigi's Mansion Kids. So it's safe to say I have some experience when it comes to this game. At times, he goes dormant. He waits patiently for another hyperfixation to pass. However, just when I least expect it, he returns from the grave (almost like a ghost?) to stage a military occupation of my frontal lobe to last the next few months.

So, there's my history. I ended up finally picking up the 3DS version of this game just before the eShop shut down (rest in piss) for shits and giggles, and only just got around to playing it this week while laying in bed with a migraine. (maybe not the smartest decision?) I mean, to start with, why was this game released for the 3DS? It came out in October 2018, at which point we were already an entire year post-Switch. I mean, I guess it would be fine, but it's just so obvious that being on the 3DS holds this game back in so many different areas (which I will get to, be patient!) and it's seriously a tragedy it hasn't been ported to Switch yet. Why put together such an amazing remake, and then bottleneck it with lackluster hardware and release it on a nearly out of service console?

In terms of positive changes? LOADS of QoL stuff. I might even go as far as to call this the definitive version of the game in spite of the few drawbacks it does present. Some examples include:

Re-fighting portrait ghosts: NO MORE RESETS!!! (Ok still some resets for speedy spirits because there's no way in hell I'm staying in the blackout for longer than I have to but that's just part of The Experience)

You can go back to the Lab from the Mansion by exiting through the front door. Finally, Luigi has learned how to open doors!

The tougher post-game Hidden Mansion, originally exclusive to the PAL version, has finally been made available to us worthless money-grubbing Americans! (Minus the disorienting flipped rooms, which I found pretty disappointing but some people will probably celebrate.) You can even get platinum ghost portraits from the Hidden Mansion which I have yet to obtain all of because jesus christ it is not easy to defeat a ghost with 150 health in a single attempt.

And now, the ghostly elephant in the room: co-op. I did try it, with my little brother as my Gooigi guinea pig. It's...I mean...honestly, it's not great. If you want to play LM1 with a friend, I can honestly recommend a ROM hack of the GameCube original more than I can recommend Nintendo's official multiplayer, which is pretty lame. For one, nothing is scaled up difficulty-wise to account for the extra player, so most battles in the game become trivial with the addition of a second experienced player (not my little brother.) But secondly, and most importantly:

the LAG.

DEAR GOD THE LAG.

I can testify that our internet is fine. The internet is not the issue, and even if it were, it shouldn't take any more bandwidth to play this game than it takes for two 3DS systems that are within 3 feet of each other and 10 feet from a router to communicate with each other. Yet, the game did not once run at full speed on either screen the entire time we played. Additionally, my brother complained several times that he couldn't even move his character. Luigi's Mansion with two players SHOULD be a chaotic mess, but adding the piddly framerate on top of it makes the game nearly unplayable.

That being said, the co-op is a disappointment, but it was never necessary for the game to be a satisfying package overall, it's better than having nothing. Though, as is typical, the work of fans definitely triumphs over Nintendo's official product in this department.

Oh, and they still didn't fix the oversight which causes you to lose the second gold diamond if you die after collecting it because the game prompts you to save while it's still on the ground... No A-Rank for me, I guess.

Mm, yes, the controls, yeah, those exist. This is one of those spots where I feel this game could have easily benefitted from just being developed for the Switch. Instead of forcing a dual-stick game onto a dying handheld with a single circle pad, maybe we could've, like, released it for the dual-stick console/handheld that was already out and had a perfectly established user base? They tried to substitute the c-stick with the gray alien nipple- or uhh..."circle pad pro"...that comes pre-installed on the New Nintendo 3DS, but it does not work well. The nub just isn't responsive enough to substitute for an entire stick, and if you want it to be a real circle pad, you have to buy an external attachment. Not to mention the nub isn't even available on every 3DS model! So like, yeah, I understand they made an honest attempt to work around the controller issues, but a better workaround would've been to just...not curse this game to irrelevancy by trapping it on a dying console.

All of that said, I spent all week playing this game, so they did something right. Curse my brain worms.

11/10 will buy this game and its sequels again every time Nintendo re-releases them.

[professorhawthorne]

An update and RUMBLE WEEKEND!!

Hey everyone!

Its been a long time since I've posted to this blog but that's because I've been buisy getting life stuff sorted! My post-grad work is chugging along, I got a new job in my field and I'm learning to drive about 10 years late! But I've been playing a ton of pokemon in the mean time! I've got some full odds hunts in generations 3 and 4 on the go to get some fun playthroughs in before bank shuts down (Maybe in April?).

