#the second is if you collect it with Oatchi

[gamebunny-advance]

I honestly don't know how many of these comics they're gonna make, but I want to make certain that y'all see comic!Oatchi with his mouth full (plus a couple extras that didn't make it into volume II of the skrunkly Oatchi collection).

[sirwow]

Having some WC gameplay shower thoughts today about how i would actually make 5 captains work so time for a bit of a ramble.

though before i do ramble i wanted to do some clarification of the different parts of WC. The tag #pikmin wratihs call refers to the entirety of it- the story. When it comes to the theoretical gameplay tho theres 2 (or kinda 3?) different parts. First part is just Olimar and Louie being rescue corps members and generally being pretty similar to Pik 4 gameplay outside no oatchi. Second part follows Olimar, Louie, Alph, Brittany, and Charlie all returning to 404 as corps members with their own ship and the gameplay is pretty original outside the general skeleton of Pikmin gameplay. in between those is a koppai focused story but that would only work if it was a pikmin graphic novel game as there literally is only actual pikmin for about 1 page lmao.

Now then on to how Iv been thinking about making 5 captains work in the 2nd half of WC:

Essentially at the start of every day it starts off in the main ship and you choose how many captains you’re bringing out into the field. More captains the merrier obviously but when you bring one out there’s a major caveat. Each of the 5 captains don’t just do nothing while left behind, they have their own upgrades they develop over the day that they’re left on the ship! Some projects might take them multiple days but regardless they’re always working towards something in their own given fields.

Said fields for each goes as following:

Louie: Food! Louie for once actually gets to subject the others to his meals he makes and each one will give a different benefit for the day, starting simple with simply moving faster or having more health, up to his more ambitious meals that can have more extreme changes to the day with their own extreme draw backs (such as a food that makes a day 50% longer but every enemy in the area respawns) He has to perfect and collect the ingredients for said meals though so he needs the off time to do so

Alph: Suit/Gear upgrades. No raw materials required but time and patience is. The suits are only just now custom made since the urgency of this mission was so high and so he’s up to the task of gradually upgrading them on the mission.

Brittany: Onion and even Pikmin improvements. Her botany might as well be used to help the little plants that help them and so she’ll work towards safe ways to biologically improve the state of your onion and the pikmin that come out of it (Such as making it passively grow pikmin or even at a higher level, flower a few of the pikmin inside at the start of a new day)

Charlie: Physical training of the captains, basically like puppy point training but it’s timed instead. Running, swimming, jumping and hell even pulling things. Dw he’ll make the captains who were out for the day pull an all nighter to learn them /j

Olimar iv yet to come up with a good one yet.,. I thought maybe the ship but it would be stupid to force people to wait to go to a new area, especially thinking about my speedrunning chums. Treasure is still all you need for power.

This whole system is basically to encourage people to play with all the characters and really plan out the day ahead. Also a way of making each play through a bit different then the last as you could prioritize upgrading one thing over another.

Now then lastly I just have a few gameplay changes; Spicy spray will still effect all pikmin in play but will not flower them. Instead nectar puddles can be picked up if you so wish and eventually used in one large burst to flower all pikmin out on the field. Ice pikmin are nerfed- they can only freeze an enemy if eaten and otherwise will just slow down an enemy while attacking and have the same pitiful damage as winged pikmin. Purples are technically not nerfed but due to the new mechanic of carrying pikmin around in the pack to go up ledges and stay together easier, they have one downside of being stupid heavy on the captains. 100 carry weight pack can only carry 10 purples due to their weight. Whites now get a buff that will passively poison enemies over time depending on how much were on them and how long.

That’s all my thoughts atm, always open to questions about mechanics or anything else really. Currently still can’t draw bc of my hand tho so no doodle for ur time <\3

[mysunshine-youremoonlight]

hello i am sorry if i am being annoying but what is a pikmin . is it a game or a show or smth im very confused but also deeply intrigued now (ive been in class all day with nothing but ur pikmin rbs to sustain me)

you are never annoying i love when people ask me abt things

*cracks knuckles* its autism time /j

OK SO Pikmin is a game by Nintendo !!! The first game released in 2001 on the Gamecube, with Pikmin 2 following in 2004 (also for the GC), Pikmin 3 released in 2010 for the Wii U and was later re-released for the Switch in 2020, and Pikmin 4 released just this year!

The first two games (along with the 3DS Spin-off, Hey Pikmin! (rel. 2017)) have you following Captain Olimar from the planet Hocotate. Olimar goes to the planet explored in the Pikmin games, PNF-404 (it's an alternate earth basically)! In the first game, Olimar crash-lands there and has to find all his ship pieces within 30 days; in the second game Olimar returns to PNF-404 to collect treasures to save his boss' company from bankruptcy. Pikmin 2 does away with that time limit, btw. Pikmin 3 has you controlling three people, Alph, Brittany, and Charlie from Koppai! That game's goal is to collect fruit to save Koppai from a famine. You have no time limit in 3 either, but just make sure you don't run out of juice! Also Olimar is there. Again. Dude really loves PNF-404. And in 4 you play as a player-created member of the Rescue Corps, sent to PNF-404 after Olimar gets stranded on it. Again. Except your ship crashes so you have to rescue the rescue corps! It's fun. Very big.

ANYWAY. Gameplay !!!!

You explore the surface of PNF-404 during the daytime, as during the night the monsters get Very Angey. The time you have left in a day is indicated on via a little widget thing on the screen, and you have to have all your pikmin in the party (or in their onion - basically the pikmin nest) before the day ends or else they die :( AND THE PIKIES !! Pikmin are those little plant-guys! Each color has a unique gimmick/feature!

Red pikmin are better at fighting and immune to fire; yellow pikmin can be thrown really far and are immune to electricity; blue pikmin and be thrown and fight underwater and aren't bothered by water (all other colors are, barring a few exceptions); rock pikmin are rocks and are good at tossin at enemies to bonk; white pikmin are poisonous and are immune to poison; purple pikmin are mega-buff and have the strength of 10 normal pikies; ice pikmin can freeze enemies and water and float on water's surface; and glow pikmin can only be used at night/in caves, don't mind water, and reproduce via little star-shaped pellets!

