#pikmin reviews

[subnautica-reviews]

Hey so I haven’t made a pikmin creatures review in quite some time. That’s because DAVE (the same guy who said my bulborb costumes suck) decided it would be funny to delete my entire piklopedia. Now I can’t do pikmin creature reviews. Screw you Dave.

[genderqueer-miharu]

I really think we need to make it illegal for people to say "the game is too easy" in a videogame review/critique

[i-rate-creatures]

HI the Pikmin games have so many delightful creatures and I love them all and would submit them if I could but my personal favorite is the Nectarous Dandelfly if you'd like!!

ohhh... what a creature.... ohhhhh.. hell yeah... fuzzy, winged,,, HARMLESS ENEMY.... oh this guy is awesome i love it. i havent played any of the pikmin games but it sounds REALLY fun so i might have to try it out. this creature gets a solid 10/10 <3

🪰🦗🐜

[chocochococoffee]

i believe this vacations made me walk quite a lot this year!!

[florrrfauna]

My Art Year in Review for 2023! I feel like I had to leave out a lotta really good pieces, since I drew so much ;;

[yoshizora]

another small batch of game reviews. this time i played through Princess Peach Showtime, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, and Pikmin 4!

Princess Peach Showtime: 5/10

unfortunately i am not the target audience for this game! i am no longer a child! the concept is cute as hell but DAMN is this game numbingly simple. the simplicity isn't necessarily a bad thing; i can see this being a great entry to video games for younger children because there's nothing terribly complex going on, but it does mean that it's not fun for OLD PEOPLE like me.

phantom thief peach was probably my fave. the detective levels were the worst. i thought patisserie peach was also neat. sword, kung fu, and superhero all felt somewhat redundant to one another. there were a lot of neat concepts in there and the levels were short enough that it never got outright boring, but it also means that imho this game isn't worth 60USD and only has that price tag because of the nintendo/mario brand name (i didn't buy it, it was just a library loan). i could see this being a Barbie game, honestly. it's not a bad thing ftr!

somehow, Yoshi's Crafted World is more challenging and complex than this game.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze: 6/10

i'm sorry if i'm committing some kind of blasphemy by admitting i didn't fully enjoy dkctf but......... yeah.... full disclaimer, the only other DK came i've ever played was the one with the bongos on gamecube lol.

the level designs and music were both impeccable and i love the vibrant atmosphere, but the controls?? look, maybe DK games are just slippery by tradition but i wouldn't know that, i only know how to play bongos, man. i had heard that this is a hard game but the difficulty feels contrived from slippery, unreliable controls rather than the actual platforming.

to compare; celeste has tight controls but a high difficulty because of how precise your movements need to be, and hk's path of pain is difficult for the same reasons, while tropical freeze feels difficult because sometimes donkey kong will slip on an invisible banana and clip an enemy by his toe and get hurt and fuckin die even if you meant for him to jump away out of a roll, which he does not, because he gives no fucks.

there are clear distinctions between challenges that are difficult in a fun way and challenges that are difficult in a frustrating way, and unfortunately dktf ended up being the latter for me. skill issue!

Pikmin 4: 9/10

oatchi.

since i only have pikmin 3 under my belt for comparison... 4 is definitely easier and more forgiving imo, even when it comes to the big bosses. it's not a bad thing! sometimes i don't want pikmin to die!! i love the abundance of treasures and olimar's side story and the dandori challenges, buuuut i wish enemies would respawn in the overworlds and not just the caves. it does make returning to grab remaining treasures a lot easier, but it also means there's 0 reason to revisit an area once you 100% it, which is kind of a bummer.

i also did NOT like how much tutorial and beginning exposition there was, so i knock a point off for that. everyone pls stop talking i just want to go out and throw pikmin at things.

at first i didn't really like how you're limited to 3 pikmin types, but i kind of got used to it after a while. i also wish there were more dandori battle options like with customizable pikmin teams, but i thought the gathering challenges to have more replay value anyway. the endgame dandori challenges are hellish but excellent!!! that's what i'm talking about when i talk about challenges that are difficult but fun!!! i want more dandori!!!!!!

[shower-racoon]

is there a New Game+ mode in Pikmin 4?

[struttinevilshroom]

A Narrow Perspective of Pikmin 4

So, I played Pikmin 4 with my friend. My friend, a guy who has played every Pikmin game (including hey Pikmin and the Pikmin game in Nintendoland) and has 100% completed Pikmin 2 which happens to be the most challenging Pikmin game. As for me, the extent of Pikmin knowledge is basically just what my friend tells me and I guess also bingo battles in Pikmin 3.

I'm trying to say that, I have a Narrow Perspective on Pikmin (boom title drop).

Sorry about that, I accidentally pressed on the question and I don't know how to remove it.

I went to my friend's house and he said that we were gonna beat Pikmin 4. I was only helping him with the final cave and final boss. I should also preface that this won't have any spoilers.

How Pikmin 4's co op works is that the first player is doing all the Pikmin throwing and the second player is kinda like the second player in Mario Galaxy, it's an offscreen entity throwing things to help the first player out. The second player can throw rocks to damage enemies or to speed up Pikmin who are carrying treasures to the ship and the more rocks thrown, the more a meter will fill. Once the meter is full, the second player will obtain an item which can only be used by them. This meter does not fill too quickly or too slowly, I think it fills up at an adequate pace. We played together for 2 hours roughly and we had just enough items, we were never in excess and we were never out of any particular item that we needed at that moment. The one outlier for this would be the PikPik carrots, they were always in excess and I had 80 of them exactly before fighting the final boss. It is safe to assume that I ended the game with 77 or 78 of them because I remember accidentally throwing a pikpik carrot 2 or 3 times.

