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undercityrezident · 2 months ago

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My Thoughts on Echoes of Wisdom

So, I thought I had a decent idea of what I was getting into while playing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. While the trailers had given me insight into the gameplay and the basic concepts at play, I didn’t envision the sheer synergy of game philosophies being married here: the old Zelda and the new. That and a dash of real-time Pokemon or Pikmin being added to the recipe.

To add to this, Nintendo and Grezzo certainly made this game a lot deeper and more engrossing a game than I thought it would be. And I’m quite glad for that. I hadn’t gone into this game with the intense level of hype I’ve gone into other Zelda games with because I’ve learned to temper my expectations due to my growing level of cynicism with the gaming industry.

However, while this certainly isn’t some 150-hour juggernaut to play through (though it does come at about the same monetary cost as a few of those—thank you, awful Canadian dollar conversion rates), this doesn’t make it feel any less valuable a gaming experience. It packs a lot into its small package through diversity in design ideas, a well-paced story, and thought into how the devs gave a great deal of power to players in tackling challenges.

In short, this means that this game does a lot of the great things I’ve praised Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom for doing without falling into some of the same pitfalls those games do. Echoes of Wisdom employs much of the same ideas and aesthetics while keeping a core, classic Zelda experience.

Below the cut, I’ll tell you exactly how and why that is. Beware of complete game spoilers from this point forward:

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Echoes of My Voice

To inform any readers here on the standards that I’ll be measuring this game by, I’ve completed, more or less, everything in the game. I’ve finished the story; collected all the echoes, stamps, and might crystals; upgraded all my equipment; collected all the outfits and accessories, and I’m fairly certain I’ve completed all the quests and side quests. However, I’ve not made every single combination of smoothie, and according to a let’s play of the game I watched, I’ve only missed a few overworld cave chests with some minor items inside.

As often I do with open-world games, I tended to explore the regions to reveal the map and collect goodies before attempting quests in the area. Having done just that, I think my usual method of exploration might’ve minorly taken away from the experience of discovery that comes paired with progressing the story, though that’s less a critique of the game and something I have to resolve with myself as a player.

But compared to the awful consequences of the same exploration tendencies with Tears of the Kingdom where you could spoil huge story points by simply exploring, Echoes of Wisdom, thankfully, keeps such things gated behind proper game progression, allowing players to explore without fear of such things. For open-world games, I think exploration should be either a joy, a curiosity to indulge, or a lead-in to teasing boons that help build anticipation for something to come in the game’s plot. If it ends up becoming a detriment to either story or gameplay, then it’s poor open-world design, plain and simple. But I’m happy to report that this is not a concern with Echoes of Wisdom.

Even with trailers and the like to give some light to the story and gameplay we were getting, I could enjoy this game without feeling too spoiled. That said, if you’re a fan who has yet to play this game, stop reading this commentary and try going into it without watching any trailers or viewing any promotional material. I think this game could’ve been even better for me if I’d gone into it completely blind, as the discoveries of what I could do could’ve hit even harder, though they don’t lack any sort of punch, even with my foreknowledge.

So, for those who need not worry about spoilers and with all the above in mind, let me break down this game bit by bit.

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Echoes of Worlds Gone By

Echoes of Wisdom certainly draws inspiration from other Zelda games in designing its world, first and foremost from A Link to the Past. One could say that that majority of the core central map is derived from the Super Nintendo classic, with a sort of frame of new content around it both literal and figurative. That’s not to say this world’s map is copy and pasted. Far from it, in fact. But fans of the old game will no doubt recognize features both obvious and subtle.

You will find the ruins of the Eastern and Desert Palaces in their respective places as examples of obvious landmarks. However, something less obvious is how, to the southwest of the castle, there is a grove of trees with a tree stump at the centre. However, you’ll find no flute-playing phantom and a gathering of wild animals engrossed by it, but a heart piece instead: a nice nod and reward to those who saw and appreciate the reference.

However, that’s where most similarities to A Link to the Past end. What once could’ve once been referred to geographically as Death Mountain are now Hebra Mountain and the Holy Mount Lanayru instead, now doffing their rocky exterior for an ice-capped one—not terribly unlike Lorule’s equivalent in A Link Between Worlds. Meanwhile, the new stand-in for the fiery Death Mountain we all know and love from later games comes in the form of Eldin Volcano in the northwest. Zora’s river has now been greatly expanded to include not just a larger river system but also a large oceanic bay it flows into. As well, entirely new regions have been added in the form of Suthorn Woods and the Faron Wetlands, the former perhaps being a very subtle nod to Twilight Princess’s Ordon (being the origin for Link in this game) and the latter being a reference to the southeastern Faron jungles in Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

Regardless of where your era of play experience in the Zelda franchise comes from, you’ll probably find something to look at and point and say with all the sincerity of Captain America, “I understood that reference!”

But while geography is all well and good, it’s only one half of the picture when it comes to creating full and real worlds. The other half is its denizens, and I’m happy to report that Echoes of Wisdom has picked up the slack that Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom left unchecked. While this might be an unfair critique or comparison given the massive size differences in maps between the 3D Switch titles and this one, I do sorely believe that the former titles’ worlds could’ve felt so much deeper and richer with greater populations inhabiting them. I completely understand the need for Breath of the Wild to make its Hyrule uninhabited, but I feel Tears of the Kingdom could’ve stood to add some people in various repopulation and reclamation efforts throughout its otherwise empty vistas.

But, focusing on this game, Echoes of Wisdom’s size and population match each other far better. While people aren’t everywhere, I certainly feel like I need to travel a lot shorter distances to find people, whether they be Hylians, Zora, Gorons, Deku Scrubs, or Gerudo. This makes the world feel a bit more lived in, which made me more excited to explore and see who I could meet.

The only thing I can’t say that are improvements over the previous Switch titles is the depth of the cultures. However, neither were they declines in quality. The stories and lore surrounding each area’s culture were fun and characterized each group of people well. But, at the same time, since these areas were scaled down, there was less happening outside of the main quest, giving us fewer opportunities to learn about their associated people and their traditions. And the few side quests there were quite shallow compared to some we completed in the 3D Switch titles. But what we lost in depth, we gained in zany comedy and bits aimed at younger audiences, so I can’t fault it too much.

As for aesthetics in the game and its people, I can see plenty of people being turned off by this game’s art style. Yes, it’s drawn from the same DNA as the Link’s Awakening remake, but I found a lot of charm with that game, and I found the same charm here as well, and then some. I hope that those who focus on the presentation of the game and its world can look past the surface of its apparent childish design and see the depth of emotion it presents, ranging from peaks of comedy to valleys of tragedy. I might not have been hit as hard by this game in critical moments as I was in Tears of the Kingdom, but Echoes of Wisdom still had great moments that leaned into its style very well.

It’s also damn adorable, and that counts for something with me.

Yet, this game didn’t just do cute. It managed to do creepy, as well. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Stilled World. It had a tense, oppressing atmosphere that conveyed the threat that we were dealing with. From the disparate floating patches of slowly dripping world stolen from ours to the petrified, photo-negative-coloured people hung in the air to slowly decay to nothing, even the cute art style did nothing to soften this purple-hued world that reflects the rifts we see marking its entry points Hyrule. Art and colour direction go a long way to convey the foreboding nature of the Stilled World, making it a perfect contrast to the more charming Hyrule we know. Yes, it’s another take on a “Dark World” variant, but it works, as it’s both intrinsically tied to the story and provides a contrasting aesthetic to the bright and sunny Hyrule that stands apart from its contemporaries.

Admittedly, this game isn’t beating the Pokemon comparison allegations with how the Stilled World resembles the Distortion World… not that such a comparison is a bad thing in my eyes.

In any case, this game nails its world design on both sides of the coin. If you’re up for exploring a new Hyrule, I very much endorse exploring this awesome version of it.

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Echoes of Gameplay

Super Smash Bros aside, this is the closest we’re getting to a Pokemon crossover with the Legend of Zelda, plain and simple. If you know me and my blog, this is absolutely my jam.

I knew we were eschewing the traditional Legend of Zelda sword-and-shield gameplay in favour of Zelda’s summoner-esque style of combat. What I didn’t expect was such a complex system of monsters and battling.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not 15+ types of dense, pseudo-rock-paper-scissors advantages/weaknesses equations like actual Pokemon, but it definitely keeps ideas like that in mind. Whenever you pick up a new echo—and dear lord, there are so many, it’s amazing but also overwhelming at times—you can read a quick blurb about it, not unlike a Pokedex entry, and see its features. Some, like the Darknut line (yes, there are improvements on echoes throughout the game, so some of your faves can get stronger), move slowly but hit hard. Others are fast but hit lightly or frequently. Certain monsters have weaknesses to certain types of damage, like how plant monsters are typically vulnerable to fire. Environmental factors come into play, too. Some beasts only function or cannot function at all in water, while some are amphibious!