Glow Pikies are only introduced in Pikmin 4, which also introduces letting you run around at night, hence why they're there :)

So !! yeah! you run around leading pikmin and throwing them at things and enemies and they respond to your character's whistle and are my beloveds. also in Pikmin 4 you get a dog named Oatchi!!! And Olimar has one named Moss :)

[bikwin5]

more pikmin 4 thoughts

previously i made another post when the trailer in february dropped and finally now we have another major release of information about pikmin. i have a lot to say about a game releasing a month away

Plot details- so first off one thing i was right about is that the main focus of the game is collecting castaways in caves. it doesn't seem that all of them are in caves but i would assume most are. i thought treasures would be like pikmin 3 where they extend your time limit but it seems that collecting enough of them unlocks new areas. when i first heard that they "fix the spaceship's radar" i thought that was weird until i saw the new screenshots on the nintendo page store:

do you see that very carefully in the botton left? that's SPARKLIUM!!!!! HEY! PIKMIN IS CANON!!!!!! FUUUUUUUCK YES!!!!!!!!!!! ok maybe not canon but it's funny they took that mechanic from the 3DS game of all things. now i just need metroid prime 4 to include the mechs from federation force and my dream will be complete.

Gameplay- there are more plot details to get into later but i want to talk about the screenshot above for now. we finally get a proper look at the UI where pretty much everything has been overhauled. first of all nintendo still has an obsession with that font they've been using since miitomo. second the day timer is now totally overhauled to be in the top left instead of stretching along the top. this is a surprising change but i suppose they wanted less UI obstruction due to the new camera angle. there's also no day counter, suggesting you have unlimited days. then there's the pikmin stuff, health bars, and brand new is an objective window and sparklium/gem count. i noticed the latter two things aren't in some gameplay screens and there might be an option to turn it off.

looking at the health bars it seems the dog pretty much does act as a second leader in this one. oatchi has its own health, can be controlled, and i think it can do pretty much any action a leader can, plus more. there's even a screenshot of him throwing pikmin:

and as seen in the trailer you can level up the dog using "pup drive"??? seems to be some kind of points you unlock somehow. anyway the fact that oatchi can do all this while the main character doesn't makes me wonder what the advantage of not being oatchi is. is this a scooby-doo mystery mayhem situation where scooby is objectively better than shaggy because he can fit into tight spaces and shaggy can't? sorry if that's not the most relatable comparison but it does include a dog and a human.

another upgradable feature is various suit upgrades such as the rush boots, scorch guard and all the other stuff you could get in pikmin 2 and 3. it seems those blue gems on the ground are "resources" you can collect and use to get these upgrades. i think this is a pretty neat way of doing it!!! instead of tying it to treasures this makes these upgrades most likely optional and you can obtain them at your own pace instead of the awkward way 3 did it. you could even forgo certain upgrades as a challenge or because the rush boots are so annoying i dont like the pikmin 2 rush boots they just make all the pikmin slow.

The Pikmin- i wrote several paragraphs about pikmin without mentioning pikmin. from what it seems all 8 types of pikmin are available in the story mode which is neat! we got to see a little bit of purple, rock, wing and white near the end of the trailer, and there are night time exclusive pikmin too. i'm flipping between the trailer and the website info a lot so bear with me, but there's a pretty significant bit of information on the site that wasn't touched upon:

that last sentence suddenly makes a lot of sense with what we've seen, like how blue pikmin were never seen alongside ice pikmin. it makes sense that there's enough overlap with different pikmin abilities and oatchi abilities that they would do this. but i fear having only 3 types at once has the potential to make the game more tedious but it really depends on how changing types works. is it from the onion? the ship? can you do it in the middle of a cave? it raises a lot of questions but it could add another layer of strategy to the game because now we have more of a party building factor. purple pikmin might not be as OP as they were when they take up one of your 3 precious types.

small addendum to this, the site also has a "meet the pikmin" segment in a weirdly arbitrary order-- it goes red, blue, yellow, ice, glow, purple, rock, winged, and finally white. is this the order you actually get to see them in game? blue pikmin might finally no longer be the last type you get, and white pikmin being so late might explain their small presence in the trailer. let's hope they don't end up like blues in 3's story mode.

The Caves- i really wanted to see more of these and we got them. i didn't say this in my last post but after watching the previous trailer 10 more times i saw there were these blue lids scattered around that i thought were cave holes, and i was right. and i really like the look of what we saw so far, especially the floor based off of pikmin 3's clockwork chasm and this aquarium:

i don't even have anything to talk about with the screenshot i just love how it looks. it looks like they aren't procedurally generated this time, but then again it might be because if there's anything that's gotten better in the past decade of gaming it's making procedurally generated stuff actually fun to play. i was also wrong about them not having treasures because they definitely do. i get the feeling caves won't take up as much time overall as they did in pikmin 2 but they still seem really expansive and fun.

Night missions- I was very wrong about these. I thought you would play as the rescue corps and have to fend off the big spaceship for the night but it turns out it's just you who goes elsewhere to do... something. i'm not entirely sold on these because the narrator never exactly explains what the purpose of them is. it seems you can choose to go to them from the landing site, which appears to be a hub area with no time limit, i forgot to mention that but that's neat. but aside from having a new pikmin type that does spirit bombs all they mentioned was that you get "valuable glowsap" which is... something??? i can't imagine it's only for extra sparklium, maybe it can be exchanged for special upgrades or whatever. it wasn't really clear whether night missions are even required. regardless the gameplay of turning pikmin into a base defense thing seems pretty cool.

This fucking guy-

i gotta be honest this probably blindsided me the most out of anything-- this and the fact he's the introduction to 2 player battle mode, which seems to imply you can play it against a CPU now? i think it's funny that pikmin is still keeping the tradition of having a tacked on multiplayer mode where you beat each other to death with regular gameplay mechanics. anyway this guy could either be olimar, who died and became a hairy man, OR this guy is just a joker's trick and the real olimar is out there somewhere. the latter seems more likely from nintendo but if they really did want to canonize the bad ending of pikmin 1 than that's kind of wild. it's like making a game where the silent hill 2 alien ending happened.

people are suggesting "split timeline" and i scoffed at the notion at first but then i remembered the short trailer we got earlier this month. it treats olimar crash landing as if it were his first time there, and the rescue corps as the second time anyone has crashed. plus some info on the japanese site suggested olimar had been there for a month and the rescue corps received his distress signal. funny enough, pikmin 1's interstellar radio mentions that it's emitting a constant SOS signal but it would take longer than a month for help to arrive. so i think maybe it's likely his dead ass became a pikmin now???? but they also treat rescuing olimar as the main goal of the game so that makes me wonder what the climax of the story would be if he's unsalvageable. maybe it's about turning him back into a guy, idk.