Fig 1. Full odds hunts for Spheal/Snorunt in RSE and Chimchar in platinum!

My luck with full odds hunting has been atrocious until the day of writing this post though. I've put the gen 3 hunt on hold because I was overcome with an urge to play Platinum again and do some pokeradar chaining so I expanded out to 3 consoles and took up soft resetting for Wimpod on the side in Sun.

Fig 2. Triple hunting Chimchar (My resets for Wimpod were done on the black and blue 2DSXL in the pile) ((I also cleaned up my desk finally, feels good))

Unfortunately I passed odds on Wimpod and a soft reset caused my 2DS to freak out and delete the entire game install, fortunately I was juuust in the time window to redownload it from the eShop so I'll pick it back up again some day! Until then though, the hunt for Chimchar continues.

I've also been slowly building up a collection of retro junk that's fun to tinker with! Meet my new CRT and VHS setup! (I'll get a tv unit for it the second I find an era appropriate one!)

Fig 3. He just wants his swamp back

While we're on the topic of retro tech, let me tell you about my favorite latest project! My roomie had a spare wii that he didn't want so I took it, soft-modded it and dressed it up in a pretty see through shell!

Fig 4. A top down view of the console and its first stickers!

Fig 5. A side on view of the transparent shell

I've been using this puppy to catch up on all of the gamecube and wii games I've missed, mostly Colosseum, Gale of Darkness and Resident Evil stuff! However there is one other thing I've been loving~ Pokemon Rumble and its fan mod, Weekend Edition! The mod adds in gen 2 and 3 pokemon that were missing from the base game and there's even a roughly quarterly shiny hunting event called Rumble Weekend where you only hunt in Rumble! The odds are roughly the same as the gen 3 and 4 games (1/8192) but the encounters fly by so fast that shinies feel relatively common.

I participated for the first time this weekend and after only an hour or so of playing I had my first two Rumble Weekend shinies!!

Fig 6. My first Rumble shiny!! A beautiful, healthy Manectric

Fig 7. My second Rumble shiny! A lovely Ourple Swampert!

I wanna try and play more next Rumble weekend but I'm so happy to finally break my shiny drought with two gen 3 gems!! I plan on posting more now that I'm transitioning to a new job with a much less chaotic schedule, see y'all around! <3

[overnightshipping]

So I completed Pikmin 4 on Thursday with all treasures, all onions, and all castaways rescued. Basically everything except going back to platinum the Dandori challenges, which I probably don't care about but maybe someday. As promised, I have a lot of thoughts on Pikmin 4.

In some ways, Pikmin 4 is truly the Pikmin game that I have wanted since I originally got hooked on Pikmin and Pikmin 2 on the Gamecube. It is grand, expansive, and polished in a very Nintendo way. It brings back many fan favorite elements from the previous 3 numbered Pikmin games and expands upon them, adding its own unique twists and interesting concepts. It dives further into the society of weird little interplanetary explorers you play as than any previous game, expanding them across multiple planets (since apparently they sure do have a lot of planets). It was a very enjoyable experience and one that I don't find it difficult to recommend.

In other ways, it is a game that in making itself as marketable as possible has lost the charm of Pikmin. It is a game that feels at odds with itself, a game that loses some of the most potent elements that made Pikmin a compelling strategy game. I have seen at least one person liken it to a collectathon platformer moreso than a strategy game, and while I don't think that is completely accurate I think it clearly outlines one of Pikmin 4's biggest, most prevalent problems: the lack of strategy in a strategy game. It's a game that is terrified to punish the player, presumably in an overcompensation for the previous games not selling well and Nintendo thinking it was because they were too hard.

I don't want to make this a full on review, but let me see if I can make some sense of my thoughts under the cut. There will be full game spoilers, both for before and after the credits roll.

The first warning sign for Pikmin 4 was how slow, tedious, and long-lasting the introduction is. In previous games you had a single day of tutorial, giving you the ropes, and often had characters chime in for extra things you needed to learn afterwards, like what different Pikmin types did, but it was never so annoying as 4. 4 makes you go through multiple ingame days where the characters laboriously explain to you everything and admonish you if you try to go off on your own - the games point you directly at the first cave and if you don't go there IMMEDIATELY the game yells at you to do so. Thankfully after a few days it finally gets less overzealous, but damn was it a poor first impression.