I always knew this friend of mine was professional, I watched him decimate Pikmin 2's Water Wraith and he's always sharing strategies for cheesing (to beat a segment of a game in a way that the developers did not intend) bosses in these games. I didn't know just how good he was until we worked our way to the final boss, I didn't know just how vast his knowledge of Pikmin was until we worked through this final area. We were going in almost completely blind and once he saw layout of any given map and it's enemies, almost instantaneously, he would devise a strategy. This was impressive to someone like me as I usually became overwhelmed by the bosses and his calm demeanor contrasted my surprise.

Of course, every game has the factor of chance and no matter how good you are, there will always be something you can't account for (I'm an earthbound/mother player, I should know this) and this resulted in a few losses. Like, at one point a rolling obstacle resulted in 90% of our Pikmin falling into the Abyss. Another loss, would be our encounter with an enemy from Pikmin 1 and it killed all of our blue Pikmin and the game told us that it wouldn't be wise to progress without them. Other than those 2 losses, we made quick work out each area. I can't speak for my friend but I certainly had a lot of fun even if I was just pelting enemies with rocks and the occasional bomb. I guess it's just fun when someone's really passionate about any given game and they kinda have that capacity to geek out about it and show off their knowledge and skills in regards to it. I was also able to put a face to the enemies and bosses he mentioned in our conversations about Pikmin.

This game also contains one of my favorite things in all of gaming, rest areas. Rest areas are severely overlooked, like yeah, they're gonna save you and prepare the character that you're playing as for whatever lays beyond but rest areas should also prepare the player mentally, one game that does this really well is Mother 3 and I guess Earthbound because Mother 3 gives you hot springs to restore everything and remove all ailments but also there's relaxing music, sometimes there's a rare npc to chat to which always eases my mind before a fight, Earthbound also rest areas, which are usually little parts off to the side of the action with butterflies like in Giant Step, coincidentally this is also usually in caves. I'm going to stop right there with Mother talk because I can talk about that series forever. This game also gives you rest areas both official and unofficial. In my mind, I classify official rest areas as a break from battles where you can heal up and prepare your character for what is to come while also preparing yourself as the player and unofficial ones are just the same thing but they're not there to prepare the character, just to prepare the player (this is not an actual definition, it's just a distinction in my mind). All the actual rest areas are chock full nectar and treasure but they also have ambient music to calm the player. There's also the part after you beat all the enemies on one sublevel and your Pikmin carry everything to the ship and everything is just empty. I know some people find empty spaces unnerving but I find them relaxing, I used to watch those empty mall videos to get to sleep back in the day. Anyway, there's so much empty space in these areas and it's usually a rush to get to the next sublevel but sometimes my friend would excuse himself to go to the bathroom or to do something else and I'd sit there and stare at everything. I'd stare at the emptiness, the Pikmin carrying remnants of humanity away, the dark Abyss that lay below, the beautiful graphics and I listen to the music, it's kind of beautiful in a sense, I have a Narrow Perspective on Pikmin but I wonder if they've ever explored themes like this in previous games, I know Olimar expresses some interest in the previous inhabitants but do they ever explore the idea that people roamed pnf-404 and had each of them had their own lives and now that's all gone? But who's "they"? I shouldn't be calling the previous inhabitants "them" because it's us.

Oh, he's back from the bathroom, I guess let's carry on with the review. Where was I? Oh yeah, the ambient music is really good in this game and when you're actually engaging in battle, there's this almost tribal music that plays, I've jested that it sounds like Monsters University montage music but as good as that is, the beauty of Pikmin's soundtracks always lies in its ambience...

I'm not sure how to transition to this last part so I just put an ellipse at the end of the last paragraph to make it seem like I was leaving you some food for thought even though it was a really blank statement. Anyway, Final boss. I'm not a NARC so I won't be spoiling the final boss for any readers, this is a fairly new game but I will say, if you haven't gotten there yet then please do your best to avoid spoilers because it is a doozy. Even my friend was caught off guard by it and he's a Pikmin veteran, he's crashed on the planet over 4 times now.

I do kinda wanna lightly touch on the characters, just lightly though. I didn't see any of the new characters get fleshed out (do I have to refer to the title of this review for the 3rd time now) so, I'll talk about Louie and Olimar. Louie gets placed in a more sinister light in this game. I feel like the game recognizes the extent of his evil but the characters do not. Olimar is also the most relatable protagonist ever, like he's a family man, who is mistreated at work and can't do anything about this mistreatment. This familial aspect shines through in the way he interacts with the others, (in what I've seen of this game) he acts as an authority and is clearly more experienced, not in regards to using Pikmin but just in general he has more life experience. Also he gives Louie the benefit of the doubt even after all the trouble he caused which just goes to show that he wants to believe that Louie is a good person, it's almost parental, like no parent wants to believe that their child is capable of bad things. I also watched a Pikmin 2 twitch stream the night before, the streamers were actually two content creators who inspire me in writing things like this. If You're into long reviews of old games nobody cares about, then watch Transparency on youtube. Anyway, as a joke they compared the Olimar and Louie to Peanuts characters and I thought that was really funny. Olimar is basically Charlie Brown, everyone mistreats him and he just has to go with it. Not sure who Louie is though.

You decide, which Peanuts character is Louie. I will judge you harshly depending on your answer.

With that, I draw this review to a close. We played together for 2 hours, in total my friend had 55 hours and has 100% every area on his first, blind playthrough. Everyone give him a round of applause. Give yourself a round of applause for reading this long ass review. I'm also sorry for giving you an existential crisis at one point in the review, if it's worth anything, I actually love the fact that our legacy on pnf 404 will live forever through Olimar's notes.