Misc stuff- There's a handful of other things on the site that were only glanced over a bit. for instance:

it seems there's an ability to rewind not just days but time as well? this feels like their equivalent of a "super guide" option. honestly i hope this means they're not afraid to make a pikmin game that's just flat out mean again.

and on the right side it seems there are multiple landing sites per area. it mentions "each of the expansive areas" so i don't think pikmin 4 is one fully open map but having multiple landing sites is neat. i guess it makes sense because the maps look huge and there are only 2 guys to play as this time.

the site also has confirmation of challenge mode, 2-player battle and story co-op... except it's just mario galaxy style co-op where the second player points at things. like come on nintendo... you made this dog for marketing points and you won't even let the second player be him.

there's a LOT more i could dig into like all the returning enemies and environments and ice hazards but i think this is long enough of a post for now, and probably the last one until i get to play it. there is a demo coming very soon and i can't resist the siren call of that so that will be fun to crack into. ending this post with oatchi and ice pikmin plush

[partyhardyontitanic]

kish n louie plot u say????? 👀👀👀

oh you betcha babey

its so fuckign much (3332 words lol) so itll be under the cut!!!

i couldnt figure out a way to write this that would be non-pikmin knower friendly sorry @askthelovenest you will probably not get this that much or have to google a lot but i highly appreciate your itnerest <333

Most of this is written in broader strokes but scenes that I imagine in detail will be written in full detail okay you just have to accept the varying text density here

Allright so this cute little story would begin at some point in between the many many castaways that the pikmin 4 protagonist rescues (I’m just gonna use the name Pom for them since that’s the fanon name I think). They also rescue Kish from a cave at some point.

Back at the S.S. Shepard, Kish expresses fascination with Oatchi’s great skills and training and tells Pom that if they ever wanted to discuss space dogs and their training, she’s the man! But of course there’s already someone to talk to about space dogs for Pom, that being Captain Shepard herself.

Like most of the castaways with side quests that Pom rescues, Kish is stuck just kind of hanging around the S.S. Shepard. He gets frustrated with this fairly quickly but can understand why they’re stuck here right now. There’s still people to rescue and going out there on her own would be downright suicide. The boredom still gnaws away at him but it just be like that she guesses.

Enter the bastard, Louie. Pikmin 4’s story wraps up, Louie is apprehended after the Ancient Sirehound Battle, and now he, much like the other people rescued by (one member of) the rescue corps is just standing around the S.S. Shepard, handing out side quests to Pom. Kish has been watching with increasing disdain as Pom gets to do all the jobs and activities and exciting stuff. He’s growing more and more irate about it by the day.

Simultaneously, Kish has noticed a LOT of malice towards Louie from the rescue corps, ever since he’s shown up. They have precious little kind things to say about him and their faces always contort in mild to severe contempt when they talk to or about him. Louie himself doesn’t seem like he notices. Or if he does, he’s just not pointing it out. Or showing it. At all. Kish has always been a big observer, but she can’t quite get a read on Louie just by watching him. His aloof nature is kind of fascinating to her. Surely, there’s a lot more going on inside that head of his than he’s showing… how intriguing.

One morning, very shortly after Louie came to the S.S. Shepard, Kish watches with a frankly inappropriate death glare, as Pom walks around the landing space and collects side quests, including the Fit For A Feast side-quest from Louie. Though, Kish notices a lack of interest from Pom towards this quest, complete with an eye-roll when Louie can’t remember the name of the cave he’d seen Dwarf Bulborbs in.

As the S.S. Beagle flies off towards the day’s expedition goal and just about everyone cheers it on and wishes it well, Kish is standing on the sidelines close to Louie with crossed arms and a scowl.

“This is literally fucking ridiculous,” she blurts out, “We’re really all just standing around with our thumbs up our asses while one rescue corps member goes out and does everything out there. Like…. Even you guys?” he turns towards Louie and gestures towards Olimar who is standing further away. “Aren’t you two like, experienced in this stuff? With the data logs and stuff you’ve done here already and all that? What are you asking Pom for food for when you can just go out and get it yourself? At least it’s something to do!”

Louie is silent for a second, a trait Kish will grow used to very soon, before he replies: “I’m not allowed to leave the Shepard.”

“What?” Kish says, “Why not?”

Louie shrugs silently. “Too much of a troublemaker, they said.”

“Well… I GUESS that makes sense but like… I just fucking hate standing around out here all day!” “Me too.” “If there was at least something to do at the Shep-what’d you say?”

Kish turns towards Louie again, who tilts his head.

“I hate standing around this ship all day. It’s literally fucking ridiculous for one kid to do everything on this planet.” Louie says.

Kish isn't sure why exactly he’s surprised to hear Louie express distaste for doing nothing all day (and in her own words too). He just seemed like he’d be perfectly content with it, she supposes. But this is an opportunity. A connection. A chance… Because with Louie’s skills, going out into the wilderness is already way less scary. But he’s still not allowed to leave. What to do, what to do…

Kish notices a tiny path in between some bushes that one could squeeze through without making any sounds. Everyone who had gathered around the S.S. Beagle is slowly dispersing, meaning the bustling crowd could be their cover to get there. It’s the perfect chance.

“Hey, come here.” Kish silently commands, not really giving Louie much of a choice in the matter as she grabs his sleeve and drags him through the crowd expertly. Even though Louie’s being dragged along, he is bobbing and weaving past bodies with grace almost befitting of a dance.

This red gal, whoever he is, must be really skilled at moving through crowds completely undetected. Much like Louie himself, he muses. As the two go from dodging people to dodging leaves, he wonders if this guy has also experienced the pain of being isolated from a group and repeatedly mocked. If she’s also decided to stick to quietly blending in as much as possible, as a social survival strategy of sorts. To put it another way, he’s impressed. But he’s also still confused.

“Where are we going?” Louie asks eventually.

“Uh, I’m not sure…” Kish admits, “but surely, there’s got to be something for you to eat around here. I guess we’re, uh, scouting out the area? Scavenging, maybe?”