Unfortunately, it only gets a bit less overzealous, because the characters do. Not. Shut. UP. In Pikmin 4 you have a crew of rescue explorers (who you save) who just are constantly chiming in from the peanut gallery. All the way into the very end of the game will characters remind you that you have Pikmin sprouts to pluck, or tell you to go attack the enemy's weakpoint, or whistle at Pikmin if they catch on fire, or say "aw man it's so sad we lost so many Pikmin, if only we could turn back time" not-so-subtly hinting at the game's (fine and appreciated for newer players) accessibility feature to rewind to certain points and undo mistakes. By the end of the adventure I wanted to strangle Collin in particular who is the worst offender.

The game chirps these "helpful tips" at you when you are doing the post-credits challenge mode that is explicitly the hardest part of the game! For fuck's sake! I know how the play the game by now!

This brings me to the game's accessibility options, which are much appreciated even if I wish they were less imposed on the player. You can rewind time to an extent if you need to undo things, and if you ever get lost you can get your dog to sniff up a path on where to go next. Now, I wish the game wasn't constantly telling me to use these features I didn't want to use, but I'm glad they are here. Pikmin 4 is definitely the most accessible Pikmin game and I think that is worthy of praise, even if I have some (okay maybe a lot of) gripes on how exactly they were implemented.

Speaking of the dog, I was skeptical about how it would be implemented but I largely really enjoyed Oatchi. He essentially takes the place of having a second captain and it works quite well. The big highlight is that Oatchi has different capabilities from your captain, which means you have to put some additional thought into which character you want where. This is at its best in the nighttime missions, where the captain is the only one who can use the Glow Pikmin's powerful glow bomb blast thing which is an extremely useful tool for dealing with the nastier enemies.

Unfortunately, Oatchi also kind of... is overpowered as hell. The main thing you will use Oatchi for is to carry Pikmin - when playing as Oatchi or riding him as a captain, your Pikmin will all cling to Oatchi's back instead of following behind in a group. This is extremely useful against bosses in particular, since it means you can dodge enemy attacks directly rather than having to manage the horde of Pikmin following you. Because a bunch of the bosses are ported over from Pikmin 1 and 2, this trivializes them in a not insignificant way. Man At Legs is a great example, as it is absolutely pathetically easy in Pikmin 4 since you don't even have to think about Pikmin management, just circle strafe with Oatchi while it's shooting and you'll never lose a Pikmin. This is not even taking into account how powerful Oatchi's charge and carrying abilities get when you upgrade them.

The best bosses in the game, unsurprisingly, are the two Pikmin 4 original bosses that feel actually designed with Oatchi's mobility in mind, the Groovy Long Legs and the final boss. These are also the only bosses that come close to the complexity and satisfaction of Pikmin 3's boss fights, since the game eschews boss encounters tied to going to new areas entirely, which is a damn shame since if it was going to take anything from 3 that would have been a great thing to take.

Speaking of things to take from 3 which I hate, the lock on. It sucks! I didn't like it much in Pikmin 3 but at least there there was still a bit of strategy in needing to aim after the lock on to hit enemies in particular weakpoints, and at least it was manually triggered. In Pikmin 4 you automatically lock your cursor to everything as you pass the cursor by it. This has two effects:

It can be quite annoying to try and get the cursor where you want it, and heaven help you if you want to aim at something which the game doesn't lock onto. For example, Skitter Leafs hide as leaves and then skitter when you approach, but you can instant kill them if you throw a Pikmin on top. Your lock on works when they are revealed, but when they are hiding it doesn't. This means that if you have killed a Skitter Leaf but there are others hiding nearby, you just can't even try to kill the ones that are hiding since your cursor will be locked onto the corpse your Pikmin can carry. This annoyance only happened a few times, but boy howdy is it annoying when it does crop up.