Thank you for reading.

[moonpiesanctuaryupdates]

[maojin]

Pikmin 4 review

i finished playing pikmin 4. i have mixed feelings about it. i didn't like oatchi at first, but he grew on me. his mannerisms were quite cute. i didn't like that there were so many different characters that you had to talk to for quests. but you kind of had to do them in order to continue the game at a regular pace. on the good side, it was definitely a more expansive world with many different things for you to do. if you want variety, this one beats pikmin 3.

unfortunately, it had one really bad weakness that made me nearly quit the game: - you cannot turn off the auto locking cursor. there were many times a boss would kill my pikmin simply because the autolock would lock me onto something that i didn't want. i had to waste extra time tilting the stick just lightly enough so that it would lock onto something else. it was very frustrating. other things: - pikmin intelligence seemed a little different than in pikmin 3. i remember the benefit of flying pikmin in 3 was that they would fly pretty much in a straight line over obstacles, shortening their path. but in this game, there were times they still defaulted to following paths like all of the other pikmin.

[iamgrowingstronger-blog]

RECENT GAME ROUNDUP

Whoops! Haven't posted in a while. I find that a lot of the things I want to say about games I feel would be better in a video format. I don't have the skills to do that yet, but I feel like I would get my points across better than a big fat stinkin' wall of text. Audio-visual game reviews are the future!

Anyway, here's some of the games I played recently.

CONFESS MY LOVE: Found this randomly for free on Steam, and wow! Lovely little game. Super short, can be beaten in a few hours. It seems simple, but when I started getting deeper into the endings, it was amazing!

SUPER MARIO BROS. 2 (JPN): A sequel in the truest sense. If you play this before beating the first game, it seems washed up and bad. But once you beat Mario 1 (without warps!), it gets so much more fun! It's like a challenge pack add-on!

SUPER MARIO 64: Controls like a dream. The camera is a double edged sword; it makes the game harder to play at first, but when you figure it out, it makes the game feel MORE fun. The thing I don't like about the game is that... the midgame is kinda bad. The first several courses are awesome, but once you get into Shifting Sand Land, Hazy Maze Cave, and Big Boo's Haunt, it feels like the game noticeably dips in quality.

DOOM: Been having a lot of fun with this! Advice: DO NOT go into this game thinking it's super fast action-packed gun slinging insanity, because it isn't. When you first start out, it's a lot more methodical and slow, and the action segments are pretty spaced out. You'll be using your minimap a lot to figure out where to go next. But on second playthrough, you'll know the layouts better and get through it faster. Later, even faster. The more you learn, the more action-packed it gets. It's a slow boil, but super worth it. I've only beaten Episode 1 so far, but hopefully the rest of the game is good!

GARTEN OF BANBAN: Yuck! I thought this would be funny-bad, but it was just bad-bad! The drone controls terribly, the chase section is unintuitive, the game is optimized like ass, and it's over before you know it! Super bad game. Even though it's free, I wanted a refund when it ended.

FITNESS BOXING FIST OF THE NORTH STAR: Man! When I saw this in a Nintendo Direct, I got so hyped! This sort of thing is right down my alley. But goodness, Kenshiro's English VA is so BAD. That just turned me right off the game. The rest of it was pretty whatever. I wasn't expecting the world with this one, cause for what it lacked in quality, I would fill in the blanks with my own enjoyment, but this game is too lukewarm even for that! Bleh!

PIKMIN 3: Right as the long-awaited fourth game releases, I start playing the decade-old third game for the first time. I don't know entirely how I feel about it yet, but it's a Pikmin game, so it's a good game.

[bikwin5]

pikmin 4 thouts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[smicklesmoot]

Finished Pikmin 4, fucking loved it

[kitchfit]

Year in Review: Games Pt 3

My penultimate list of games contains a rather random grabbag of obsessions I bounced between over the summer and into the fall. And for this list I do mean obsession. Most of these titles took over my brain for at least a week until I was able to stave it off with something else.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Randomizer

I don't often think too much about the structure of traditional Zelda games when I look back on them. Recently, in an interview, Eiji Aonuma expressed a lack of interest to return to the traditional styled Zelda games, stating "Why do you want to go back to a type of game where you're more limited or more restricted in the types of things or ways you can play?" I understand that sentiment, but I believe the restrictive structure of older Zeldas actively curate the gameplay experience rather than hinder it. There's something to be said about how linearity in a game can be in service to a better story, but in Zelda, the linearity turns the entire map into something of a puzzlebox. There's a reason this franchise inspired Metroid.

These are the thoughts I had while figuring out exactly how Zelda randomizers worked and actually getting one to function properly. A Link to the Past, the game the solidified the Zelda formula. Compared to Zelda I, this game is considerably more linear, each mark of your progression hindered by a Key Item that progressively unlocks more of the world around you until you have free reign of the map. The OG makes this progression path relatively intuitive, but in a randomizer the path still exists, but its been altered. All of the keys are behind new locks, and the experience of finding those locks is almost like playing Alttp for the first time.

Familiar items from the beginning may be moved towards the end. I didn't even find the sword until around the halfway point, and had to get creative when dealing with bosses, but near the end, when I had everything, the game was identical to its original counterpart. In this way, the restrictive nature of the game made it more compelling than if I had free reign of the map from the get go. But I guess the Zelda team just isn't interested in that type of gameplay anymore.