While there are some instances where picking echoes for a particular combat scenario is encouraged, I found you can proceed with your favourites for most of the game without too much issue, though you’ll probably feel you need to use more powerful ones as the game goes on for practicality. That said, you can field a variety of favourites for flexibility, not unlike an actual Pokemon team. I greatly enjoyed thinking about what to employ in a situation for best effect, though I often ended up defaulting to a few of my favourites anyway.

In case anyone is interested, I’m one of the many who used Peahats to steamroll through the early game, though I often ended up using Wolfos around that time for their mobility. By mid-game, I had found a great combination in the form of the Ball-and-Chain Trooper and ReDeads: the ReDeads stunning foes while the troopers revved up before attacking was a favourite combination of mine. Towards the end of the game, I found the White Wolfos and their summoned pack alongside a Guay for aerial support was pretty effective as well.

Similarly, I watched a let’s play of someone who used Peahats about 75% of the time throughout the game and absolutely had a ball with it. I think the mark of this game’s success comes in the fact people can approach its combat in so many ways and enjoy it in all those myriad fashions.

Some might complain that this indirect method of combat boils down to summoning your echoes and waiting—or even literally sleeping if you summon a bed and decide to recover your hearts while your minions fight for you—is very uninvolved, uninspiring, or even boring. I can understand how a person might say this, especially toward the beginning of the game while you’re sitting at a vulnerable three or four hearts and only have Zols or Moblins for summons. However, I find the combat becomes so much more dynamic as the game goes on.

In fact, you quickly gain swordfighter form near the beginning of the game, which allows you to get into the fray directly if you want to or if your echoes can’t do the job themselves. I’m glad the swordfighter form is limited though, as I think treating what is usually an infinite resource as finite is a great twist on the Zelda formula. It puts one’s mind through their paces to think things through differently, making the game that much more engaging and differentiating it from other Zelda games. Considering we’re working with a completely different protagonist with entirely unique strengths and weaknesses, it makes complete sense, and it’s a beautiful way of uniting gameplay with characterization.

Unfortunately, I do have to say there were times when I felt the monster AI could’ve used some polish. I can’t be sure if the instances of this were designed around the idea that not all monsters are smart or if it was a flaw in the system, but even when I targeted specific creatures or objects for my echoes to attack or interact with, they sometimes took ages to comply, making timing or precision-based puzzles or encounters a greater pain than they ought to have been. This was a minor source of annoyance from time to time.

As well, some echoes worked in cycles, and if your monster echoes got into an animation or attack cycle that made them completely ineffectual against monsters around them, it could be quite tedious. If you ever picked a Wizzrobe to fight another Wizzrobe, you probably know what I’m talking about with its spell wind-up time.

But, overall, I found the combat experience to be quite satisfying and engrossing. Granted, it taxed the hell out of my brain at times, especially near the end of the game with the final two boss fights: having to evade attacks, summon echoes, and then also toggle on and off swordfighter mode to intervene or attack the boss while my echoes dealt with their minions was a lot to mentally juggle. It was enjoyable, but it sometimes left me a little frenetic.

And this might’ve just been me, but I barely made use of Dampe’s inventions in combat. It felt great to make them as part of his questlines, but deploying and winding them up felt so much slower than simply deploying an echo and having them do the same job faster. This mode of combat felt almost tacked on to the game, an outlier from the bevy of abilities that Tri granted you to the point of feeling out-of-theme.

But while combat was an intrinsic part of the game, I’d say that, in keeping with the wisdom theme of the game, the puzzles were an even bigger and more crucial part. While monsters made up a great deal of your echoes, more mundane—but no less important—object-based echoes made up a significant portion of your echo arsenal. And damn, were they used to great effect.

Both in the isometric top-down and the side-scroller-like 2D sections, the game employed puzzles that forced you to think about everything you had available to you. Yes, I felt quite stupid when I forgot that I had the bind ability a dozen times at the start of the game, but as I discovered the game’s MO with how it expected you to solve puzzles, they became incredibly satisfying to solve with a combination of echoes, bind, and reverse bind—though I will say the latter of those three tended to go unused for long portions of the game for me.

But, having watched another person play this game after I finished it, I was so pleased to discover just how flexible the solutions were. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom often fostered numerous approaches to problems, though many still expected one kind of solution. However, this game feels like it perfected the art of freeform puzzle solving.

People often refer to Oracle of Ages as having some of the best puzzles in the series, as it was designed to be the puzzle-solving complement to Oracle of Seasons’ combat-focused gameplay. However, I felt that many of Oracle of Ages’ puzzles had solutions that were too obscure or unintuitive. Echoes of Wisdom, in contrast, is a game focused on puzzles (both in and out of combat) where, with very few exceptions (I’m looking at you Eastern Temple…), the puzzles feel very satisfying to solve. While there might be a few that absolutely stumped me for a while, if I looked at it long enough and tried enough solutions, I eventually got it.

That said, on seeing other people solve the same puzzles, I often had that 20/20 hindsight reaction where I wondered “How did I not think of that? That was so simple!” Such is the brilliance of this game in its variety, though I will concede that some echoes (the Flying Tile and the Platboom in particular) do rob a lot of creativity of certain puzzles where traversal is key.

Navigating around the world was also a challenge, and I mean that in a good way. In many games nowadays, climbing a mountain has been made to not feel nearly as daunting as it once did. If it is a challenge, then it’s only so in a cinematic way and not a gameplay one, with curated paths in the form of marked scalable walls or other easy-to-execute controller maneuvers.

In Echoes of Wisdom, scaling mountains, cliffs, walls, and gaps does require some forethought, especially when the game provides some wrinkle in the form of enemies or architecture. This truly makes this game a thinking-person’s game, as everything you do requires some measure of planning and execution, making even world traversal feel validating in some way. This also has the added benefit of giving the world’s fast-travel points even more value than usual, something I think we in the gaming community take for granted now.

Where the features of puzzle-solving and traversal blended beautifully was in the game’s dungeons. Yes, true-to-form traditional Zelda dungeons returned in this game, and I couldn’t have been happier! While most of the dungeons were fairly linear—the exceptions being Jabul Ruins and Faron Temple—I didn’t mind their structures at all. Most dungeons featured a series of great individual sequential puzzle challenges that tested me and my knowledge of the game and what I had available to me very well. How these features and ideas tied into both navigating the dungeon and fighting the bosses of each dungeon were also fantastic and usually very intuitive. While I very much appreciate the idea of dungeons whose entire layout or form is some sort of puzzle itself, Echoes of Wisdom’s dungeons are a variety I love as well.

The fact these dungeons blended the threat of the Stilled World with the traditional perils of delving into classic Zelda dungeons made them even better. A few of them have even been given the “Skull Woods” treatment from A Link to the Past, allowing several points of entry and exit. This, like Skull Woods, gives these dungeons a welcome sense of being tied to the world around it.

I have to say that my favourites are—the first being unsurprising given my love for desert-themed temples—the Gerudo Sanctum and the Lanayru Temple. Both are long, complex, and feature fantastic puzzles that iterate throughout the dungeon. Both also nailed their respective aesthetics, though the same could be said of any of the game’s dungeons.

Returning to the topic of traversal, one criticism I have is how the isometric view leads to some issues of perspective, whether in aiming projectiles, echoes, or in executing jumps. It was only through a video online that I discovered you could press the right stick into the controller to have the view centred above you directly. Whether this instruction was present in the initial tutorials or not, I cannot recall. If it was, it was easily missed on my end.

Another thing that contributed to some frustrations for me was the game’s controls. As with Tears of the Kingdom, I felt like it took too long for me to adjust to the game’s complicated control system. There are so many things you can do and features your character has that it can feel easy to press the wrong button and execute the wrong command all too often. This most often happened to me in combat when I wanted to summon something, and hit bind instead, or when I wanted to switch to a new echo and accidentally hit swordfighter form. This could be less an issue of the game and more of something to do with me, but considering I’ve heard the same from others, I feel like there could be something done to better align the controls to something more convenient or to streamline features somehow.