More importantly, it trivializes aiming at enemies. Throwing Pikmin in Pikmin 1 and 2 was a skill you could get better at - if you throw Pikmin near a Dwarf Bulborb, they would attack it, but if you threw a Pikmin directly on top of one they would kill it in one shot. This incentivized getting a feeling for the throwing arc of Pikmin and carefully lining up your shots to kill enemies quicker and safer. In Pikmin 4 you just... lock on automatically, and can throw a Pikmin and kill the Bulborb in one shot and go about your day. This wouldn't be so bad if so many enemies weren't ported over from Pikmin 1 and 2 directly - enemies like Shearwigs, Flint Beetles, and Breadbugs aren't balanced with the lock on in mind and as a result feel impotent. The only thing the game does to acknowledge this at all is make other Dwarf Bulborb types need two or three Pikmin to kill them, which... doesn't help much.

To swing back into things I like: the Pikmin types! The way Pikmin are introduced is reinvented and works really really well. You get Red Pikmin first with their Onion as normal, but after that you will find other colors of Pikmin in caves as wild Pikmin, or with the help of Candypop Buds, and integrate them into your team without having their Onion and thus being unable to grow their numbers manually. However, you can also find each color's Onion somewhere in the world, allowing you to raise as many as you want just like normal. This is really cool! It means that every Pikmin type (except Reds and arguably Yellows) gets a chance to be rare and important, really making you second guess how you approach things in case you lose out on those Pikmin that you might need for other things. This hit home for me when I was doing a cave with Blues and Ices, and was having trouble killing an Aristocrab. I finally killed it, but my Blue numbers had dwindled to the point that I couldn't carry a treasure out. That's cool! I love having to deal with the consequences of my actions. I ended up being put in a situation where I could keep charging forward into new areas and hope that I found more Blues or I could backtrack because I thought I had seen a Blue Onion in an area I was in before but couldn't get to it, but maybe I can now...

The one issue I have with how the Pikmin are given to the player is that the way means they aren't very well paced. Since it is essentially tied to whatever caves the player goes into, it is perfectly possible to get to the credits before even finding every Pikmin type - this happened to me, actually, as I got my first Winged Pikmin post-credits. It's a far fling from the careful metering out of the types in 1-3, but I think it largely works well outside of some pacing issues.

Speaking of pacing, this game really wants to be an open world in some ways, it's kind of silly. The areas are all bigger than normal and, as aforementioned, there aren't mandatory bossfights to get to the next area anymore. Your ability to explore is just tied to the Sparklium you collect, which has its pros and cons. Hell, Pikmin 4 even has a menu clearly riffing on the minimalist approach of BotW for some reason.

Luckily, this mostly works. The areas are great! The caves are also great! Everything feels really satisfying to explore, aided by the cool new feature to move your base to one of several predetermined areas on the map once you have found them (and usually killed an enemy on top of them). It's really fun to be able to take different approaches on each of the maps depending on where you plop down your ship and Onion.

Unfortunately, Pikmin 4 completely whiffs the "exploring a hostile alien planet" theme and tone. Every cave has a little "intro card" penned by Olimar explaining roughly what to expect in it, often spoiling the sense of discover when plunging in. New concepts are similarly explained - in previous games, Candypop Buds are shown to the player, the player is suggested that the Pikmin want to be thrown into them, and so the player tries and, in so doing, discovers what they do. In Pikmin 4, Candypop Buds are shown to the player, and the player gets a little explanation by Olimar and the other characters as to exactly what they do before the player has a chance to experiment. It's a subtle change, but when it applies to much of the game it really stands out.

The planet's hostility is a joke this time around. If you, like me, were a bit underwhelmed at how Pikmin 3 was easier than Pikmin and Pikmin 2, I have bad news: Pikmin 4 is even easier. I wouldn't even have that much of a problem with this if it weren't for one key thing that ruins it for me: enemies never respawn.

This is the single thing that bothers me most about Pikmin 4. In previous games, the choice to continue to explore a single area or go to a different one was one you made thoughtfully, because while your progress would be saved, over time enemies would respawn and you would have to deal with them again. Certain areas would even spawn harder enemies after enough time had passed, meaning that even in Pikmin 2 where there was no omnipresent day-based time limit to the game, there was still an incentive to go quickly - too long and that Snagret would be back, or a Sheargrub would chew up your bridge, or you would have to deal with a Beady Long Legs where one wasn't before.