Super Mario Odyssey

This is foreshadowing a much more psychotic stage of this review, which I'll save as the last update to this Year in Review project. The is my first time playing this! Can you believe! I'm apparently something of a "gamer," but one of the most beloved Mario games of modern times remained unplayed and alone... I had to rectify this. And damn, yea. This is the perfect advancement in 3D Mario since the time of Mario Galaxy. The controls are a perfect mix of freedom and control; I was never agitated with Mario's movement. The Moons allowing simple exploration and puzzle solving to be rewarded without booting the player out of the level. Finally, after all this time, Mario has reached the heights of the first Banjo Kazooie game.

This is a lot easier to qualify with hindsight, since well... You'll see! But during my time with the game, what I was most impressed with were the environments. You're exploring entire communities! New sections of the Mario world that we've never seen before that fit perfectly with everything we've seen before. Classic themes with a twist. The Sand Kingdom is a normal dessert level that has been frozen over with an icy curse. The Wooded Kingdom seems at first to be a standard grass theme, but is actually a defunct industrial zone upkept by robots who like to garden! Even New Donk City with its hyper realistic Business People, which seems a wild setting for a Mario game, hearkens back to the older games like Donkey Kong 94. For the first time in a long time, this game got me interested in the lore of the Mario universe, and that would have dire consequences...

Fire Emblem: Awakening

This is one of those franchises I have a lot of love for despite the fact almost every entry has something that makes me stretch my face into a comical frown, like Wile E. Coyote realizing he's been thoroughly duped by the funny bird that goes fast. The Fire Emblem games are already thoroughly difficult tactical rpgs, which are hard enough to invest yourself into without tearing your hair out. Awakening is the game that brought the franchise back from the brink of death, at least in the west, and part of that, I believe, was because of the reintroduction of a mechanic from FE4 I affectionately refer to as "the breeding mechanic."

By slamming your anime chess pieces against each other like action figures to make them kiss, they can get married and have a kid. That child can then be recruited into your army after some goofy time travel antics, and their stats, class options, and abilities are decided based on those of their parent units. This means breeding your units like livestock to create the best child units is the most effective way to play the game, which, I won't lie, is just simulated eugenics. This grossed me out as a teenager when I bought this game, and combined with how hard the game was for me at the time, I put the game down for an indefinite hiatus.

Returning to it after all these years, I am sad to say abusing the breeding mechanic is fun as all hell. Okay, maybe equating romance options in a video game to actual eugenics is a bit harsh. It's not like the game encourages playing like that, it really is just letting you ship your favorite characters together, which is present in every FE game these days. Pairing the units up based not only on chemistry but on available skills allowed me to have a nice time with a pretty fun cast and absolutely WRECK HOUSE through the chapters to the point that difficulty became something of a joke. There's also a story in this game. It's fine. Time travel is in it.

Fire Emblem: Binding Blade

This is lauded as one of the most difficult FE games to ever exist, but it isn't usually said with a happy face. Every map is a "seize map" meaning the primary objective is always to kill the boss and bring the Lord (in this case, Roy) to the place the boss was sitting. Roy stagnates at level 20 around the midpoint of the game, and will not promote until the second to last chapter, meaning he's basically useless in the latter half of the game but still required to use in every chapter. Reinforcements appear to a genuinely goofy degree, and will sometimes capsize your run without any warning. You cannot get the true ending of the game without keeping certain fragile ass characters alive (sometimes on the ENEMY TEAM) that unlock hidden chapters with even more bullshit difficulty. Full disclosure, I had to use a guide + a hack that removed fog to get through this game.

Despite ALL OF THIS, Binding Blade has been one of the most engaging and thought provoking Fire Emblem experiences I've ever had. The plot follows a World War esque scenario. On the relatively peaceful continent of Elibe, the country with the strongest military, Bern, has suddenly broke treaty and attempts to conquer all neighboring states. Roy, a 14 year old noble boy on a quest to deliver reinforcements, is suddenly thrust into the role of general after the commander of Lycia falls in battle against Bern troops. And THAT is why the game's difficulty feels so appropriate! It's an uphill climb from day one, Roy is in no way prepared for this, he's FOURTEEN. He should be playing Animal Crossing on his Nintendo 3DS, consarnit! There's also an interesting twist at the end that calls into question our celebration of history and responsibility of the past, which I might get into if I replay it. And I probably will! There's a very lovingly made hack that remakes all of Binding Blade in FE8 with qol features that made me excited to come back to it in the future.

Pikmin 4 pt 1

I'm still having a hard time believing this game exists. I feel like I'm taking it for granted. Just last year I remember cynically telling my friend this title would probably be in development hell for another half a decade at least. But it's here! And damn what a fantastic return. Similar to Pikmin 2, 4 foregoes time limits and resource management in favor of exploration and isolated challenges, without turning to the bullshit difficulty 2 would occasionally throw your way. There's just so much stuff in this game! Caves are back! Piklopedia is huge! Two new types of Pikmin! Like 6 enormous maps to explore!

I do have a few reservations on it. Instead of following the previously established continuity, Pikmin 4 reboots the series, repeating Pikmin 1's plot with the caveat that Olimar never made it off of PNF-404, and it's your job to save him. Along with sixty other tiny alien people that are apparently also prone to crash land in dangerous areas like Olimar before them. It's hilarious, really, the only reason your (custom made) character is in charge is because they're the only one who made it through the atmosphere without shitting themselves.