“Scavenging… Sounds right.” Louie says. He’s pretty pleased to have something to do, and he guesses if he had to bring someone along, an apparent quick thinker like this is one of the better choices. Better than all the people back there hating him anyways.

Kish lets go of Louie’s arm and the two of them walk silently towards the other end of the bush.

“What’s your name?” Louie asks suddenly.

“Hm? Oh right, we never formally introduced ourselves to each other. I’m Kish, a space dog trainer from Karut.” Kish says. Normally, he’d go for the handshake and everything, but she has a feeling Louie wouldn’t much care for it. “And you’re, well, Louie yeah I heard that much. But is there anything else you wanna introduce yourself with?”

Louie thinks to himself for a few seconds before he replies, “I’m from Hocotate. Working for Hocotate Freight. Our boss sucks. The company is probably going to go bankrupt soon.”

“That all you can think of to describe yourself?” Kish asks.

“It’s all you said about yourself.” Louie responds.

At that, Kish actually has to laugh a little.

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay fair enough. No need to dive that deep on a stranger yet.” Kish says. A part of him is hoping, quite strongly even, that in time, Louie won’t be a stranger anymore.

Kish and Louie end up having a pretty successful day together. They find an onion not too long into their journey and Kish gets to closely inspect the red pikmin within it, as they help the two collect some fruits. They also find some Skitter Leaves and Sheargrubs which Louie assured Kish are easy to take down and totally delicious when prepared correctly.

Kish quickly notices Louie’s passion and creativity with cooking, which she frankly finds heart-warming. That’s just an adorable hobby, not to mention incredibly impressive to someone who can barely even follow instructions for microwave dishes properly.

Meanwhile, Louie is impressed by Kish’s sharp eye. She can spot fruits easily, even if they’re almost completely hidden in bushes, and he can tell that something is a Skitter Leaf instead of a regular leaf before Louie’s even registered that there are leaves on the ground.

Their teamwork isn’t perfect per se. Their communicative abilties leave a lot to be desired. But for a duo that’s formed less than a day ago, they’re working together shockingly well.

Just a few hours before nightfall, the two walk back to the S.S. Shepard, where they are immediately met by a furious rescue corps team (and a concerned Olimar). Accusations start flying right away; that Louie was trying to run away and start causing problems again, that he had kidnapped Kish for some reason, that he was going to undo everything the rescue corps had worked so hard to accomplish on this mission. Louie is long since used to people assuming the worst about him so he just silently lets them all ramble on. But just as he is about to zone out, angry yelling erupts from right beside him.

Kish is nothing short of furious at the accusations that are being flung towards Louie with barely any justification. She yells at all the rescue corps members about how hard they’re blowing things out of proportion and how cruel they are towards someone who could have done much, MUCH worse to them all. His lengthy tirade shuts the team down again, as they have no choice but to agree that Louie’s just collected food in the nearby area and hasn’t done anything explicitly wrong or harmful today. Olimar even joins in and defends Louie by pointing out that he’s kept Kish safe throughout the day. Louie is silent throughout this but he seems somewhat shocked by the defence.

Later that night, everyone is served dinner in the S.S. Shepard while Louie cooks his own meal in the Dolphin’s tiny little kitchen. He’s deep in thought about the day he’s had and the friend he seems to have made, when there’s a knock at the ship’s door. Olimar had informed Kish that Louie isn’t allowed inside the Shepard and she’s immediately made his way to the small old ship. When Louie points out that Kish doesn’t have any food now he replies that he’s not eating the rations of some “petty assholes” (in reality she had forgotten her plate in the Shepard when he stormed out of the cafeteria). Louie has easily cooked enough for more than just one person, and he likes Kish enough, so he offers him a plate of his self-made meal of the day. Kish is honestly surprised but thankful nonetheless, so the two share a delicious meal together and talk a bit more. Well… Kish talks. A lot. Louie mostly listens, but he likes doing that. He likes Kish.

Louie and Kish’s ritual of going out to collect food continues on after Olimar puts in a good word for Louie (and pulls him aside once to tell him “You have one more chance here. Don’t blow it.”)

The two of them grow closer and closer as they keep going out. Befriending people is a lot easier when they are your age, Louie finds. At least if those people are also not judgemental over every mistake you make. Louie and Kish bond over how both of them have poor impulse control and do some nasty things sometimes. They agree that they won’t cruelly judge each other while simultaneously holding each other back where they can. Louie can hardly wrap his head around how wonderful it feels to have found someone like Kish. He might be catching some feelings other than friendly appreciateon. Uh oh…

Eventually, Kish spills the beans on why he even came to PNF-404. It was all because of Moss, the space dog Olimar had spoken of in his S.O.S. message. She had been hoping there would be more strange and rare breeds of space dogs on this planet. And while the Bulborbs were strikingly similar to bulb-dogs from Hocotate, he was still disappointed that she couldn’t find anything friendly. Louie quickly realizes he knows exactly how to undo that disappointment, and the next time him and Kish go out, he leads her to the Ancient Sirehound (do not ask me how he knows where to find it, he just does OK). Kish is delighted to see such a big and amicable dog, and even moreso when she sees it run up to Louie and slobber all over his entire suit and helmet. The beast loves that guy, and it’s just the sweetest thing.

Gosh… Louie’s an intriguing guy, he’s great at cooking AND he’s good with animals… Oh… Oh dear…that’s a crush blooming isn’t it… Oh boy.

One night, Kish talks about his past a bit. He had a passion for art that had been tested brutally by an art school that valued market and corporate appeal far over actual artistry. Getting that bachelor was gruelling and finding work in art that wasn’t completely demoralizing was close to impossible. So Kish put his skills with space dogs to use instead and started dog-sitting and offering training sessions for money. It pays the bills just fine and it’s fun enough, but it’s hard not to feel disappointed after the way chasing her dreams turned out.

Louie can empathise with that and tells Kish about how he’s always wanted to become a great chef with his own cooking show, but when he briefly joined a culinary school on Hocotate, it was an exclusively vegetarian school, and he was ostracised even worse than in his old schools (“And those were places where I’d regularly get asked in earnest if I was going to eat the other kids.” “What the hell that’s so fucked up???”).