Pikmin 4 takes this away entirely, which makes the game feel artificial in a way that the others didn't. Where once was a living, breathing world which actively continued on when you weren't looking now there is a bunch of video game levels where you can kill a Bulborb on day one and come back on day fifteen to pick up its corpse for Pikmin sprouts. It sucks, and is even worse in caves. When I went back to that cave from before where I needed to get a treasure but didn't have enough Blue Pikmin, I expected to at least need to fight that Aristrocrab again, to fight it smarter so I would still have Pikmin ready to carry the treasure. Instead it was still dead, its body still right where I had left it, and I just picked up the treasure with no obstacles in my way whatsoever. Where is the challenge, the satisfaction of holding your own against a hostile environment? Where is the friction? This change baffles me.

It's one thing to make a game easier to appeal to a wider audience, but it feels like another to me to make it so easy that you remove the satisfaction from actually besting its challenges. It would be one thing if this was an optional difficulty mode, or something, but Pikmin 4 has no such thing. And this is all on top of the copious ways that the game is made easier for the player optionally, such as the items that you can use to trivialize most enemy encounters.

The OTHER thing that I absolutely hate about Pikmin 4 is that it is a reboot for some reason. Despite being the fourth numbered entry in the series, and despite Nintendo seemingly going out of their way to port the rest of the series to Switch prior to 4's release, Pikmin 4 is a reboot, retelling Olimar's original trip to the Pikmin planet with a lot more shenanigans. I guess they did this because they wanted the whole dogs through-line to be more important to the Pikmin planet's history? It's a strange decision that didn't need to be made, and mostly serves to further make this feel like this is less a game for Pikmin fans and more a game desperately trying to appeal to everyone but.

This is a lot of text complaining about Pikmin 4, but I do want to emphasize that I really did enjoy the game. It might have beaten out Pikmin 3 for my third favorite in the franchise by its quality of content and enjoyable design. I just really truly wish it were more Pikmin and less anything but Pikmin. It feels like Pikmin has lost its character in favor of being a more generic Nintendo family friendly franchise for kids, and that's a shame.

Okay, final random comments, mostly nitpicks:

They brought Smoky Progg back which should really excite me but a loading screen tip spoiled it for me and it shows up so many times - not to mention when it does show up having nothing to do with its unique and fucked up "summoning" in Pikmin - that is dulls the impact for me. Makes me sad.

Puffstool is back but not Mushroom Pikmin??? This is baffling why even bother bringing back a fan favorite enemy if you don't bring back the reason why it was a fan favorite.

I alluded to this earlier but Groovy Long Legs fucking rules, I'm a little sad it didn't get an encore in the final boss rush dungeon. Definitely a highlight moment for me.

It's really silly that the Piklopedia entries basically only make sense if Pikmin 1-3 still happened despite the game obviously being a reboot lmfao. What the hell is a Beady Long Legs or a Ranging Bloyster, Olimar? I've never heard of these before they sound like they are from an alternate timeline or something.

I hate how many enemies just have a bigger version as a miniboss. It feels really unimaginative for Pikmin in a way that really bugs me.

Why did they remove the Pikmin dragging long enemies to the Onion from Pikmin 3, that was suitably macabre in a satisfying way. Carrying a curled up Snagret just isn't the same.

It's funny that they introduced this new baby Snagret enemy but then had like one Snagret outside of challenge rooms.

Purple and Whites finally got Onions and this made me very happy. :) It felt like a good reward for the challenge area. Speaking of the Onion I love it visually in this one, the colored segments look great.

It's very telling of the difficulty of this game in general that the hardest caves BY FAR are the final cave (as a lengthy boss rush thing) and the Waterwraith's cave they ported from Pikmin 2. Which wasn't even a late game cave in Pikmin 2 it was near the middle.

The three Pikmin types at a time felt too stifling to me, a limit makes sense but I feel like they could have made some cool puzzles around 4-5 types at a time. Also three at a time doesn't evenly divide into 100 which is obviously agonizing. Also I really hoped the final dungeon would go crazy and set me up to have every Pikmin type but nah.

[meulia]

platinum gamecube at walmart, ~2006

[hopeymchope]

Surprises and takeaways from Capcom's "Platinum Titles" list

I never knew that Capcom maintains a list of every title they've ever produced that sold over a million units -- complete with how many units that game sold. But they do, and they just updated it! And it's fascinating!

There are currently 113 games on the list, although the way they arrange some of this stuff is INCREDIBLY specious. Like: Resident Evil 4 for GameCube and PS2, Resident Evil 4 for Wii, and Resident Evil 4 for download on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series AND Switch? Those are three separate entries despite being ports of the exact same goddamn game! Like, if you're gonna do THAT, why is the PS2 version listed alongside the GC version?!