A lesser, though still often equally frustrating thing I felt when playing was how it was hard to deploy echoes, monsters or objects alike, in the exact spaces you wanted. While the game didn’t force you to move on a grid as it did in Link’s Awakening or other older 2D Zelda games, you generally deployed echoes on an invisible in-game grid that often forced things to spawn in spaces I didn’t intend. When this happened numerous times in a row, despite me repositioning myself many times—or having to muck around in the heat of combat to do so—I definitely found myself grinding my teeth a little bit.

Further, with regards to selecting echoes, this game does slightly improve on Tears of the Kingdom’s menuing issue. While you still generally must scroll through a seemingly endless selection of echoes by the game’s end through the side-scrolling “quick menu,” at least you now have a proper pause menu to equip echoes when you want to. Still, I think a great way to solve this would’ve been a better allocation of controller buttons so that we could’ve had two or three buttons dedicated to multiple echoes rather than only one. Having to swap between echoes constantly due to our limited buttons dedicated to them was a definite pain and one of the biggest flaws in the game.

But, even with these criticisms, I felt like the overall gameplay experience with Echoes of Wisdom was fantastic! Yes, there were moments I absolutely wanted to chuck my controller out the window for repeated issues occurring in crucial moments. But for the great majority of my time spent playing this game, I was very happy. From solving mind-bending puzzles to seeing my army of echoes wreck enemy faces, I thoroughly enjoyed how this game played.

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Echoes of Music

This game brings its own musical compositions and twists, reflecting its originality but also its ties previous games in the Zelda series. You’ll be hearing new tunes in familiar places, but if you listen closely enough, you’ll hear references and traces to classic tunes associated with those locales. From Hyrule Castle to the Ranch to Kakariko Village, you’ll find notes of familiarity amongst engaging new tracks that, for the most part, fit this game’s tone and mood very well.

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One track I want to bring particular attention to is the overworld track. It’s based on the game’s main theme, which is already a banger. Then, in the second half of the game, once Zelda is free to wander about without concealing her identity, the track is redone with an intro containing an upbeat version of Zelda’s Lullaby before transitioning back into the reprise of the main theme once more. I feel this is a fantastic way of not only varying one of the tracks you’ll be hearing most often but also showcasing the progression of the game’s plot.

Moreover, I’m just happy to have an overworld/field theme that has that bombastic Zelda feel that I’ve been missing since before Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It truly conveys that grandiose sense of adventure that I adore about Zelda games.

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At the same time, I can’t say the atmospheric pieces aren’t also memorable, as the Stilled World theme is tense, creepy, and subdued, suiting that world and its void-like presence perfectly. It’s certainly a highlight for me as well.

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I have to say, though, my favourites are the new dungeon themes. I’ve always been partial to the music of dungeons, but that’s also meant that I’ve come to expect more of them. Thankfully, this game delivers with them in particular, with my notable favourites being the Gerudo Sanctum and Eldin Temple themes, both of which feature some fantastic violin-work.

It’s safe to say that I’ll be listening to this soundtrack for a while and integrating this game’s tunes into my Zelda D&D campaign.

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An Echoed Story

For a new, original 2D title, I will admit I was not expecting such revelations relating to overall Zelda lore. Like a lot of one-off Zelda projects, which I had written this game off as being, I expected this game to have a relatively simple plot with a greater focus on gameplay and a reuse of old plot ideas and villains. Such has been Nintendo’s philosophy toward Zelda games for a while, and I expected Echoes of Wisdom to conform to this ideology as well.

Colour me surprised when this game debuted a great story with a whole new villain whose scale I don’t think we’ve ever seen in a Zelda game previously.

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I do love how we begin the story as many a Zelda game might end: as Link finding Zelda and defeating Ganon to rescue her. This was a great way to not only tutorialize the start of the game but also to introduce us to two of the principal characters while also tying us back to previous Zelda games.

Following a quick escape as Zelda once she’s freed and Link is lost to one of the rifts, we find ourselves finally loose on the world as criminal-branded Zelda, along with her new companion Tri, finding that the rifts can not only take people, but spawn dark imposters of them, a theme we’ll see recurring throughout the game. From there, narratively speaking, we follow a fairly typical Zelda formula: we visit regions and complete dungeons there to help the residents of each area dealing with a particular calamity. Only this time, the calamity is a universal one they’re all dealing with, but with each with a unique wrinkle, courtesy of the rifts’ ability to spawn imposters.

From a surface level, the above formula seems pretty on-brand for Zelda. The main difference is how we go about it. Besides the obvious gameplay differences I listed in a previous section, we also get a brief, simple, though ultimately interesting story involving Zelda and each resident culture from these regions. The first ones we deal with in earnest are the Gerudo and the Zora, with our choice of which of the two to tackle first after we’ve finished our “tutorial” in Suthorn Woods.

I do like the Gerudo’s take on the classic “traitorous vizier” centred storyline, with Facette, who is eventually revealed to be an imposter, giving poor directions to the Gerudo Chieftan, Seera. Meanwhile, Dohna, the chief’s daughter and head of Gerudo soldiers, is attempting to solve problems along with Zelda. Getting a clone reveal of Facette and the subsequent merciless actions by Seera to dispatch the imposter was a great and far more decisive action than I expected from a Zelda NPC. Let’s just say, I’m a fan of both her and Dohna.

Meanwhile, over in Jabul Waters, we have two Zora tribes: the River and Sea Zora. I was stoked to see both types of Zora getting representation in one game. I love the idea of the two contrasting tribes having their own traditions and perspectives through the two chiefs, Dradd and Kushara. Navigating the waters of both Zora Cove and the rivers, not to mention the waters of the chiefs’ tumultuous relationship, was engaging, especially when it came to dealing with the raging Jabu-Jabu, who turned out to be an imposter as well. Having Jabu’s antics be disguised as displeasure at having their den consumed by a rift was a decent red herring for the true cause, though it wasn’t that hard to see what the real deal was.

In the end, having the Zora chiefs reconcile and play their song together to access the den was a heartwarming moment, with that cutscene in particular really driving that point home.

With those two problems resolved, two major rifts sealed, and two of three victims from Hyrule Castle rescued, we brought about the game’s second venture into Hyrule Castle and the mid-game twist. As it turns out, Ganon was never the threat here, as he was just an echo created by something far older and far more malevolent. It’s not Demise, but a being that could be put on par in both age—and potentially power—with the three Golden Goddesses: a void being named Null.

As we learn shortly after this, Null is a being who existed in the nothingness before creation but was dismayed when the goddesses made the world and imprisoned Null inside it. Continuously spawning rifts consuming places and people (something that was established to be happening long before this game began and the canonical reason for this incarnation of Link’s muteness), prompted the Goddesses to create Tri’s people to mend and contain the rifts. Unfortunately, now, Null has now-taken Link and imprisoned the Goddesses in the three lands of their namesakes: Faron, Lanayru, and Eldin. Naturally, it falls to the newly exonerated Zelda, the newly dubbed priestess, to put things right and rescue Link… for a change. Oh, and we also need to free the goddesses to find this “Prime Energy” that might help us.

From there, we choose to attend to any of the three areas first. I chose Faron first, though I feel, in retrospect, Eldin was probably the most natural first choice. Regardless, we got to visit the wetlands and all the Deku Scrubs who, much like the Gorons of Tears of the Kingdom, find themselves amid a cultural addiction. This time, it’s the spider webs spawned by the rifts in their region, which they’re eating as cotton candy on sticks. I’m not sure if this recent trend of addictive foods in Zelda games is indicative of Nintendo taking an active interest in making allegories to help kids say no to drugs, but two such cases in a row can’t be a coincidence. Funnily, this one is also framed as a cautionary tale against following trends blindly, as the Deku Scrubs seem to be epitomizing popular kids trying to stay popular by any means.

Either way, through doing small tasks throughout the region, we managed to access the temple, now swathed in the biggest rift in the region, and tackle the dungeon to take out the latest incarnation of Gohma. While interesting, I feel this regional story is one of the weaker ones in the game due to us not connecting to a particular individual or individuals through it, but all the same, the game’s charm is on full display throughout, with a lot of comedic bits coming through here strongly.

On Eldin Volcano, we have to deal with the fallout of the rifts while helping a newly minted Goron chief in Darston. The poor lad is coming to terms with his new role, relying on the 56 teachings of his recently-passed father in tablet form, leaving him paralyzed with indecision during this unprecedented crisis. Through rescuing two elders and traversing a secret path all chiefs must undertake to reach the volcano’s crater, he gains some level of confidence and recognizes that he must rely on his own perspectives and ideas to become a fully realized chief. While we don’t really get enough time with him to feel like this newfound confidence is fully developed or earned narratively, it’s nice to see the effort made. In any case, I do like him better than Yunobo, effectively his equivalent in terms of role in the 3D Switch games.