This newfound connection makes Kish like Louie even more. She’s starting to really understand the guy. That impression of a mysterious quiet wallflower is giving way to a young man who’s kind in his own ways but struggles with empathy, and who’s trying to figure out his place in a world that he doesn’t quite seem to fit into. It’s relatable. It’s compelling. He’s compelling. …That crush is only going to get worse, huh.

Some hiccups come up here and there when they are working together. Most notably an ever growing curiosity for the animals of PNF-404 from Kish that’s almost lead him to have his leg gnawed off by a bulborb a few times. Luckily Louie has quick reflexes when it comes to protecting people, and manages to drag Kish away from the beasts just in time.

It also turns out that Kish is god-awful at aiming and throwing pikmin, and when the two tried to work together to slay a Dwarf Bulborb, Kish missed just about all her throws. When told about this issue, Olimar suggests giving him winged pikmin instead, which could correct for missed throws while in the air. That turns out to be the fix they needed because after that, the two turn into a scarily efficient team, coming back each night with greater catches than the last. (The rescue corps briefly got scared that they'd hunt something on this planet to extinction)

Their blooming romance comes to a head one day in the tiniest most subtle way. The rescue corps are finally done with PNF-404. There’s no one left to save (everybody double and triple and quadruple checked) and so the Shepard takes off with the Dolphin loaded into its large and comfy storage space, where Louie also resides, since he knows the crew and other castaways will only give him angry glares.

They never warmed up to him, and he doesn’t care much to convince them he’s a better guy. Even if Kish is still fighting tooth and nail against any accusations thrown at him. His one defender, who is currently curled up next to him in the Dolphin’s sleeping space.

Come to think of it, they’ve gotten incredibly cuddly with each other. They just kind of started doing that. Kish explained early on that she’s awfully touch-inclined and that Louie can tell her off whenever he wants. But he never wanted to. He’s always wanted to be touched even more. They’ve been holding hands way past the point of guiding each other, and hugging each other for way too long and way too tightly. Not to mention when they’ve actually tried dancing together on PNF-404 to some impromptu tunes the pikmin would hum to themselves. They’re always together. They’ve grown so close. They have no trouble whatsoever confiding in each other. They’re like… a romantic couple, he realises.

Without thinking too much about it, Louie just asks his half asleep companion: “Did we become a couple at some point?”

“Hm?”

“Did we become a couple at some point?” he repeats.

Kish opens her eyes a bit. Those red eyes that radiate a passionate warmth Louie could get lost in forever. “Hm… well, I guess. If you don’t mind…” he replies.

Louie can’t help but to smile at that.

“I don’t. I love you.” he softly speaks.

“I love you too.” Kish replies gently. He readjusts himself and wraps her arms around Louie, who wraps his own arms around Kish’s shoulder and gives her a kiss on the forehead. This is their little moment. Just them and the cargo of the ship. It reminds Louie of when he and Kish first started properly interacting with each other in the midst of that bushy walkway. It’s exactly the kind of confession he had hoped for.

Despite the calm and gentle beginning of their relationship, Louie is still getting terribly nervous. He hasn’t the faintest clue how to date someone. But handily he’s (debatably) great friends with someone who’s managed to pull a loving wife and kids.

Olimar has to bear several days being bombarded with questions about how to be romantic, but he doesn't mind. He finds this amusingly cute. He tells Louie how he was asked out by his now-wife and how his primary “strategy” was just to be kind, listen to her, and make her feel valued in every interaction.

Olimar also tells Louie about a few of his dates with his wife, which Louie tries to replicate exactly. This fails spectacularly every time, but his determination is nothing short of amazing, and Kish is not shy about telling him how sweet he’s being. She also reminds him that he doesn’t need to try acting like his senior did. It’s perfectly fine with him if Louie just acts like himself, awkward nature and all. Louie really can’t believe he’s managed to find someone in his life who wholeheartedly accepts and loves him for his “flaws”.

Louie visits Kish on Karut a lot and sleeps at his place regularly. Kish’s big space dogs Wilmi and Teddee had to spend a while getting used to the new visitor but they eventually warmed up to him. Still won’t leave him any room on the sofa or bed though. But to be fair they don’t do that for Kish either.

The two have discussed moving together a few times. While Louie would absolutely love to leave his stupid delivery boy job and that stupid vegetarian planet and go to a culinary school where just liking meat isn’t some kind of crime against nature, what it keeps coming back down to is the fact that his grandmother still needs him. And he can’t just leave her on Hocotate. She doesn’t have anyone else.

Kish understands this fully and makes sure to visit him on Hocotate often too. She likes Louie’s grandma, that woman is so strange and her being Like That explains a lot about why Louie is Like That. The old woman has also talked about marriage and getting great-grandchildren already and watching Louie freeze up and go fully red at that is just plain funny.

All in all, they compliment and complete each other in a way neither of them had ever expected. They found themselves and simultaneously something different and compelling in each other. They love each other for their compatible flavours of autism <3

And that’s the story of how the cold King Of Bugs and the fiery Beast Tamer became a couple okay cool thank you for reading <333333333

[obsidian-warthog]

Did another Pikmin 4 demo playthrough, this time going for 100%. Lined up treasures next to each base site so I could grab them all without running afoul of the Sparklium limit. Also did each cave with no treasure collecting so I could revisit on my collect everything day. Ended this run with zero casualties.

Revisiting caves showed me some important things about them. Enemies stay defeated, but treasures revert to their original position. Wild Pikmin will also appear to be collected again, so you can bump up your Ice Pikmin numbers that way.

Also nearly missed the buried treasure that doesn't show in the map. At first I was worried Oatchi digging up buried treasure infringed on the White Pikmin too much, but thinking about it more, it was the right decision.

You can have only three Pikmin types with you, and whites being the only way to even detect certain treasure would make them feel too mandatory. Not a problem with other games where you use varied squads, but now with you only being able to use three at a time it becomes a problem.

Didn't occur to me in the first paythrough, but you can leave Pikmin in the ground at base camp. However their time to flower appear to be based on real time spent at base camp rather than in game time. Full in game days didn't get them to flower, but wandering around base camp did.

Fell short of the platinum medal in the challenge cave by literally one point, it was the last golden nugget. And I wasn't able to retry it for a platinum, cave was sealed off. ARGH! Please let me retry those caves, that was the whole point of mission mode.