Whatever, peeps. Here are some highlights of the list:

The top two items on the list are Monster Hunter games: World and Rise. Of course. But Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is listed as its own separate game at #5. Kinda odd.

Resident Evil fans regularly decry Resident Evil 6 as one of the worst in the series. Despite this, it's also in Capcom's top 10 best-selling games EVER. (For some reason, the list piles every single version of RE6 into one entry, unlike so many other games here). It's #7. And it's the third-best-selling Resident Evil game to date, too!

Best-selling RE game? Resident Evil 7. It's #3 on Capcom's list. But Resident Evil 2 remake is RIGHT behind it, and it might surpass it soon. Overall, when you look at the entire list, it's hard to deny that Resident Evil is the most popular franchise that Capcom's got. Damn near every spinoff series is represented herein — as well as some one-off side games.

Only ONE game makes the Top 10 that isn't either a "Monster Hunter" or a "Resident Evil." That would be Street Fighter V, sitting pretty at #9.

In fact, there's ALSO only ONE game in the entire Top 25 that isn't a "Monster Hunter," "Resident Evil," OR a "Street Fighter." It's the one and only Devil May Cry 5 at #11!

Now it's time for "Games that are often called failures that still are on the Platinum Titles list celebrating their sales." We already mentioned Resident Evil 6 above, but how about Remember Me at #85? 1.3 million units sold for a brand-new IP from a largely unknown developer is FUCKING GREAT. And do you remember how negatively Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite was received? EVO barely even had a tournament for it. But it's the second-highest seller in its series, with its #52 placement putting it only five spaces behind MvC3. (Ultimate MvC3 is, of course, its own entry on the list. Sigh.) Guess it did QUITE all right for Capcom. Also: Bionic Commando reboot isn't far behind Remember Me at #87 with its own 1.3 million cited sales. But I understand that they probably spent more on that and expected even more because of the name recognition. It wasn't a new IP, sure. Maybe you expected more from the name brand. But what about that widely maligned DmC: Devil May Cry reboot? Well, with 2.9 million sales in its initial release and another 1.3 million for its Definitive Edition, it's the second-highest-selling Devil May Cry game EVER. Only DMC5 topped it. But I guess those sales don't put it very high above DMC4's, which was probably disappointing given that a reboot was meant to reinvigorate the series. Even so, kinda seems REALLY silly to call that number a failure, huh? "Biggest seller in the franchise" is a success by ANYONE's measurements. Maybe Capcom just had stupidly unrealistic expectations, Square Enix-style. :P

We already covered the top-selling games from Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Devil May Cry. So let's cover some other big Capcom franchises to see how their best-selling entries performed... under the below cut, that is.

I guess being a launch title for the XB1 helped Dead Rising 3 be the biggest in the series despite being absent from PlayStation systems, because it's at #27. And if they included "Apocalypse Edition" in that same entry, it'd have another million under its belt!

The original Dino Crisis made #42 counting ONLY its PS1 version, so it would logically be even higher if they counted the Dreamcast release. And Dino Crisis 2 ALSO made the Platinum list at #97! With all that in mind: Where's my fucking remake/new sequel?!?!

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny is at #49 with 2.1 million sold, and the first one not isn't far behind it at #54 — ONLY counting the PS2 release, notably. Would it beat Onimusha 2 if they included the Xbox port "Genma Onimusha" in those sales?

I have a bizarre amount of affection for the Lost Planet series. Alas, my it's my least-favorite entry — Lost Planet 2 — that barely squeezes into the top 50 at #50 with 2.1 million sold. And my fav entry, LP3, isn't even on the list! At least part 1 made it to #67... but that only counts the 360 and PC release. For some reason, PS3 isn't counted in that total.

Okami HD first released on PS3. But in a blatant instance of Bullshit Accounting, its entry on the Platinum Titles list only includes the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch ports. And that's not even getting into the fact that it's just an uprezzed port of the PS2 game that already had a Wii port. Neither of those versions are counted here either, but this shitty accounting made #51 anyway. By the way, if you're wondering about that original SD version? Or even its oft-forgotten squel, Okamiden? They're nowhere to be found here.