The caves overall have stronger themes than Pikmin 2 ever managed, and are extremely well designed in their layouts, and the plot and characters are super charming as well. Louie is back and bastardly as ever. He is such an asshole in this title, I love him so much. This is marked as part 1, not only because I'm excited to jump back into the extensive postgame content, but also because of the amount of detail put into the Piklopedia that I want to read EVERYTHING, but due to circumstances I wasn't able to at the time. I know these lists may come off as unemployed behavior, but astonishingly I do have a job that holds back my GAMING POWER just a little bit.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance

I took a slight gaming break after Pikmin 4, but it wasn't long before the gaming urge enveloped me like a holy fire. I considered replaying Zero Mission, but if I start one Metroid game I will play through all of them into Dread, which I didn't want to start. And then I remembered there are like 10 Metroids that I've never played, and they have vampires in them! I guess, rather than a Metroid, you could call them a Vania. I've only really played Castlevania 1 and 3 on the NES before, but it's a series I hold pretty close to my heart, and this game works as a good introduction to the series, if you'd like.

The plot follows Juste Belmont, the fruity grandson of Simon who follows his boyfriend into Dracula's Castle to find their girlfriend. Juste has the typical whip finesse of a Belmont, but his direct lineage to Sypha Belnades from Dracula's Curse gives him skills in elemental magic that he slowly unlocks throughout the game. The element Juste is equipped with pairs with his secondary weapon that each unleash a different spell type, which are super fun to experiment with. Dracula's Castle is also split between to dimensions, like the Light and Dark world from alttp, and while it's always fun to explore old areas with new differences, I don't think it adds too much to the aesthetics. Both versions of the castle are nearly identical in terms of artstyle, with the "B Castle" taking on a slightly darker palette.

Juste also collects random shit he finds in the castle to decorate an empty room he found, which is tied to the true ending for some reason. I have a friend who picks up random trash off the streets and brings it back to his house as "trinkets" that he shows off to people when he has visitors, which I found myself reminded of when Juste picks up what must have been Alucard's childhood teddybear to hoard back in little nest.

Digimon Survive

This is a fascinating game. If you have any love for digimon as a series, or if you love visual novel horror games, this is a fantastic deal. From what I remember it faced some backlash when it was revealed it wasn't just a digimon tactical rpg, and even more criticism when players found out how involved the visual novel aspect was. For me, this game perfectly marries the two genres. Your choices in the visual novel structure and treatment of your units during these sections decide not only how your digimon evolve and grow, but which units Survive to the end of the game. There are also four branching paths the story can take that genuinely feel influenced by the choices you made, even though they mostly come down to a rather straightforward morality system.

The plot is similar to season one of the Digimon anime, but with a more mature feel. Eight kids at summer camp are whisked away to the digital world, where the laws of physics are altered, a vague facsimile of human culture can be found, and tons of wacky creatures show up to either aide or harm our protagonists. Except in this version some of them may actually die. I made it through the game with losing only two characters, but they're absence was felt all the way to the end of the game. You don't have to know anything about digimon to appreciate this, but it is a fun new way to enjoy these classic creatures, or be terrified of them, in a certain Bunny's case...

Final Fantasy VII

I don't mod a lot of games. I do look for fan games and improvement patches for older games, but I got a hankering to seek out some stuff a bit more high tech. On Nexus it turned out there were a lot of cool HD graphic mods for an rpg I hadn't picked up in eight years: FF7, baby! I originally got a quarter of the way through this game on steam and put it down for a bit, and then never picked it back up. I remembered being annoyed and confused at the plot and the setting, but going back to it now (with clearer visuals, lol) I enjoyed the hell out of this complicated mess of a story! Honestly, it's not as convoluted as people made it out to be, but maybe my brain has been fundamentally altered by Kingdom Hearts. There's a central mystery present around the six hour mark surrounding a memory Cloud has that doesn't make any sense, and the truth behind that memory slowly unveils itself in a fascinating way.

I was surprised how much I liked Cloud as a character. He never really impressed me in Smash or KH, but in his original game he's this goofy, anxious dork who tries too hard to be cool in front of pretty girls. I can relate to that. AND he has motion sickness. I can relate to that even more.

There are a lot of playable characters in this game, but only 3 of them are allowed in your party, who naturally will level up a lot faster than the benched boys. This is good for replayability, I guess, but if I go back to it anytime soon, I'll have a hard time not picking Barret, Aerith and Tifa as Cloud's best buddies. The other characters are cool (Yuffie is still more of a KH character to me), but I got so damn attached to those three. I also went to the effort of Chocobo breeding for the busted endgame materia, which was a surprisingly fun sidequest, despite its esoteric nature. I did this totally legitimately too! EVERYONE CONGRATULATE ME FOR BEING SO COOL!

Final Fantasy IX

I think this is the easiest Final Fantasy game to recommend to someone. All of the FF games I've played have this compelling found family aspect present, but it's executed in the best way in this one. The characters seem to have this genuine affection for each other that gets more and more real as the game progress and they develop as people. It's also hilarious in a very Shakespearean way. The main character, Zidane, was raised by theater kids, so the goofy, dramatic irony stage gags are very appropriate. All the characters were super compelling with great designs as well, and I had a hard time deciding which three would be in the final party. I settled on Vivi, Freya, and Dagger, but I used Quina and Steiner quite a bit.

The story pulled out tears from me towards the end. This is a tale about grief, identity, and the acceptance of death, and it handles those themes with depth and grace. Zidane and Vivi are unsure of who they are, where they come from. While Zidane looks normal enough, by FF9 standards, Vivi is forced to confront the fact he is probably not human almost immediately upon encountering his puppet brethren, and his reflective journey on accepting this and the fact he does not have long to live is the strongest emotional through-line of the game. But what moved me to tears was (SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH) Zidane's drive to reach Kuja before his unavoidable fate. To reach out to his brother and risk life and limb just so he could offer this man comfort in his last moments, to have the last emotion he felt be the tenderness he never got to feel during his long life. Idk it got to me.