Regardless, we take on the Eldin Temple, and after its myriad tense and heated challenges we get to face… holy shit, Volvagia! You’re back! I was not expecting to see a new Volvagia, but it was a fun fight and a good conclusion to the dungeon and the region as a whole.

Lastly, I visited the Holy Mt. Lanayru, by and far the most desolate (even compared to the desert) and least populated area in the game. The only resident there is a Yeti named Conde, easily a contender for the character who wears his heart on his sleeve the most in the entire franchise. With a series of fun and sometimes bittersweet encounters with him as we travel up the mountain, we discover he once had a father who has since passed on and a brother who is travelling the world on an adventure. However, he believes he’s returned as we see something akin to him going up the mountain ahead of Conde. In one of the more, if not the most, heartbreaking moments in the game, we hear—thankfully not see—said supposed brother strike Conde and continue up the mountain.

We follow this unknown yeti into the Stilled World, finding out through a mural that Conde’s brother doesn’t hate him, and he is in fact excited to take him on an adventure someday, leading us with some new motivation (aside from saving the region) to delve into Lanayru Temple and confront the beast. Naturally, we discover that the beast is not Conde’s brother—though I’m as of yet unsure if it's an echo of him or not or just something that resembles him—and defeat them in a great boss battle. Following that, in another touching moment, we get to deliver the good news to Conde, that his brother is still out there adventuring and thinks the world of him.

Finally, with the power of all three goddesses on our side, we make ready to go to the Eternal Forest, but not before Null creates an echo of us, the perfect agent to infiltrate the resting place of the Prime Energy.

After some comical buffoonery of one of the Castle NPCs we rescued earlier in the game and the briefest of conversations with the Deku Tree, we catch up to the echo of Zelda and find that the Prime Energy is nothing less than the Triforce. At this point, I’m unsure if it was named that to throw us off the true nature of the power or if there’s some significance to the “Prime Energy” name. I’ve heard some people speculate that it’s called that so the Triforce can get its name from our companion Tri as a result of her role in this game. If this game sits where I think it does in the timeline, that explanation doesn’t make sense to me, but I’m not too concerned with the logistics of that as far as this game’s plot goes.

In any case, as often happens with the Triforce when someone impure and out-of-balance touches it, it splits—though kudos to the worrisome cutscene where it seems to radiate dark power before stopping and splitting, I appreciate a very tense moment like that—with the Triforce of Power coming to rest with Null’s Zelda echo, Wisdom with Zelda herself, and Courage going to Link imprisoned in the Stilled World. After a brief pursuit through said dimension, we finally get our battle with our echo, and a fun one at that! Once defeated, the Zelda echo retreats into the Null’s main body, a horrifying dark mass, and we finally free Link—I did so in the same way he did us at the start of the game: with a single arrow. Man, I love things coming full circle!

With an awesome cooperative segment with Link through Null’s ghastly body, we finally make our way to the final boss, Null itself, who has a startingly familiar appearance, seeming to have taken on aspects of Tri’s people, who have been largely their jailer for aeons. This seems perfect to me, considering the echo power they possess. Considering, throughout the fight, we see imprisoned members of Tri’s race both in its grasp and throughout its body, this seems like a great way to reveal their true, domineering or even parasitic nature.

The final boss fight was a spectacle and a ton of fun. I loved yanking on Null’s arms, only to have Link leap into a flying spin attack to sever said arm. The whole encounter left me absolutely thrilled as it ended with Link and Zelda both making that final pull to yank the Triforce of Power from Null’s form.

Null’s dying breath rattling with a need for more power to overcome the Goddesses’ perceived wrongdoings against them was fantastic, giving me light chills at the pure hunger and desperation of this primordial being. This is probably one of the best-done villains the franchise has conjured in a long time, and I’m wholly surprised it was devised for a 2D game that probably took a fraction of the time that the 3D games did. While I’ve seen far more complex villains in other media, this is a big step up from the simple, nearly one-dimensional incarnations of Ganon or Ganondorf we’ve seen recently (the exception being Ganondorf’s Wind Waker incarnation—I still think he's fantastic and I hope he gets that level of depth again someday).

We get a bittersweet ending with Tri departing from us as they reminisce on what they’ve learned of the nature of the people in Hyrule, especially in their gratitude toward Zelda. The reprise of the “thank you” notion from earlier in the game hit particularly hard, and I have to say, I had my hand over my heart “aww”-ing in that moment.

With Link and Zelda returning to Castletown, the citizens coming out to celebrate us, including the King and his formerly missing advisors, was wonderful, and getting to see Link speak for the first time since… who knows how long, provoking everyone’s shocked expressions, was a great moment to cap off the story before Zelda’s wistful look into the sky to where Tri vanished. This was only made better by the credits roll showing everyone in the wake of the events—including Conde’s brother coming back in his balloon! Heck yeah—and the final post-credits scene showing the framed Tri Rod enshrined on Zelda’s wall. What a brilliant, heartfelt ending!

As a story, Echoes of Wisdom wasn’t an epic for the ages, but it was a story told wonderfully and a return to form after some worrisome practices had crept into Zelda’s storytelling in the last two games. This game saw the—heh—wisdom in correcting previous games’ errors and opted to design their world and gameplay to cooperate with their story. While it’s not as narratively innovative as other games I’ve seen and played, it’s good to see the Zelda series bouncing back in this department.

In terms of characterization, Princess Zelda, of course, suffers from Zelda protagonist syndrome in that they don’t get much characterization besides a few great expressions drawn on her face during key moments. That said, such is a price to pay for seeing our girl finally get to be the active agent in the legend of her namesake. This doesn’t lessen the poignant emotions I felt at the end of the game with Zelda’s sadness on Tri’s departure. Like the departure of companions of Navi, Midna, and Fi from Link before, sometimes, we don’t need to speech to know there’s deep-rooted feelings there.

And on Tri’s side of things, I appreciate Tri having been characterized as a being unfamiliar with Hyrulean traditions, expressions, emotions, and ideas. It gave her a few funny and interesting moments to dissect the nature of human emotions involved in this game, not to mention the aforementioned “thank you” moment at the end.

Besides this, supporting characters got to have a few moments here and there, but they were few and fleeting and rarely recurred outside their regions besides when we revisited them for additional side quests. Still, the fact they’re there and had an impact made the story and world feel just that bit more whole than it otherwise could’ve been.

Overall, this game’s story was a wonderful surprise, and I’ll be continuing to mull it over time goes on. And I’ll likely learn and gain new perspectives on it as I consume more media about the game in the near future.

---

A Reflected Echo

So, in the wake of the Echoes of Wisdom and all these reflections on it, what’s my final verdict on it?

While I’ve had plenty to say about what the game needs to do to improve, I feel all my complaints are rather diminutive in the face of its accomplishments. It looks great, sounds great, plays great, tells a wonderful story, and does fun things both new and old that blend the best of old and new philosophies in the Zelda franchise. This marriage of ideas is something I hope Nintendo and its partners iterate on to create better and ever-evolving Zelda games.

Nintendo seems to be learning from some of its mistakes in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, and I’m truly grateful for that. In some ways, it’s still not quite up to the standards other games set in the industry, but in other ways, it exceeds them. So much attention to detail and quality has clearly been paid to this game, and I hope to see that attention continue to help refine the series further.

In the end, I’m glad Zelda’s first outing as a proper protagonist went so well. There was an underlying fear I had going into this game that the game wouldn’t receive the attention and love it deserved from the developers because it didn’t feature Link or because it wasn’t a proper 3D Zelda game. In the wake of Princess Peach: Showtime being received less-than-favourably, I couldn’t put the worrisome idea that Echoes of Wisdom could suffer a similar fate. Thankfully, I was proven wrong, and Zelda got to be the hero she deserved to be after carrying the franchise’s title decades.

Well done, Princess Zelda! You saved Hyrule, the world, and have set a new precedent for your character moving forward.

Now, after that final segment of the game leading up to the final boss battle, not to mention the battle itself, Nintendo has demonstrated that they can make a co-op Legend of Zelda game featuring both Link and the titular princess. I’m expecting you to come up with something great for us, devs! My Zelink-shipping-heart is depending on it!

#The Legend of Zelda #Echoes of Wisdom #EoW #Legend of Zelda #Princess Zelda #EoW Spoilers #Echoes of Wisdom Spoilers #It's finally done!#I'll be honest #given this was a shorter game #I figured that this review wouldn't get this long #But I guess I had a lot to say... again #Still I think this game deserves a lot of praise #And I hope they keep going this direction for future Zelda games

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refinedpet · 9 days ago

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Heck it, I'll make a proper pinned

Salutations! Hello! My name is Ashley, your likely not so local, lesbian, early twenties, beautiful trans girlthing with undiagnosed mental problems.