Ace Attorney finally hits Platinum with #53 — the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy for PS4, Switch, and PC. Yup, for some reason they didn't include the 3DS, Xbox One, or mobile releases of the trilogy in that total, which... is fucking stupid as shit. God, I'm quickly getting SO sick of the idiotic accounting on this list.

It's questionable whether Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen should really be a separate entry from vanilla Dragon's Dogma, but Dark Arisen is the champ of the two at #55 with 2 million sold. Wait... Dragon's Dogma gets a sequel with those sales, but y'all have abandoned Dino Crisis, Onimusha, and Lost Planet?! What the hell, Capcom?

My personal favorite Capcom series, Mega Man, hit a series high in sales with Mega Man 11, which is (sadly) only at #65. Given that Mega Man is such a goddamn icon, that scarcely seems possible. And yet? Here we are. Somehow.

The original NES port of Ghosts 'n Goblins marks the highest showing for the Ghousts/Goblins/Ghouls franchise at #68, boasting 1.64 million in sales. It's surprising to see it's the top-seller from Capcom's NES glory days! The only other entry from this franchise to make the list is the SNES classic Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, which is down at #107.

Capcom has a great history of excellent games based on Disney properties. The top-tier DuckTales Remastered is the biggest hit of the lot, though, and it wasn't even developed in-house by Capcom. Regardless, it sold 1.5 million units and rests at #73. Makes you wonder why the NES sequel never got its own "Remastered" incarnation...

The SNES port of Final Fight was famously compromised, but it still sold more than any other part of the series with 1.48 million units getting it to #74. It's a shame they don't include all the OTHER many ports of the arcade original in here... not even "Final Fight Guy." :P But at least Final Fight 2 managed to squeeze onto the list to give FF a second piece of representation. You'll find it at #109.

Whether people count Bionic Commando and Commando as part of the same series tends to vary by region AND by the continuity you're talking about. But the "Bionic" reboot from 2009 reaches #87 here, and the NES port of Commando cracks the list at #104.

The badass Strider Hiryu manages to make the list at #90 courtesy of the 2014 reboot simply titled Strider.

[citruscrisp]

Just a dumb little story of how I fell in love with Pikmin.

Apparently my dad had a story on how he purchased pikmin. When I was really little, I’d say 4-6 years old, he went to a video game store and asked an employee “I have 2 twin daughters, what game would be great for them?” And the employee picked up a copy of Pikmin for the GameCube and said “You gotta get this one. It’s oozing with cuteness.”

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the story behind purchasing Pikmin 2 but we bought it some time later as a Nintendo Select Wii game. When I was younger I didn’t actually play these games through since I wasn’t too skilled in strategy and planning at the time, so I would play around in my dad’s files and just enjoy the scenery and try my best at playing the game. I remember fighting the water wraith and being absolutely frightened by it. And “saving” Louie from the titan dweevil.

On a whim in 2018 I finally picked up the 2 games and played them through on my own. I fell in love with the 2nd game, just collecting old human relics and seeing what the Hocotatians made them out to be was amazing! For a while, it was my favorite Pikmin game.

I believe I made it a tradition to play the pikmin games every year, even if it was just the 2. And I don’t necessarily remember playing in 2019 but in late 2020 I played through the games and then in February of 2021 I finally played Pikmin 3 Deluxe. I was in AWE and I was in LOVE with this game.

This year, I played it probably about 6 times in a row because I couldn’t seem to get enough of it. And now I’m trying to get platinum medals in the missions. Pikmin 3 is currently my favorite game. I hope in the future they involve both the Koppaites and the Hocotatians and develop both of their lore.

[gigginox]

what games r u planning on playing on ur wii u! or what were ur faves? same with ur 3ds ^_^

admittedly the main reason i dug up my wiiu was so i could emulate gamecube games bc i thought it was backwards compatible w the gamecube (it isnt INHERENTLY but i read somewhere that there is a homebrew app that lets you emulate gamecube games though 👍) it's mostly gamecube games. rn im really looking forward to playing metroid prime 2 and 3, pokemon xd and colosseum, killer7, pikmin, and paper mario thousand year door :] for non gamecube stuff im mainly excited to try playing splatoon 1 and modded botw! and im sure ill think of more stuff i wanna try out especially w wii emulation

as for the 3ds i mostly just revisited games i already loved like mh4u or the ace attorney series but for stuff i hadnt tried before i really enjoyed playing pokemon platinum renegade, kirby squeak squad, and steamworld heist :]

[undefeatednils]

Spent an hour sorting through e-waste we kept in the basement (and a corner in the living room)

Can't believe we had six mice, a juicer, an ice cream maker, a lamp, three pairs of speakers, six telephones, four cameras and a trash bag worth of cables down there.

