Miyamoto wonders why Pikmin hasn't sold more and why people think the games are difficult
Miyamoto wonders why Pikmin hasn't sold more and why people think the games are difficult
Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto wonders why the Pikmin series hasn't sold more and why people think it's so difficult.
Pikmin 4 is due out for Switch on July 21, 2023
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It’s the time limit.
That’s it.
People hate time limits in games like this.
I feel like it’s a lot like the weapon breaking in Breath of the Wild - one of those systems that imposes heavy limits on players to enforce their creativity and flexibility in their approach.
I know a lot of people approach every game in a completionist, meticulous way where they do every quest, never use any consumable items, etc; and it often ruins the fun. It’s also why Ubisoft had the somewhat crazy idea in Far Cry 5 of actually forcing you to do story missions after game progress, trying to use designer mechanics to push some variety into people’s game sessions.
In Pikmin’s case, and I think Dead Rising / Persona too, the time limit is meant to get you to prioritize path planning so you get as much as you can done in a certain span. The core gameplay of Pikmin just isn’t all that interactive when you have all the time in the world for it - it’s built around the benefits of delegation and synchronization.
I haven't played Pikmin but when it comes to BotW/TotK I still would prefer if weapons didn't break. Seems to me that it creates grind and it takes away flexibility, because more situational options take the same slots as raw power, and get spent just as quickly. Comes to mind also how XCom 2 insisted on turn limits, and one of the first mods it got was to remove the turn limits.
Sometimes designers insist on certain limits to prevent that players "optimize the fun away" but they don't realize that some players legitimately do have more fun without those limits.
There's certainly been tons of moments through gaming history when designers attempted to force a playstyle and it didn't work out. It's still hard to say for me where XCOM would lie on that, because there's at least one other tactics game, Steamworld Heist, that I think worked out much better with a semi-turn-limit; I felt much more accomplished when I managed to escape those levels within a certain turn limit.
There's mods out there for emulated Breath of the Wild to turn off weapon degradation, and I'm actually curious how the reviews go for mods like that. You lose out on moments where you actually enjoy finding a 90-attack weapon, because you'd find it and go "Meh...I already have a 100-damage weapon." And because the game isn't promoting constant power progression, it doesn't have a ton of different things to reward you with for quests and exploration if you're never losing things from your inventory - so you'd pretty quickly be ending quests with "Man I don't even want this".
I get that it's important for designers to hear out their players, but there have been many times gamers were wrong about what exactly it was they thought they wanted. Nintendo in general has to be really careful about making sure they don't betray expectations on certain series. Pikmin in particular had a winning formula in their first game. Even if they make changes/additions, if they damage that initial element, it can hurt the enjoyability of the experience, even if it adds freedom.
It's hard to say where the balance lies for every game, so I can't say for sure what's best for Pikmin without having played but more options never hurt anyone.
But as far as Zelda goes, I have heard all the arguments and maybe they might fit perfectly with a chunk of that audience, but that's definitely not the experience that I had. So much so I bounced off of BotW twice until I finally started to enjoy it.
You lose out on moments where you actually enjoy finding a 90-attack weapon, because you’d find it and go “Meh…I already have a 100-damage weapon.” And because the game isn’t promoting constant power progression, it doesn’t have a ton of different things to reward you with for quests and exploration if you’re never losing things from your inventory - so you’d pretty quickly be ending quests with “Man I don’t even want this”.
But it's because that I had a 100 attack weapon that the 90 one feels like routine upkeep rather than a reward, and anything less might as well be a stick. A lot of quests in those games gave me that “Man I don’t even want this” feeling. Every chest with middling weapons. Every quest that rewards me with food or a pittance of rupees. If not for shrines and their permanent upgrades, I wouldn't feel that motivated to explore. The cycle of finding expendable things to spend on more expendable things wears me out.
I feel the same way. My current BoTW save has a bunch of semi-unique or rare weapons in my inventory and I don't have any more slots. Whenever I want to fight something now I have to ask myself "which thing should I break and never get back?"
Oh some basic mobs to clear? Oh well, all I have are these super high damage weapons. It discourages me from getting into fights because I feel like my weapons aren't balanced for the enemies at hand, I gotta save them for tougher fights.
It really feels like a waste to take rare and strong weapons to go against regular bokoblins. Breaking the unique champion weapons just feels bad. No wonder so many people just put them on a wall.
Comes to mind also how XCom 2 insisted on turn limits,
I mean I would argue sure they were a bit too tight and I'm 100% down for increasing them but Xcom (2013) did have a problem with overwatch creep. Where people were legitimately optimizing the fun out of the game. Time limits force you to make less than optimal decisions where it works very well with the setting of Xcom 2 where you are a rebellion force, you don't have the luxury of taking things at your pace. You need to strike and get out before a larger response force come in to take you out. The only negative to the turn limits is you being forced to trigger pods early and pods waking up give them a free move action.
I get the reasoning in theory, but... it doesn't work for everyone.
Speaking for myself, I don't appreciate the anxiety. I only played XCom EU but the timed missions were the ones I hated the most. I just didn't want to play a game that was just that every time. It doesn't make me thrilled, it makes me stressed. I do actually want to inch my way through every mission, so I can stay prepared for danger, since the game will pop out a bunch of enemies with free actions at any moment. I felt like the commander of an elite team whenever I managed to badly damage any enemy even before they got the chance to attack.
When they "fixed" me "optimizing the fun out of the game", they just took me out of the game entirely. What they see as fun or not fun is not universal.
Some might say that if this is how I think maybe that's not the game for me. But if having both possibilities is an alternative, why shouldn't I be able to play the way I actually like it?
And yet removing the time limit was disastrous for my enjoyment of Pikmin.