(SPOILERS OVER) The Chocobo mission in this game is a lot more fun and intuitive than it was in 7. Instead of breeding, you play a hot and cold mini game that's frustrating as hell at first, but gradually gets faster and more fun. The games lore makes a lot of references to earlier titles, though I really only recognized the call backs to 7 and 4. This inspired me to make a Libre office spreadsheet of all Final Fantasy games lore, plot and recurring elements in an obsessive and ultimately futile attempt to tie the first nine games together in a neat timeline. I'm filling it out as I go through them, so I may never actually release my findings, but it's still been a fun project, similar to these Year in Reviews!

Final Fantasy

This is the GBA version. After 9, I wanted to go through all the FF games I hadn't played, starting of course with 1. According to Legend, the team that worked on this were about to go out of business went all out on one Final product to make or break the company, thus "Final" Fantasy. I think it may also be named so for the amount of cliche fantasy tropes played out through the story. There are elves who's prince has been put under a sleeping curse, dwarves that love to mine and forge, mermaids imprisoned by a sea monster, there's even a floating dead civilization inspired by Castle in the Sky complete with still functional robots. All of this makes for a pretty fun setting, and seeing where most of the recurring aspects of the FF series originated was delightful! A few of them even threw me for a loop; Bahamut lives underground and gives you a class upgrade, I didn't even expect him to be here!

The combat is simple. The gba version reduced the amount of random encounters, and the world design is relatively intuitive (except for the airship, which is hiding underneath a super esoteric sidequest the game barely tells you about), so the challenge was mostly limited to the boss encounters, who can be cheesed with elemental magic from a decent mage. I played with a Black Mage, a Monk, a Fighter, and a Red Mage, so my healing options were pretty limiting. I didn't realize until near the end of the game that monks are strongest without weapons, so at the last moment my little Monkey boy was FUCKING SHIT UP while he had been dragging his feet for most of the game. The final boss fucked me up in return, however, and I almost grinded (ground doesn't sound right) levels for the first time in this game before discovering the Titan Gloves.

The final boss is (spoilies) the first boss from the opening of the game, who has been transported 1,000 years into the past to manipulate the conflict of the game, including his own initial defeat. This means defeating him for the 2nd time breaks this loop, stops him from creating conflict in the first place and retcons the entire events of the game, allowing your actions to fall into obscure legend in the cultural consciousness. This provides a nice explanation for the main cast's lack of identity. This story is being told second hand as a legend. These people are only remembered for their actions in a myth and thus their true names have never been known...

Final Fantasy II: Dawn of Souls

Before playing this game I had it beaten into my head from video essayists and game journalists that this is the worst Final Fantasy with dogshit mechanics. Maybe that's true, I haven't played all of them yet. These mechanics were cool as hell to me, though. Your stats are decided by usage instead of building up through leveling up, meaning your magic stat is trained by using more magic, attack is trained by attacking, etc. In the og NES game, this also applied to HP, which was trained by getting hit, but that was changed to a more steady leveling curve in the GBA version, and thank God for that. There are also several weapon types like swords, axes, and spears you can train your party members with, though you're forced to specialize early on, lest you be under-leveled later in the game. I think this system is incredibly ahead of its time, inelegant as it may be, as it lets you customize your characters' stat builds in a way that's now standard for modern rpgs.

The story kind of rakes you across the coals. It follows a group of children who have joined a rebellion against an empire dead set on taking over the world. Almost every victory is met with an equal degree of tragedy. You might defeat the enemy commander only to be too late to prevent a city being wiped from the face of the earth, you might find one of the game's macguffins from a tough dungeon only for a party member to be brutally killed off at the last moment. Even defeating the emperor comes with a slap in the face, as his death only leads to a portal to ACTUAL HELL where the emperor has seized control of the afterlife. It makes the ending very satisfying in my eyes, though there are some story developments (like Leon) that feel pretty undercooked. There's also a bonus story featuring all the dead characters exploring hell! Cool! I didn't play this, since it drops everyone back at level one, but I may return to it as a separate game someday. I just gotta know what happened to all the dead guys! They died??? Oh shit!!

Fatum Betula

I discovered this game watching Any Austin talk about games you can get on the Switch for $2, and can you believe my luck? It was only $1 on sale packaged with Paratropics! After playing it, I think this game is worth more than $2, though it is pretty short. The opening of the game is unsettling. Through hints in the menu, you learn to stare out into an abyss until a face with too many teeth tells you to fill a vial with liquid to feed to a birch tree.

And that's all you need to do! Find several different liquids hidden in the beautifully rendered polygonal environments and give to the birch to change the fate of the world. I only figured this out through a lot of trial and error. There are several endings depending on which liquid you choose, around 9 in total if I remember right, including poison, blood, liquid bone. Some of them are received as rewards for exploration and experimentation, while the true ending is done through a series of bizarre tasks that I honestly had to use a guide for.

The endings have a good range of philosophical to comedic, my favorite one being liquid bone, which transforms everyone in the world into funny dancing skeletons. There are so many characters in this world that delight and intrigue, and the writing blows my mind at a few points. It's a game you want to dig into and dissect its many angles, while still hitting you with occasional dialogue that makes you laugh pretty hard.

AND DONE! This list is a bit longer than usual, since I wanted everything on the final Games list to be homogenized. Dang I played a lot of viddy games this year. Next time I will be covering Shows. I was going to do a comics list but I haven't finished enough comics this year to merit one, maybe at the end as a bonus!