Crazy that I missed the presence of Blue Pikmin in this demo entirely. I had a lot of trouble getting the blue onion, I needed to use Oatchi buffed up to the strength of ten Pikmin. If you don't get that upgrade do you just have to come back when you've either gotten another fralic or twenty wild blues/flying? Wonder if the ice bomb could last long enough to get the Blue Onion?

After I snagged every treasure I spent the rest of the day bolstering blue numbers and setting up a berry harvesting operation. Felt nice to get that going.

Had to have it pointed out by Collin, but you can set actions to shortcuts. Feels a lot better with disband and switch on dedicated buttons.

Still need to get in the mindset of fully using Oatchi, the way he's simultaneously a super Pikmin and a second captain trips me up. Took me too long to remember about charging into walls to knock down treasures.

I unlocked Oatchi's ability to swim on my last day. I wonder if it's based on the day count?

Happy that Piklopedia is also back. But I feel like having dedicated side characters for treasure inventory and piklopedia misses part of what made them great, you got more insight into the characters you were playing as. The interface looks like there will be multiple authors again at least, like 3 Deluxe.

Spent some time cycling through 'let's chat' dialogue at base camp. Everyone seems to have at least two responses, Shepherd has quite a few that gives background info on Russ and Collin. Also noticed you can get her captain log as well.

In the initial Olimar part I took the time to collect all of his Pikmin, absolutely destroyed that enemy. Very excited for when I get to properly explore that area in the main game.

I was both impressed and shocked that the story dialogue changes depending on your order of actions. I rescued Dingo and did the Dandori Battle in the same day, and the next morning meeting reflected that. Felt more fluid than Tears of the Kingdom acknowledging similar plot situations.

Looks like curing the leaf people will be a key part of the plot. Olimin made it sound like he viewed the transformation as a survival tactic. They mentioned the doctor is named Yonny, and that's who trailers show giving night expeditions. So maybe the sap you collect with Glow Pikmin is needed to revert the transformation?

[yourboredcuck]

Pikmin 4 Cuckview

Pikmin 4 - A breath of fresh air amidst a stench of mediocrity and greed

Intro:

This intro is ass. It likes to pause the player every 5 seconds to either explain gameplay features or shove the story that no one cares about in your face. Super lame. A better approach would be to ask players if they have played a Pikmin game before? And then just allow them to skip the intro.

Time/Day Cycles:

This game has the least urgency in the entire series. There is no overarching day limit such as in Pikmin 1 & 2. So you can spend 1000 days exploring and no one cares if Olimar dies of starvation. Not having an urgency is a double edged spoon. On one hand if you suck you aren’t punished and on the other you are not incentivized to be efficient and there is no overarching tension that made Pikmin 1 a horror title.

Difficulty: 

Just like my cak this game doesn’t get very hard. You’d have to make the game more challenging for yourself by either speedrunning it or trying not to lose Pikmin. Also they skimped out on the bosses. They are mostly just returning bosses and not even the grandiose ones from Pikmin 3. 

Controls & Features:

Overall the controls work well and have enough variety in features such as charging all your Pikmin in at once and Oatchi partner commands.

There’s a feature where when you send out all your Pikmin of one type it changes to the next type. Unfortunately it does this when you are underwater and you can’t use other types so when the blues come back to you they are not selected and they get killed. 

There is this Moss chubber that attacks you in one of the stages. It's an interesting idea, but she eventually respawns after knocking her out. Reminds me of Mr X from Resident Evil 2 Remake. POS always seems to snipe me at the end of the day and then I actually have to use the baby-mode rewind feature because she’s a cheap bastard just waiting to cuck me right at the end of the day.

Content:

This definitely feels like a full game. Which is nice to see in the world of microtransactions. Overall the level design is good and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Some of the underground areas seem a bit sameish. Some points feel kind of like a super mario maker/dungeon maker. This is exaggerated later in the game during a multi-sequence dungeon.

Spoilers I guess: They added a homage remake of Pikmin 1’s campaign where you get to play as Olimar and collect 30 ship parts in a 15 day time limit. It’s not the same as the original, but allows for the use of Pikmin 4 features and is really cool to see as they really didn’t need to do this.

After you complete the game you get 10 extra challenge levels which are actually not always doable first try. It makes you really think about optimum routing and using both players, unlike the main story where you can practically do whatever you like.

NPCs and Side missions:

There are heaps of NPCs this time around compared to other Pikmin games, each of which has their associated side missions, unfortunately they are more like milestones which most players would achieve just by playing the game. These are a shallow attempt to add more characters and fullness to the game, but unfortunately just falls flat. The dialogue is a skipfest and just interrupts the flow of the game. The game even has the audacity to have a message log when talking to NPCs - in case you missed something. Don’t kid yourself game coz: If I missed dialogue, I assure you I did it on purpose.

You spend the game saving these NPC castaway characters, but they each and everyone of them does fuck all. Why aren’t they going with you on expeditions? “Yo we need to save Captain Olimar” meanwhile they all just stay at base and take a fat shit.

Quick Summary:

This game was pretty nice. A little too easy, but I guess I don’t have to get mad at the game to enjoy it. Some annoying things like the lock-on, path finding and NPCs won’t stfu. But great Pikmin action to be had. Pikmin is an underlooked series and you should play it you dweeb 🙂

[sparklepikmin]

Moth's Thoughts on the Pikmin 4 Demo

Reposted from Reddit because r/Pikmin sucks so far.

Moth: So, I just finished the demo.

So far, I like it! :D It's pretty great!

I didn't think I'd be playing as Olimar here, but here we are. Playing as my favorite character next to the piks.

I had a person in my server complain that it's too dialogue-heavy, and I gotta agree. It's a lot, and the game has a feel more like P3 than P1 and P2, but I welcome it. I like story in games. I'm more of a story kind of guy, not really a gameplay person (but the gameplay's still gotta be good).

I started documenting my thoughts after the second day (third day?) but I do like Collin and Oatchi. Adorable little lads tbh.

I like that the suits are based on your color choice! I choose blue because there wasn't black (my favorite color). It's a nice touch! It's strange seeing everyone wear blue instead of red, though.

The game also looks great to me!

It's a bit annoying that the piks, if you throw more than the required amount, don't also pick up on the task. So they will just do the required amount and not any extra piks so it won't go faster. I don't recall this being a thing in past games but it's annoying.