I usually post about Trans stuff, as helping other transfems in any way I can is important to me.

I also post about whatever else is on my mind, I don't really have much of a filter. Usually expect stuff about Video Games.

I also don't hesitate to reblog horny stuff, and I'm a kinky bitch so that filter doesn't exist. Usually not anything with nudity, but no promises. This Blog is 18+ Only.

My old pinned was my award winning post

It makes a great vibe check and did a phenomenal job scaring away chasers. Watch if if you're not a coward

Stuffs I like!!!!:

I play alot of video games, some of my favorite series are Xenoblade Chronicles (This is the quickest way to my heart), Dragon Quest, Pikmin, Fire Emblem (Unfortunate), Kirby, Splatoon, Shin Megami Tensei, Megaman

I love the NeiR series! Fantasy Life and Gnosia are some of my all time favorites.

I've been lifelong way too Pokémon obsessed

I play a wide variety of stuff, and it'd be difficult to name everything. I play a bit of everything but I'm mostly a single player girly and I adore JRPG's.

I used to be more of an anime fan, but don't actively watch new stuff alot. I've seen a ton of anime and read alot of manga.

Stuff like JoJo's Bizzare Adventure, Chainsaw Man, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The Pet Girl of Sakuraso, Yuru Yuri, Sailor Moon and many more are very important to me.

As said I'm well experienced in anime, and love getting to talk about it with people.

I'm likely to do the occasional horny post, but usually don't reblog or post nudity. Still this Blog is 18+

I'm a kinky bitch, and have spent alot of time in online lewd role play communities. As a result I'm desensitized to alot of it and very casual about things.

I've been called a succubus alot, and have a history of awakening new kinks in people.

If I ever make a NSFW sideblog I'll give more specifics there. But I'm always down to talk with girls (18+) about stuff!

Alright, wrap it up already:

Now, here's a collection of thoughts and things I couldn't be bothered to fit in naturally anywhere.

The tag I use for my original posts is #Ashley.txt if you want to see just them and not the mass of stuff I reblog. Fot older ones I used #skyla.ramble if you wanna see those. Yes Skyla is not my name anymore, no I'm not changing the tag, You have to earn calling me that.

As stated before my name is Ashley! I prefer Ashey as a nickname over Ash. And I encourage people to spell it however they like best. Having some people say Ashy or Ashie is cute! You can call me Ash, but don't call me that exclusively.

I'm a She/Her - It/It's Girly. Those are the ones I fuck with. Referring to me with It/It's is the way to my heart, but I like being called both.

I'm an attention whore

I love Chappell Roan

I meow and bite, don't worry about it

Mutuals are always so incredibly welcome and encouraged to send me a DM or ask for my Discord (that's where I prefer talking)

I love all transfems. No matter what arbitrary reason you have that makes you think you're not enough or worthy of it. All trans people have a space in this community. You are so incredibly important 💖

Okay, I've gone on for more than long enough. I'll add to this if I ever need to

Have some pictures of me to finish off because I'm hot as hell

#skyla.ramble #trans #transfem #actually me frfr

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francoisl-artblog · 1 year ago

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Boy, I love Pikmin 4. I love the Pikmin series, it's one of my favorite.

So, I gathered some sketch from my sketchbook, and made a little compilation ! Most of them were made during the first "Custom Character" trailer, and I was like "Can I make them ? Can I make my comfort character and my OC in the game ?" and, sadly, it turns out I was only able to make a correct Gertrude. (No brown hair for Geraldine, and no option for making a proper Eggman.)

Does it prevent me from drawing them as they should look ? Obviously not ! And I even got some information about them, now !

___

Pomme : The new rookie of the rescue corps, Pomme is a kind, yet completely oblivious leader. She's the typical "Head empty, no thought" character. However, when she's asked for something, she sure try her best, and is actually pretty good to resolve any (Dandori) issue !

That said, she tend to overwork, and since she joined, she didn't get many sleep (Also because she tend to read the whole pikelopedia before sleeping). So, it sometimes happen to her to make mistakes. She's pretty curious on absolutely anything, and, if she had the time, she would do nothing but contemplate the Pikmin's World.

Geraldmine : The Pikmin!Version of Geraldine. (Because why not ? I wanted to play as her until I found out I couldn't make her in game !) She crashed on the planet while she driving back home. She met up with Red Pikmin in a cave, and she kinda manage to survive with them until Pomme saved her. She's slightly stressed all the time, but she's a loving and caring soul. She will protect every Pikmin she see.

She would actively help to find the other castaway, if she was allowed to buy the other members, but she need to stay safe. Instead, she wants Pomme to takes picture of the planet, so she can show them to her daughter, who's been living with her grandparents waiting for her mom to return.

Gert : The Pikmin!Version of Gertrude. (Once again, why not ? It's the only one I was able to replicate in game !) She's a version of Gertrude, right ? So, not the kindest soul in the world. She has a pretty normal life actually (Unlike the main version, who's completely Picked up), and even got a delivering job on her Home Planet, Aridlyfan.

She crashed on the planet due to a glitch in her ship, and was saved by Pomme. She used to be a space pirate in her youth, and got some surviving abilities that only her is able to use. She would love to actually lead a Pikmin army, but she's absurdly bad at it. She somehow managed to make a Yellow Pikmin drown and burn at the same time. She only ever talk to Pomme, since she saved her, and is a bit awkward at speaking with the others. She actually only want to get back home.

Dr Ivo : The Pikmin!Version of Eggman. (I mean, you know ? Why not ?) He's a former colleague of Russ, but they both went on different path in life, since Ivo's way were kinda forbidden on most planets. Let's say he doesn't have a very cool moral compass. He's life dream is to make a Theme Park around himself, and filled the planet with nothing but robots. He crashed on the planet as he was searching a new base for his plans. He didn't come alone, since two colleague of him, Dr Stone and Dr Snively, got lost during the crash.

He'll kindly ask Pomme to find them back. (Once they're back at the base, you'll get two vastly different opinion of Ivo from both of them) He thinks he could make robots out of Pikmin's energy, and find great interest in this discovery. He would totally do all that his way, if it wasn't for Russ watching an eye on him.

He find a great interest to upgrade the few mechanical creature on the planet, specially the Man-At-Leg.

___

Also, little bonus on the scrapped "D" character from Pikmin 3, that you can kinda recreate in game as well ! I surname him... Dee. Yeah, don't know what to say on that one.

He's a koppian that got lost during a vacation trip. He's completely unrelated to the others Koppian from the game, and doesn't know anything about them. He doesn't speak too much, but he sure love to help, whatever the thing is. But he sometimes goofy, and got lost easily, so you have to find him back.

Pikmin (c) nintendo

Artwork made by me.

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purplekoop · 1 month ago

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Took a bit of a hiatus thanks to work and such, but back on day 10 of updating the Darkworld cast, now with one more character I wasn't expecting to get to this month, let alone in this role: the insectoid mastermind, Hyvera!

So, as she's a much fresher addition to the cast than anyone besides Cassandra, Hyvera's backstory is fairly uncertain right now. So instead of sharing her canon in-universe history, here's a brief peak into her history behind the scenes.

One of the older concepts for a DWS character was a cybernetic bug creature. He was ambiguously more ant-like, while also having a surgical theme, being able to turn his hands into saws or drills. However, when considering characters to shave off in a more minimal cut of the cast, this bug character was cut due to being planned as a slower zoner character, vaguely similar to Samus in Smash, which felt like a crowded archetype at the time that he didn't really offer an interesting take on. When considering reintegrating some version of this character, I wanted to focus on what could make them stand out: unique and aggressive aerial mobility, leaning much more into the strengths of the subgenre, while also giving their minion master gimmick more nuance than just projectile spam.

So enter another failed concept: Hyvera, but as they were intended for War Bots. Hyvera was originally planned as a support with a unique drone management gameplay loop, requiring resource management and strategy loosely inspired by Pikmin. However, no iteration of this concept felt like it could feasibly work in action. Early on the drones were meant to be a small number of full entities (essentially flying multi-purpose turrets with extensive management controls), but this could easily strain how much one character could impact the number of things happening in a game at once, which felt like a bad idea for the sake of both player-end readability and development-end practicality. In a more hero-shooter style game with smaller team sizes this idea could have potential, but with War Bots as a more classic class shooter with bigger teams, having potentially 20 Hyveras each with several complex drones sounds absolutely hellish to both play and handle performance-wise. A more novel idea later on was that the drones were essentially just bullets that did lingering damage or healing, as opposed to Hyvera having her own personal weapon like she did previously, but this felt like it was losing the appeal of the concept in the first place. Even with some resource management element, there just wasn't that same thematic cohesion with the drones being proper beings, instead basically just being either lingering overheal or a different flavor of poison damage. So, Hyvera was shelved, and the fourth support in her place is still not totally certain as of now either.