[bogwitchmediaconsumption]

the Catch-Up post (tm)

would it really be me doing this if i didn't commit to doing something regularly and then go MIA for months at a time? i have obviously not stopped watching and reading things though, so time to fill in all of the things since whatever i talked about last. i actually did keep a pretty meticulous list, so this is all of the stuff i'm pretty sure. ok so here we go!

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake Season 1 (despite it being the first thing on this list, i'm actually writing this "review" last. i don't know why, but it feels like i've got a real duty to this one because it was special to me. i loved this. it was so much fun, it was so interesting and incredible and kinda exactly what I wanted it to be. the songs were great, the episodes were hilarious and devastating, the ends of it all were really great. the characters were great, i can go on forever. I also think it's not perfect. small decisions i don't like, some tropes/ideas in it that i don't love[see the season 11 review down below for an example]. idk it wasn't perfect but i really really loved what it was and i'm very excited[and also a little skeptical to be honest] about the new season. this somehow sounds like i have no enthusiasm for it whatsoever. oh well, i care about it. source: just trust me.)

A Fistful of Dollars(why are guns in westerns so phallic what's going on with that. like dudes just runnin' their hand over their guns getting real sweaty staring into each other eyes. you sure you don't wanna be reaching for his gun sir. are you sure sir.)

Batman: Under the Red Hood(movie) (it's very good! at times it did feel a bit like jason and bruce were vessels for the moral conflict at the center of the story rather than characters within that story, but it was very good and enjoyable.)

Adventure Time: Season 11(THIS. THIS is the good stuff. a GREAT way to pick up after come along with me. the way that it reinforces marcy and PB's relationship while still commenting on their immortality[i'm so sorry, but the "together in every universe" thing is not really my favorite so it was very nice to see this after fionna and cake], the way it treats BMO as non-binary/genderqueer in some way is so fun, the way that it expands on finn as a character in the last two issues, gives minerva time on screen, develops an interesting conflict, all the interpersonal interactions. it's just so fucking good. LOVED this absolutely loved it.)

Adventure Time: Marcy & Simon(it's a neat story, but i feel like it gets held back because it doesn't know what it wants to be. the plot of the story revolves entirely around simon, but the emotional core of the story revolves around marcy. which doesn't sound contradictory, but the threat of the story revolves around simon turning back into the ice king and the reader is supposed to be really upset about it because marcy's gonna lose her dad again[which is totally fair] but after watching fionna and cake it just feels a bit hollow that marcy losing her dad again is the emotional driving force of the comic. simon was just a insane freak for 1000 years, surely he has some feelings about that, right?)

Adventure Time: Playing with Fire(i was really hoping that this was going to be a deeper sort of dive into finn and FP's relationship because the show only gave them a few episodes together outside of their getting together and their break up. it was not that. it's a cute little story for what it is, but it's not really anything special.

Death on the Nile(Kenneth Branagh Movie Version) [idk what everyone's got against Kenneth's Poirot, but he's killing it from the two movies I've seen so far. really beautifully shot, the plot and story moves along really well, and the ending had us GAGGED. so good. want to read the books now.)

The Mothman Prophecies (there's like. not even any mothman. what the fuck guys. the rest of the movie is weird and not very good. but what's up with the no mothman. literally named the movie after him, he's in one shot. come on now.)

The Sword and the Scoob(the beginning is agonizing, but the rest of it is funny and enjoyable. not incredible still, but hey.

The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki(an old northern european epic poem. it's hilarious, it's weird, it's good, it follows like 30 characters over 100 years. check it out if you like other epic poems/classic high fantasy stuff.)

Hero (this movie is fucking cracked out and it's incredible. they're flying around on walls and fighting and everything. it's so fun. the story telling devices are also very interesting. the use of color is super cool. also, apparently not very true to history.)

Book Lovers (i've read emily henry's other books, but this one did not impress. the main characters whose names i can no longer remember spend the whole book avoiding their emotional problems and then just have a happy ending fall in their lap at the end. they don't work to make that happen, don't really feel like they face their feelings about anything. it's just pages and pages of avoiding everything.)

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (this movie was boring. and it made not a lot of sense. but the mummies. they were incredible.)

The Heart Sellers (theatre show i went to see! tbh i don't remember a whole ton about it but it was funny and also emotional and i'd recommend it but i think the lack of emotional memory of it does say something)

The Owl House Season 1 (it's really cute[plus points for some gay, always a good time]! it feels very children's show in this season, which sounds dumb to say because it IS a kid's show, but every episode feels like it has a very obvious moral and structure despite the episodes being really fun. until the season finale hits. then it gets so real so fast.

Invincible Compendium 1(tbh i would probably struggle to comment on this part of invincible right now because i have read like 30 more issues by now and i cannot remember what is in this collection and what is in the second. so instead, i will say this. it's an interesting story that likes to take a more paranoid and pessimistic attitude to a typically upbeat genre. saving the day and stopping the criminal usually ends up in a lot of problems for mark, and the reappearance of supervillains and failures along the way begin to wear him down. i don't think it's the best superhero story ever, or even the most "real", but it is genuinely interesting and engaging.)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein(movie) [it's an interesting retelling of frankenstein if you're looking for an adaptation that takes SOME liberties but not too too many. it's interesting, but it's not super great beyond that.]

Pikmin 4 (i LOVE pikmin and i LOVED this game it's so cute and fun and I love getting my little creatures and oh boy oh man this game rocks.)

Heartstopper Volume 5 (got it on the day it came out! after forgetting it was coming out... it's really good, maintains a healthy mix of fluffy moments and real character drama, and it's full of great little details and might be my favorite volume yet. it's really really good. the art remains really stellar as well, actually so good.)