You also can't use Oatchi's dash attack to run faster, which also sucks. It would be fun if it let you dash across places with the only downside that you can't run into things or else it would stop.

I discovered the ice bois! They remind me of rock piks, my least favorite (for many reasons, including trauma reasons, too...pathetically enough...), but slightly better. I like their voices.

I knew I couldn't collect all the treasures. I'm too slow at things.

No deaths, too!

I was like, wait, third/fourth day??

I keep forgetting that Oatchi can't swim...nearly killed everyone.

Lost an ice pik...I shall memorialize them somehow. Probably by making them an oc in my weird anthro pik au thing I recently picked back up. Everyone here would hate that, though. Maybe on Tumblr, then. Idk.

Then I lost a yellow pik...fell down into the abyss...can't get the skateboard because of it. Gotta make them a skateboarding pik.

Shoutout to the one yellow pik that is a leaf in the squad of flowers.

Completed the demo! I wish I had Pikmin Bloom, but my phone sucks and never has the space for anything...

I'd say the demo is pretty great! A fun time! Would recommend it, if you didn't just spoil yourself here.

[gamebunny-advance]

More Thoughts About The Pikmin 4 Demo

Spoilers Ahead

So I've played through the demo twice now, the first time hitting the goal as fast as possible, and the second time trying to collect as many things as possible before hitting the goal.

I was able to clear the first area 99%, but I don't know what I was missing. The game implies that I'm missing a treasure, but I'm certain I got every above-ground treasure. However, when I had Oatchi sniff out for it, he took me to an empty lot, so I suspect that completely buried treasure might be back, and they don't show up on radar. Or maybe it's counting the raw materials that I was just a tad too slow to get before the day/demo ended. I might play though the demo one more time to test that theory, but atm I think I've done everything I can possibly do in the demo.

That said, if that was a near full clear for one area, then I wonder how substantial the rest of the game is gonna be. Pikmin 3 as I recall wasn't an enormous game and also wasn't difficult. It's also my least favorite because I got through it so quickly and easily that I don't have any lasting memories of it. I don't need 4 to be an arduous game like 2 was, but if the rest of it is gonna be this breezy, then I'm probably gonna beat it in under a week.

Despite that, I do actually like how short and focused the caves are turning out to be. There are so many great new QoL features in this one that it is gonna make going back to older titles even harder, but I'm worried that it's gonna be over too soon.

I also mostly like how the game plays. I'm not a huge fan of the auto-lock on, because it kinda makes battling a little brainless and frustrating when you're trying to do something that the game doesn't think you should be doing. Other than that, everything else feels pretty good.

I also like most of the new characters. We got a bunch of new funky looking freaks, but so far I like their personalities more than the Pikmin 3 crew. Shepard is my baby. I want to feed her lots of snacks. Besides that, almost all the castaways being from different planets but having the same body plan has my mind wandering about how expansive this universe is. But, more than anything, I hope we finally get a straight answer about why almost everyone seems to crash-land on PNF-404. Speaking of...

There's also the fact that despite my earlier theories, this planet is apparently still PNF-404. While I didn't post about it, I had theorized that perhaps the planet wasn't actually Earth, since none of the information before now ever called this planet PNF-404. I figured that it was a new planet settled by humans given how new all of the (presumably) man-made structures are, but now that I know this game seems to be an alternate take on Pikmin 1's story instead of a direct sequel to 3, it's possible that the "post-apocalyptic" part of the story might have just been dropped entirely. (I guess Nintendo decided that they only needed one series to take place on post-apocalypse Earth).

Then again, I forgot why we all thought PNF-404 was post-apocalyptic in the first place. The presence of human objects with the absence of humans doesn't necessarily imply that they got wiped out, especially considering how so many of the things they left behind like food and battery powered technology were apparently still edible and functional respectively. My new theory is that whoever lives in this house is just on vacation or something, and their house got overrun with pests in the meantime. But, knowing Nintendo, there probably isn't going to be a "real" answer about where the humans are.

[bikwin5]

pikmin 4 thouts

i haven't actually posted that much about pikmin 4 now that i think about it but i finished it a while ago. as close to 100% as i think it can be. i don't have the drive to make a complete review so i just wrote down a list of things i liked and didn't like. there are no huge spoilers in this until the very end

THINGS I LIKED -adding a marketable dog is usually a sign of getting desperate. the simpsons did a whole episode about it. even in the ask the devs interview they were like yeah we added a dog to create appeal. but despite all that i ended up warming up to oatchi not just as a character but his gameplay as well. letting him swim, carry, attack, and act as a second leader all works very natural in pikmin's world and he basically acts like a very big and powerful pikmin. it takes a bit of getting used to learning the new mechanics but i think it was a good idea overall. still kind of wish they went with the playable bulborb idea instead. -the biodiversity is kind of ridiculous in this one. pikmin 4 has 100+ different creatures and a piklopedia to interact with them all, making for endless hours of fun without even playing the game. in fact there are so many creatures it felt like some had a pikmin 3 problem where they weren't used enough even though this is a big ass game!! i also like the return of pikmin 2 styled bosses in contrast to 3's where most of them felt very scripted. -the selection of things to collect is no doubt the best in this one. i like that completing a set of treasures lets you look at everything at once. -i like the hub area. its nice to walk around a bit. -having 8 pikmin types is a bold move but they pulled it off pretty well. the 3 types limit on the surface actually works well. i like that each area has "recommended" types but allows you to swap out others regardless. it makes it so advanced players can do more tag barrel switching if they want to. -the level design feels a bit of a departure from past games with how expansive each area is but i do like it, it keeps things fresh. there's still a lot of depth to clearing out each area and cave efficiently. -it was at least harder than pikmin 3!!!! yippee!!!!!! -the gwafics are goregous in this one. pikmin is one of those series that only looks better with visual fidelity. -i like the equipment upgrading system. i enjoy how it allows certain equipment to be optional even after you already make it. this lets me get rid of the power whistle because i don't like it.