So we had an old bug for DWS that needed an overhaul including a new name, design, and gameplay feel, and an old bug for War Bots with a similar theme/gimmick and a design that lends itself way better to freeform fast-paced movement that just didn't fit that style of gameplay. With a bit of discussion on my collaborator/sibling on where to take this new interpretation stylistically, and taking a hairstyle cue from one more character of mine with a similar gimmick, we have the character now known as Hyvera. So all that said, how does she work now?

In terms of stats, Hyvera is among the lightest in the cast, but with the best air speed, and solid ground speed as well. Her air game is opened up especially with her first of a few unique mechanics: instead of a set number of midair jumps, Hyvera has a limited free flight duration, indicated by a stamina meter that appears next to her while in use. Holding the jump button midair will allow you to accelerate upwards, and you can start and stop flying as much as you want as long as you have the stamina for it. Stamina recharges quickly (though not instantly) while on the ground. Using this and her air speed, Hyvera can fly through the air with unmatched precision.

Hyvera's next signature mechanic relates to another part of her insectoid anatomy, the Extraction Stinger. This cybernetic stinger acts as the sweetspot of many of Hyvera's moves, notably increasing damage and hitstun if the stinger itself hits and not her thorax. This includes her up special, Stinger Dive, which has her ready for a moment before lunging stinger-first based on your directional input. If the spike hits while aimed down or diagonally downwards, then the victim is spiked along with your trajectory. However, if you stab into a wall or floor, you will be stuck in place temporarily as Hyvera pulls herself out. Some moves, like her rapid jab, pummel, and forward throw all only have stinger hitboxes, but are weaker accordingly. Landing these stinger attacks also extracts data from enemies, measured in Data Points, or DP. DP is displayed as a meter of bubbly fluid next to Hyvera's percentage display. DP will also slowly generate over time, and you start each stock with 50 out of its max of 100.

But what is DP used for? Well, naturally, it's her final special mechanic: Hive Drones. Drones are created using Hyvera's neutral special, Drone Production. Holding the special input will allow you to select one of four drones by holding up, left, right, or down, then releasing the special input with the desired direction held will have Hyvera release one from her mouth to await on standby hovering behind her. You can only have up to 5 drones at a time, and attempting to create a sixth will have the oldest drone fly off screen to be replaced by your new selection. Tapping the input will instead cycle which drone is next to be active. You then send a drone forward using her side special, Attack Directive. All drones will fly forward a set distance in the hopes of hitting an enemy, though they will automatically fly to you back if they don't. Drones will also bounce off of shields, leaving them vulnerable for a moment before they retreat. While attacking, each drone type has unique properties:

Skeeters are weak mosquito-like drones, and cost only 15 DP to produce. They have the second highest flight speed, but are destroyed when hit by any attack whatsoever. Upon hitting an enemy, the Skeeter will latch onto them, slowly leeching their health with their proboscis. Skeeters can't drain health from a shielding enemy, but will instead cause their shield to be damaged at an increased rate. After leeching enough health (indicated by the fullness of their back pouch), the Skeeter will fly back to Hyvera, and restore both her health and DP proportional to the damage dealt. Hyvera can recollect the Skeeter early by grabbing its victim, but if they instead hit Hyvera with a melee attack or throw, then the Skeeter is shaken off while losing all of its stolen health. Their cheap cost makes them effective to rack up early damage and aid your DP income, and even help offset Hyvera's low weight with their lifesteal aspect, but they struggle to help close out a stock.

Darters are fast dragonfly-like drones, and cost 25 DP each. Darters fly at high speeds, and will slash through enemies (though not shields) along their path, before sharply turning around to strike again on their return back to you. The damage is relatively weak, but their good range and high speed makes them useful for applying bursts of pressure, or starting/extending a combo.

Flingers are bulky beetle-like drones with massive mandibles, costing 40 DP. They're slow fliers, but have enough health to survive some weak attacks, and don't flinch when hit. Upon hitting an enemy, they will grab them in their pincers, then fling them either left or right depending on whichever side Hyvera is on. They will still bounce off of shields, but are capable of bypassing super armor and counter-style attacks with their grab. While reactable, the threat of their throw as an exceptional combo starter requires respect.

Bursters are small, winged, ant-like drones that are curled around their massive transparent thorax full of menacing bubbling liquid, and cost 30 BP to produce. These volatile menaces fly the slowest of any drone, but will violently explode upon touching an enemy or being hit by any attack, including any of Hyvera's. This explosion is the most lethal attack in Hyvera's kit, but can easily be disarmed or even used against her if the enemy can safely detonate it from a distance, which also wastes the BP used to produce it. However, in a pinch, this friendly fire can be used to Hyvera's advantage when recovering, as the knockback both launches you up and resets her freefall, though at higher percents the knockback will KO her anyways.

Hyvera's drones can also be commanded with her Guard Special, Defense Priority. Upon use, all drones on the field return to Hyvera, and form a protective bubble around themselves that hits enemies and overpowers other attacks and projectiles. The drones will cycle around Hyvera in an evenly spaced circle, meaning the coverage will be weaker and less hits will occur with less drones. The attack ends when the last drone finishes its lap around Hyvera, which also acts as a launcher while the prior hits combo into it. All drone types behave the same for the purposes of this move, not applying any special on-hit effects.

Hyvera's last special move is her down special: Sectoid Snatch. This move has her fly ahead with outstretched arms, or dive diagonally downwards and forwards if used in the air. If she successfully finds a victim, she will be able to use her free flight for a short time with her prey in tow. Pressing special or letting the timer run out will cause Hyvera to toss her victim directly downwards as a weak spike that can start combos, while pressing attack will have her jab her stinger into the victim's chest, dealing strong forwards knockback and generating a significant chunk of DP. Successfully landing the move will also refresh Hyvera's flight stamina, but missing the move leaves her extremely vulnerable.

With ALL that said, it's needless to reiterate that Hyvera is one of the most complex members of the cast, playing her own resource management game along with having some extremely freeform movement options in the air. Unlike some other minion master characters, Hyvera is far from helpless on her own thanks to her mobility and equally fast and combo-friendly normals. However, these normals don't do her many favors in terms of stage control or kill confirms, both of which she struggles in without drones. Drones are powerful in what they offer, but require taking risks in order to use to their fullest, both in terms of gathering the DP to make them and in commanding them properly without them getting destroyed, wasting your investment. This high-risk high-reward mentality is a pervasive theme in Hyvera's playstyle, with her high speed but low weight, and several devastating attacks that can end either player's stock early. With so much decision making integral to every moment of her gameplay, Hyvera is a character that can be hard to do well with, but is devastating when the master plan comes together.

So this surprise addition is almost certainly one of the absolute wildest in terms of inspirations (Olimar, Ridley, Q Bee, Charmy, and my DnD character) and development history, but I hope all this was at least vaguely comprehensible. But we're back after a long break! And we've only got four characters left on the agenda, meaning we're actually primed to be finished for now by month's end! There are more characters planned, but they're either major story spoilers or were created by my friend I collaborated on this project with heavily, but have had spotty contact with for a while. I don't want to take those ideas without his stated approval, so for now they're gonna have to wait for their updates. They're some great ones though, so they'll be worth the wait.

#darkworld showdown #koop's oc stuff #my art

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bulletbilltime · 1 year ago

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Pikmin 4 verdict: Ok this is gonna be the best game in the series isn't it

Stray thoughts below:

SPOILERS FOR THE PIKMIN 4 DEMO BELOW

The caves are... actually interesting and well designed?? no more half-assed roguelike random cave attempts (sorry pik2 fans but that game's caves just cannot compete IMO)

That being said... I'm a bit disappointed so far that we're only seeing the same styles of caves as Pik2. They do look gorgeous though, mind you.

Industrial Maze was such a cool cave, simply by virtue of actually having a proper puzzle it's already my favourite cave in the series not named Submerged Castle.