The Owl House Season 2(the one where shit gets real. this season is a fucking banger from start to finish. the characters and interesting and fleshed out, the conflict is complex, the world is so interesting and it's all so cool and nice looking and emotional and OH MY GOD it just rocks so hard. i'm really nervous to watch the final season because i just KNOW some shits gonna go down but i absolutely will because this show is so good.)

Doctor Who and the Daleks (the movie not the serial) (one of the peter cushing ones! it's fun and kinda interesting, but mostly as an adaptation of the serial from the show. it's not really better than the show in any way, aside from the fact that i like the way susan is written a little more in this version. the color is neat too! but watch the original story first.)

X-Men: Days of Future Past(comic) [ok so i read this big compiled version that that days of future past, days of future present, days of future yet to come, and this like wolverine prequel thing. in a big surprise to me, i think days of future yet to come was my favorite. days of future present was also really good, and days of future past is a classic but the way that they return to the future to try and save the people who rewriting the timeline didn't save, to save ALL mutantkind from the sentinels of this universe. it's really sick actually. also the wolverine prequel is fine. it's not a bad story, but having it set in the future past universe doesn't really give the story anything aside from a little general flavor.)

Ultimate Spider-Man #1(the new one! it's looking SO promising, and the fact that it seems like it's going to be a semi-limited series is really nice to hear because it's the first storyline i'm picking up as single issues as they come out. adult peter is great, the characters and different universe are exciting, green goblin is looking interesting, as long as they don't ruin peter's life for the 59th time, i'm looking forward to the next issue!)

Superman Vs. Meshi Volume 1(i knew the premise, the style, a lot of things about this manga before going in. it was still surprising and ridiculously silly and funny and weird and really worth checking out. super funny and charming.)

Monty Python & the Holy Grail(ridiculous. it was very funny and clearly a touchstone for self-referential and meta humor for other things down the road. wasn't quite as funny as is rumoured though, maybe because its jokes are so frequently referenced and i've seen some of the clips before.)

invincible compendium 2(i've been writing like 3 sentences and then clicking off this draft for so long that i accidentally read like 30 more issues of invincible. my thoughts on it are pretty much the same as i wrote for compendium 1(go figure) but yeah i'm really enjoying it. won't discuss the story or anything because the show is coming out now though)

also i don't wanna put in pictures because it's 2am and i'm being lazy and i just wanna have finally posted this so wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[frostehburr]

Finishing the Year by 100%ing Pikmin 4

Yeah, this is the last tumblr post for me in 2023.

I really didn't expect to get Pikmin 4 so soon and be able to finish it before new year. Not to say it didn't have a bit of difficulty, the dandori challenges were a pain in the ass. I'm just surprised by the amount of time I had for this game.

Recently I had to go on a business trip to California and to pass time in the hotel room, I brought a Switch with Pikmin 4. Apparently the time I spent in the hotel room over the week long trip was enough for me to 100% the game! Would love to go on trips more often but it's far too expensive.

Like previous Pikmin games, the main story involves you using pikmin to collect giant every day objects and genocide the local wildlife so the pikmin can take over and dominate the area.

Family friendly Nintendo.

Anyhow, this fourth installment... fifth?... adds the goal of rescuing tourists who came to this planet filled with lethal levels of oxygen (what do these guys breath?) for various reasons such as real estate and looking at flowers. I personally think there are better options than a planet where you're chances of death via suffocation is high but I also know a few people who actively grab venomous snakes with their bare hands so I guess preservation instincts are different between people.

Also half of these castaways turned into leaf people. The pikmin are starting to take over the tiny tiny humans!

These leaf people demand you do something called a "dandori" challenge which is just doing a specific objective in the shortest amount of time available. If you want to 100% the game, you will have to get the platinum medal for ALL dandori challenges and battles!

This is the main reason I expected to not finish the game until next year. The dandori stuff stresses me out so much! Putting a time limit on it was bad enough but grading me on how much time I use just hurts. I hate it!

One more thing, I looked it up out of curiosity and dandori is an actual Japanese word! Yeah apparently it's a word that describes the strategic organization of tasks and working efficiently to a plan...

Basically the entire concept of Pikmin as a whole. Yet I struggled with it...

So they also have a few side missions, a treasure catalogue, and a bestiary. The bestiary was filled out thanks to me running all over chucking Pikmin at anything that moved. Including a massive giant dog that shows up some time late in the game.

Side missions were mostly "find all X crew" which is easily done when completing the caves. Oh there are two that are grow 300 pikmin and make 300 pikmin bloom but those are radiant quests so I'm certain they don't count. I also had to buy all gear and Oatchi skills but I recommend getting them when you can because it makes the game go by faster.

For the treasure catalogue I needed 100 purple pikmin which you can easily do without a purple onion. Yes the purple bois got their own onion this time! However, in order to get the purple and white onion you have to go through the dandori sage trials, which were a nightmare of 10 levels on their own.

I do not think I needed to platinum the sage trials... I never did but I choose to claim that it is unnecessary. For the sake of sanity. Those trials were brutal!

After getting the purple onion I had to find a way to grow 100 purple pikmin which is rather hard to do when you wiped out everything on the maps. Leaving me with the flower pellets as my only option. Took about three days but I got to 100 purple bois and collected the gold bar, finishing the treasure catalogue!

With all that done I just have to say: Pikmin 4 is a very enjoyable game you can have loads of fun with. It's a calming type of game where you can fling plant bois to collect shiny items. However, you should never attempt to 100% complete this game. Attempting to 100% Pikmin 4 will leave you more stressed than the year 2020.

Think I fully understand why Nintendo never bothered with achievements.