THINGS I DIDNT LIKE -my #1 complaint is the auto-lockon feature. i desperately wish i could turn it off. i think they intend you to have motion controls on for more precise aiming but i don't want that. i just want to aim with the stick. the lockon makes some things trivial and some unnecessarily frustrating. there's a FUN to be had in trying to get perfect aim with pikmin! it's a BALANCE!!!!!!!!! but maybe nintendo doesn't realize that… nintendo if you patch this game to give me an option to turn off auto lockon i'll be a good kid and buy your new mario. -pikmin 4 has the best pikmin AI in the series but there some small changes are so frustrating. in particular they REALLY hate the idea of using more than the minimum number of pikmin to carry something. they physically stop you from throwing for a bit and then pikmin that are already idle don't even bother. it's a small thing but it's persistent and it drives me insane. -balancing 8 types of pikmin is not easy. that being said i think pikmin 3's types in particular got shafted a bit. rock pikmin have a weird nerf where they can die from crushing but only on hard surfaces? i guess it's to prevent trivializing certain bosses. winged pikmin don't act much different but they feel like what blue pikmin were to 3 in that they barely get a chance to shine. it's fucked because all the earlier areas probably have winged pikmin paths programmed in that most people will never see… it breaks my heart just thinking about it -ALSO the white pikmin damage nerf was totally unneccessary. as a result all the poison themed enemies are so weak and oatchi can dispatch them easily with the poison upgrade so its like why are these guys still candypop bud exclusive -the controls might be almost TOO tight. particularly the oatchi bunchup is really OP when it comes to fights. i think this game throws a lot of tough situations at you but jumping on oatchi trivializes them a lot of the time. -enemies not respawning is really weird. particularly on the surface where they NEVER respawn. it kind of strips the organic feeling of pikmin away. -everyone says this but too much tutorial. please stop making the characters talk to me every time a pikmin dies on screen. i'd say it feels like nintendo is regressing to the skyward sword era but not quite, if they did then then there would be a cutscene every time you break down a wall.

looking back at this section i sure did CAPITALIZE a bunch of arbitrary words. i think shepherd was right when she said bernard's speaking style rubs off on you.

VERY MINOR NITPICKS -i wish my man hajime wakai was still doing the soundtrack cause you can tell he didnt. pikmin 4's soundtrack isn't bad it's still pretty "pikminlike" but i think you can tell its not the same as it was -for having a "dandori" theme pikmin 4 doesn't feel nearly as incentivized to be efficient as much as 3 or even 1. the fact that night expeditions take up full days bothers me and i can't help but wonder how much replays will be affected with how much stuff they crammed in the main game.

BIG SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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-i think olimar and louie got a lot of fun exposition but the new characters not so much. it feels like they got disregarded later in the story. -final boss was the easiest in the whole series. yes even more than hey! to me. i lost like maybe 5 pikmin total. i think what makes it so easy is that there is very little risk in engaging, you throw 2 purple pikmin on the tail and when it falls over you rush with oatchi and that's it. the one scary thing about it is the final phase where it can do the roar that scatters pikmin into death pits but i didn't get hit by it because i'm epic and awesome like that. even then having one difficult thing at the end of an otherwise easy final boss just feels kind of cheap. -i wish the lineup trumpet wasn't a secret late game upgrade because i would have liked to play the rest of the game with it.

[obsidian-warthog]

Pikmin 4 mid playthrough walkthrough

-Continued from my first demo save where I didn't even get the yellow onion or any leafling or blue onion, but did get Dingo. Decided to go ahead to the second area to see what it'd be like.

-Saw this area also had a yellow onion and made it my mission to get it. Ended up getting distracted by a side path for the other end of the map and needing a second day.

-AHHH OH OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK I FELL FOR A CREEPING CHRYSANTHUM?! Those guys haven't gotten the jump on me in years. Is that the same name as the flower enemies from 2? They look different but the name feels familiar.

-Between that and the cave with the mimics that had enemies dropping from the ceiling, my Pikmin 2 instincts were forcibly reawakened. Was proud of myself for spotting the electric spider under the treasure and using my captain to scout the whole surrounding area to trigger the other spider drops.

-The throwing reticle feels too sticky for large groups of enemies, like the skitter leafs. Can't believe skitter leafs actually felt like a threat instead of a little bump in the road, but there were so many of them in that one part of the cave wild blue Pikmin.

-Having to treat blue Pikmin as a limited resource was definitely a new experience.

-I feel like between the earlier acquisition and greater presence of water hazards on land the blues definitely got a much better deal here than 3. Hope they keep this up so flying Pikmin don't effectively cannibalize most of their role again.

-Liked the change in dialogue for getting Dingo before your first Leafling encounter. Also Dandori challenges are determined by order you do the caves, not the actual area, interesting.

-Got to the other side of lake opposite starting base and the one there, but ran out of time. Not liking the look of some of those flowers off to the side.

-Area 3 I went to the dandori battle off to the side and collected nearby treasure. Used a squad of reds to ascend the hill and defeat the cannon beetle because I didn't want to risk my blues or ice.

-The bonus item and mystery item mechanics make Dandori battles pretty interesting, also I can see the influence from bingo battle in those mechanics. Shame the mode has no online but I imagine it'd be more trouble than it's worth (wish we had a replayable mission mode though).

-Was so super hyped when the tide change mechanic got introduced, used it to build a bridge and pull the root just past the Dandori battle cave.

-With Oatchi in play that 100 weight item is nowhere near as frightening as Doomsday Apparatus. Definitely feels like buff and super buff is the path to go for Oatchi upgrades.

-Also getting into a better habit of using command level 3 to have Oatchi recall Pikmin and come back, that's valuable, but the idle recall item does steal a good amount of use, though I might be underestimating the safety of Oatchi rounding everyone up vs them all running on their own.

-Anyway after end of day I went back to the first area to get the blue onion. Was easy with a max squad size of fifty, didn't even need to use Oatchi.

-Rounded up the rest of the area as well as I could. Got into the top cave just as day was ending, where I found the doctor. Already noted castaways were based on order you got them rather than actual cave, but didn't realize story important ones were too.

-Had just enough time to set up the top base and push the bag down. Only missing two treasures for the first area right by it, already know how to get them from other demo file.

-And now I have the ability to do night expeditions, called it on the glow sap being needed to cure leaflings. Dingo is almost starting to give off Louie vibes with drinking the sap and abandoning Bernard.

-Really wish the base camp Pikmin sprouts would flower based on day rather than sitting around in camp. Leaving Pikmin to flower overnight is already heavily nerfed with the multiple bases. Makes the flowering side quest harder.