Also found my old platinum GameCube down there. That beauty ain't going in the trash!

[thethrillof]

assumption, you own every Pokemon game

nope! not in either all of the many spinoffs or the mainline. i never played any pre-gba game. i have leafgreen, sapphire, emerald, pearl, (never got platinum b/c i didn't care for sinnoh enough), black 2 and eventually got black out of order, soulsilver, shield, and violet, tho i haven't played a ton of the last two. and legends arceus. idk where that fits but i hear that's more in the mainline even if it feels incredibly different.

for spinoffs...i have mystery dungeon red rescue team, explorers of darkness, explorers of sky, and i think gates to infinity? one of the 3ds ones, at least, but i didn't get far |D and i have XD for gamecube.

[maximuswolf]

From Spider-Man to GoW to Bloodborne: A shift in perspective

From Spider-Man to GoW to Bloodborne: A shift in perspective I decided to give Spider-Man (2018) a try when it came out, because I absolutely loved Spider-Man 2 on Gamecube and knew what to expect from this game… I wanted to feel like Spider-Man again! The game did a great job at telling its story and being a fun cinematic experience, but I was a little underwhelmed by the web swinging. Even when I should’ve splatted into the side of a building at times, the game would just find a way to keep me on track and smoothly swinging. It was a fun experience, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was holding my hand the whole time. I was late to the party for God of War (2018) - I didn’t play it until 2 years ago. Now, this game was still in my wheelhouse a bit, but took the cinematic experience to an entirely new level. The combat was more challenging than Spider-Man, but the puzzles and structure of the game felt so smooth and sanitized. It still felt like I was just along for the ride… Until I started fighting Valkyries.I don’t know why I started doing it - there was no point. I knew I didn’t want to platinum the game or anything and I had already rolled credits on the game. But, I heard about their difficulty and figured I’d give it a try. So, I went to the first Valkyrie and quickly realized something:I wasn’t even close to mastering the combat in GoW. The first Valkyrie was demolishing me over and over and over. It felt like I hadn’t built up any muscle memory for the game. It was like I was out of shape and trying to run a 10K. That struck me as odd, since I was 30 hours into the game at that point and was playing on Give Me A Challenge. When I was fighting that first Valkyrie, I felt something that I hadn’t felt since I played old platformers like Super Mario Bros 3 or Crash Bandicoot… It felt like the game wanted to push me to learn and master something. I was hooked. I went through and beat all the Valkyries. I kid you not, the Queen Valkyrie took me at least 40-50 tries to beat. It was amazing when I finally beat her, because she has the combined move set of almost all the other Valkyries combined. Beating her truly made it feel like I had achieved some mastery over GoW’s combat system. I told some friends about my experience and one of them said, “You should play a dark souls game if you liked the Valkyries.”I didn’t play Souls games. I literally didn’t even know anyone that had beaten a Souls game. But, Bloodborne was free on PSN at the time… So, why not?As soon as I woke up in Central Yharnam, something instantly felt different. The smoothed out, cinematic movement of Spider-Man, and God of War was gone. My character felt VERY responsive, to the point that he looked somewhat herky-jerky as I moved around on the screen. It actually reminded me of controlling Mario in Super Mario 64.My first thought was, “Wow, this feels very video-gamey”. There were few cutscenes, little direction given, and a city that felt like it was built to break my spirit at every turn. Unlike narrative-driven games, it felt like the game wanted me to earn my progression. I wasn’t just along for the ride. I couldn’t even progress past the starting area until I committed to experimenting, learning, and executing. This resulted in an extremely satisfying and memorable gaming experience. The journey of playing that game felt so satisfying, because I was learning the whole time. Dying was rarely frustrating, because I knew I was a step closer to mastery every time. I love me some Bloodborne. I played Dark Souls and Hollow Knight shortly after. Both were amazing games as well! I’m really glad that the Valkyries sparked my interest into a new gaming genre. Have any of you had a similar experience? Getting a taste of something new and having it change your perspective on what games you play? Submitted May 08, 2024 at 02:58PM by RiskyKale https://ift.tt/ja2OcQG via /r/gaming