Oatchi my beloved!!! he actually works way better with the game flow than I expected when I first saw him in the trailer. He doesn't feel too overpowered; he's basically an upgradable super pikmin but he doesn't ever particularly feel like he truly outshines the actual Pikmin. (Maybe he could if he gets all the upgrades but

YOU CAN FUCKIN MOVE BASES I'M FSBGFJKSHSAJKDLHS I WAS PRAYING TO THE GODS WE'D GET AN OPENWORLD PIKMIN GAME WITH MULTIPLE BASES AND IF THIS IS AS CLOSE AS WE GET I'M FINE WITH IT

The 20 pikmin in the overworld thing might feel super limiting after being used to squads of 100 piks in the previous games... But honestly I think it's a very inspired design choice! It makes it so the early game stuff can still wreck your shit if you're not careful. You can't just easily roll up with a squad of 100 piks on day 3 and destroy everything in your path. It allows for your in-game character to become progressively more powerful which I think is more satisfying in the long run

I love how you don't just automatically get the onion upon finding new Pikmin types. Makes them feel more precious. Basically: the wild pikmin mechanic is really neat! And it could allow for the return of Purple/Whites without feeling too unbalanced.

"Olimar is the fuckin leaf boy" basically confirmed. Question is: what's with Moss? My current theory is parasite pikmin are involved.

And speaking of... the wild pikmin mechanic means we could possibly get overworld bulbmin if they add them... if this happens, I imagine the entire fandom will go nuclear (in a good way)

If you look through the controls, the Form Line controls basically confirms that you will obtain some form of SWARMING as an upgrade!!! C-STICK FANS REJOICE (The text mentions cardinal directions only but I feel like the odds are high that you will be able to actually swarm your crew with this mechanic. I'd say 70-30 odds of it being true. Don't quote me on that. But if true, then fuck yeah)

Honeywisp is back 🥹

Collecting raw material is so much fun, and

I feel like this game is really leaning on fan service, but also manages to balance it with new things to make it feel fresh!

Someone said it felt like all 3 previous games mashed together and yeah I absolutely get that feeling

Very disappointed that they only have the co-op star bits thing. This game in genuine co-op would rule.

So far the music of the game doesn't quite strike me quite as strongly as the themes from the previous games. Hopefully this will change with time.

Is this game like... an alternate timeline to Pikmin 1? Moss was definitely NOT in Pikmin 1, and the story segment seems to hint that Olimar met Moss during that first crash... Giving the "bad ending" theorists more food IMO.......

This game really, really drags out the wait between Y/N landing on the planet and the first Pikmin huh. It felt a bit too much that you went through the first cave before even getting a single pikmin IMO.

I really like the crew in this game!! They're fun, though they do talk a lot and I could see that bothering some ppl.

Honestly I was super disappointed when I thought there were only 6 crewmates to find in the entire game... but then I found the first castaway and I was back to being excited

I like that you have a little base to meet ppl and discuss tasks!

One of the castaways I saved wrote notes on the Treasures I collected. This implies that we will probably get a biologist who will make notes on the creatures 👀

TL;DR: July 21st can't get here fast enough. The 2 hours or so I've played of this game is already my GOTY and it could genuinely challenge for GOAT (game of all time) if it sticks the landing with the rest of the game.

#pikmin 4 #pikmin 4 spoilers #might make more thoughts if I think them #anyway HYPE MODE ENGAGED #I will be normal (lie) for the next 4 weeks (absolutely not I am going feral)

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bikwin5 · 1 year ago

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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

#pikmin #pikmin 4

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marxmatter · 1 year ago

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i saw water wraith back in pikmin 4 and my immediate thought was "back by unpopular demand: me"

and four times more!!!

also unpopular opinion: like it’s cool they brought back the waterwraith since it was my proper introduction to this flubber fella on wheels and I am not complaining but it would have been even cooler if we got another new wraith… another weird blobby guy… hopefully next game <3

#pikmin #waterwraith

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h-worksrambles · 2 years ago

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Rapid fire thoughts after the Nintendo Direct

Overall, I thought the Direct was pretty OK, but there were a handful of announcements that really stood out to me.

-Professor Layton finally making a comeback is wonderful news. I only played the first 3 DS titles but I’m stlll very fond of them, and it’s splendid to see the series return after so long.

-Tears of the Kingdom continues to look fantastic the more we see of it. Part of me wishes the game gets a proper showcase, but I’m also glad they’re keeping spoilers to a minimum. Also is my man Ganondorf finally getting a voice!?

-The Metroid Prime remaster, holy hell! I got into Metroid properly in 2021 as Dread led me to binge the rest of the series. Prime is a wonderful game and this remster looks clean as hell. I’m very tempted to get that digital download tonight as long as it’s not too expensive.

-GBA games on Switch being Expansion Pass exclusive is infuriating but expected. More incentive to buy what I need off the Wii U eShop before it closes I guess.

-While I only ever played the first, Pikmin 4 looks lovely. Very tempted to look into the series further.

-Similar with Kirby. The only game I ever played was Kirby Super Star, but with all the praise I’ve heard for Forgotten Land and now seeing Return to Dreamland getting a Bowser’s Fury style bonus campaign for Magalor, it seems like there’s no better time to give the series a proper shot.

-Not the biggest Splatoon fan but the DLC looks really cool.

-Delighted to see Advance Wars make it out of hiatus jail at last. I’m very tempted to finally try this series out too.

And last, the thing you know I’m gonna lose my mind over: the Xenoblade DLC. The new hero has a cool new design, I promise I won’t make a Steven Universe joke. The idea that she’ll help you make OP accessories is cool, but I wonder what her battle capabilities will be. I’m guessing Support? The Archsage Gauntlet sounds like a really neat spin on the battle system. Making solo builds will require a whole different strategy to the game’s team building techniques. And the legacy costumes look really cool, I especially like Taion in Jin’s outfit.

And of course: HOLY HELL. My boys.

They look so good! Rex especially got the glowup of the goddamn century.

Alvis is BACK? But he’s using Fog KIng powers? And Bionis Leg? Also, Noah ancestor, so this is definitely a Founders prequel. I have SO many questions and I can’t WAIT to learn more.

Overall, not an insane direct but enough announcements that made me personally happy that I can’t complain. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go download that Octopath 2 demo.

#nintendo direct #xenoblade chronicles 3 #professor layton #pikmin 4 #the legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #metroid pime #metroid

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snavian · 1 year ago

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How do I get back into DRG? I hit 600 hours and all of my motivation to play it instantly vanished. I wasn’t even finished a bunch of the goals that I had set, my brain just said “ no, we ain’t doing this anymore” and I can’t make myself get back into it. It really sucks because it is/was my favourite game, and I want to finish everything. How have you avoided/ fixed getting burned out from this game?

To be entirely honest, I have 1,100+ hours at this point and haven't really hit a proper burnout yet. I REALLY enjoy the basic gameplay loop of it, probably more than the average player, so that might be how I've kept going so long. BUT if it helps, here are my gameplay habits when it comes to DRG:

- I only play a handful of missions per day, for as long as I find it fun. The moment I start getting tired/grumpy with it I stop for the day. I think this one is the most important because it's very tempting to do assignments all in one go, or repeat deep dives until you complete them. Take a break, the game isn't going anywhere.

- I change loadouts regularly. I currently have 3-4 loadouts for each of the classes that I swap between, and it really helps keeping classes from getting boring. Obviously it takes some time to develop and learn new loadouts but testing different weapons and synergies is one of the most fun things in the game to me.

- Play missions that you enjoy! I could play on haz 4-5 but I don't, I play on haz 3 because it's where I have the most fun. If I don't have an assignment I always look for missions with extra anomalies/hazard warnings. Sometimes I play refinery three times in a row because it's my favourite mission type. Goals are good, but don't let them force you to play in a way that's not fun for you.

- DRG is not the only game I play and I really do think that helps. Recently I've also been playing TF2, Minecraft, TBoI and Pikmin- variety keeps things interesting and ultimately sometimes you just aren't in the mood to play a specific game. Or playing one game makes you miss playing another one (sorry TF2 but I prefer DRG's weapons more >.>)

Ultimately I am kind of a freak for DRG and the fact I haven't burnt myself out yet is a surprise even to me so I'm not sure how much this'll help but I sincerely hope it does! And there's really no shame in taking a longer break if ya gotta, forcing yourself when you're not enjoying it won't make it any better, y'know?

Either way, Rock and Stone!

#magstext #deep rock galactic #(...and the game won't be updating for another uh. 8 months. so it really isn't going anywhere)

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magicwhiskers29 · 1 year ago

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Taking a break from my regularly scheduled staring out the window to give some thoughts on Pikmin 4 now that I've finished it! (finished the main game, anyway)

Spoilers, of course, ahead!

Great game! I enjoyed it a lot! I will be being obnoxious about it, but having waited a decade for it, I feel that's justified

I wasn't sure I was going to like the Rescue Corps during the first hour or so, but no, they're extremely fun. Their conversations at the end of the day/night are often completely insane, but I live for it. Highlights include:

Shepherd explaining that she hired Bernard because he delivered packages faster than any one else (probably through illegal means)

Collin telling Shepherd his current job was the hardest he's ever had, after listing a bunch of taxing jobs

Literally any time Yonny talks about his experiments ("glow pikmin are immune to all hazards" "yonny how do you know this? yonny!?!?")

Dingo's guilty conscience about leaving Bernard behind causing him to confess the truth of the incident when Bernard was just talking about stolen pizza

Bernard claiming that sleeping is an integral part of his job

Shepherd abruptly stopping the ship after the fake credits for Oatchi was really sweet too; it really helped to sell the moment.

Olimar in the second half was a really nice addition. It was good to see him defending the fact that Moss didn't need to change, at the end, even if it meant leaving her behind. They were a fun duo.

AND LOUIE! "Grade A troublemaker" indeed... I was waiting for him to show up and cause trouble the whole game, and he sure did! His memos in the voyage log are hilarious to read through (I particularly enjoyed the one about him planning to just make random nonsense up to use as a report to send to the President, since he's kind of just been vibing and enjoying the planet, rather than looking for Olimar) And goddamit, Louie, you've got to stop controlling final bosses!!! He's awful. (Never change, Louie)

Gameplay-wise, I think I definitely miss Pikmin 3's multiple captain system, but Oatchi can feel like a suitable replacement. Some Dandori challenges and night missions where it was optimal to control him separately definitely gave me back the feeling of piloting around three captains at once. "Go here" was definitely more of a thing I used because I was too lazy to find the way, as opposed to proper Dandori efficiency, though, on account of most commands being better if you want to send Oatchi or your captain somewhere.

In general, Oatchi is definitely a little OP too (I mean, I killed the final Empress Bulblax in one spicy-spray-fueled rush....), but is also really satisfying to control, so I won't complain too much. And I think the advantages you get from riding with him are interesting when you have to decide whether it's better to keep him with you for rushes and ease of traversal, or send him off to do something for multitasking, in Dandori challenges. He's a certified good boy.

Ice Pikmin were a wonderful new edition to the roster, I found. There was less incentive to just freeze water, rather than go in with blues, than I was expecting, which was good! It helped them to feel more balanced. The limited damage from them also helped, here, though definitely less so, because ice pikmin are, of course, still very much combat-viable. I've seen it suggested that creatures killed whilst frozen should not drop nectar/ spicy spray, and yeah, I agree there. Most of the time, that is not a disadvantage over using non-ice pikmin for the kill, and can also be actively advantageous. But they're not jarringly unbalanced as some other types have been before, imo, so I definitely think positively of them.

Night missions were way more fun than I expected! I went in with a lot of trepidation, but I love the general concept. It makes a lot of sense that when we finally get night missions, they're defensive endeavours, and we haven't just spent 3 games avoiding the surface at night for nothing. I enjoyed how they increased in difficulty by stacking and creating factors like the extra Lumiknoll, and Smokey Progg egg(s). (Also the Baldy Long Legs. Aghgh. It was a problem.) I didn't really find myself using items like the game kept trying to suggest, though. Only the occasional emergency lightning if something was at the Lumiknoll, or my usual spicy spray.

Glow Pikmin were really cool for the night missions, too. They have a great design, and their mechanics are definitely tailored excellently for night missions. Teleporting to the active player's location is a must-have, and Glow Mob keeps you in the habit of charging like you would usually rush really well. The glow seed mechanic for them was well appreciated, and the ten I made for the Cavern for a King were used to their fullest! (Not exactly like I was able to leave them at the sublevel entrance like I might with all the others...) I am a little sad how they completely invalidate blues in caves, but that's mostly because blues are my favourites; I only used them in the last cave anyway (Along with the blues, of course!) They are kinda just Bulbmin+, but that's fine; they're used uniquely

For the most part, I thought returning pikmin were handled well, too.

Reds got less use than I thought they would, but I think that's because of the three pikmin limit. (Why would I bring out reds for combat when I could just spicy spray the pikmin I actually need for overworld use?) Though their use in Giant's Hearth and the Frozen Inferno was really interesting, I will say.

Yellows felt like a proper staple for the first three or four areas, though did start getting less use, though I think that's just because areas stopped being designed for them. (I was definitely missing them in night missions for those Baldy Long Legs...)

I've already discussed blues a little, but I do appreciate how a lot of what water there was was tailored for using blues rather than wings, ice, or Oatchi. I think they could absolutely benefit from a secondary ability like most other types have, to give me a reason to use them in caves other than personal biases, and glow pikmin only make that more obvious.

Purple Pikmin are back, and I think their reworks were done well! A 1.5x damage multiplier instead of 2x, and lack of stun on impact make them considerably less OP when compared to Pikmin 2, whilst still retaining their core characteristics better than 3. Locking their onion behind a challenge most people will leave until later (people like me. I haven't actually done it yet, but I will) helps to keep them balanced too, so you won't just steamroll with a squad of all purples.

White Pikmin are back too, and whilst they, strictly speaking, only got nerfed, I still think they're pretty good here. Glow pikmin can't match their speed, and I think of their two abilities, that's the more valuable one, anyway, since poison isn't really used much until the final area.

Rock Pikmin cannot be matched by glow pikmin in any way, and are still as good as ever, though, woah, the final area really shafted them. You can't get them in the final cave? And you don't need them for anything? :( (maybe they know my defensive strategies of going in with only rocks to avoid being crushed too well...)

And Winged Pikmin aren't nerfed exactly (unless you count their ai being slightly wonky at times in their pathing for carrying things back), but they definitely have significantly less to do. Like rocks, they aren't in the final cave, though I think I definitely would have used them if they were, so maybe that's on me for not bringing them in.

Otherwise, I adored Dandori. I platinumed all the Pikmin 3 collect the treasure missions with my dad on the Wii U back in the day, and the Dandori challenges gave me that exact feeling again. I'm very excited to go through and platinum them all. (Though I think that might be a little easier than in 3, considering I found it fairly easy to platinum, or come very close to platinum many on the first try...)

Dandori battles were fun too! Nobody ever wanted to Bingo Battle me in Pikmin 3, but now I can have Olimar's trash AI! Yay? Seriously, Olimar's ai is probably a little too bad in some of the early Dandori battles, because it felt like he wasn't even trying. The Louie battles were really good, though. Those felt like an actual competition. (And the final Olimar battle, but that one to a lesser extent.)

I'll talk briefly about areas too, and say that, whilst I think they were lacking in variety compared to usual, I did very much still enjoy their gimmicks and map design. The Serene Shores are a great example of this, with the tide gimmick being fun to work around, and the sand castle overlooking the rest of the map being an excellent base.

As for the caves, the Pikmin 2 callbacks were wonderful (even if the Engulfed Castle did leave me terrified. Seriously, my only other Pikmin post before playing this game was me talking about being terrified of the Submerged Castle...), and I thought the new ones were cool too! The Subzero Sauna, Frozen Inferno, and Below-grade Discotheque, for example, with their interesting use of ice pikmin, use of red pikmin, and cool boss respectively.

Of course, the stand-out cave is the Cavern for a King, which, despite mostly just being a boss rush, has such creative ways of increasing difficulty on past bosses, that I have to praise it. It's incredible how just adding water can make the arachnorb bosses more challenging, and fighting the Smokey Progg without access to a proper glow mob definitely felt scary. The Ancient Sirehound was an excellent final boss too, with its gloom phase being actually decently challenging and intimidating. (Though I wish it had water and poison phases too, for completion's sake) It was definitely appropriate for the final cave!

I'd be remiss to not at least mention the music. I don't think I like the ost quite as much as I like Pikmin 3's (but that is a personal staple...), but that's not to say it's not great! There are still many stand-out tracks such as the tough enemy theme (which?? Just?? Went so hard???), the Groovy Long Legs's theme, Hero's Hideaway's theme, the Dandori challenge theme, and of course, the Ancient Sirehound's theme (with references to Pikmin 3's boss theme, my beloved), to name a few.

So yeah, it's a great game, and one I would definitely recommend :)

#Pikmin #Pikmin 4 #pikmin 4 spoilers #Whiskers rambles #Im so glad this post wasn't actually lost to the void you don't even understand #I will infodump about pikmin at anytime haha #(that's a threat probably)

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