Round Up: Here's What Switch Fans Are Saying About The Pikmin 4 Demo

Pikmin 4 protagonist is named Riley imo, you cannot change my nonfactual opinion on this antimatter.

What is the max daycount? Ive been avoiding most treasures to keep the demo playable

I will say, though...am I the only one bothered by the character designs?...Especially your own character, the options are limited and...the faces scare me. lol

It's got a thin crust, magma and a chewy nougat center

I need to play this!

Overall, I thought the demo was awesome! The game feels like a natural progression of Pikmin in the year 2023 with some nice updated elements that absolutely work well for the game. I really disliked the early hand-holding, though thankfully, it let up a bit on it toward the end.... but that's around the time the demo ends. Speaking of which, the way the demo "ends" when 1,500 sparklium is collected feels needlessly frustrating; it would have made more sense to let players complete the first stage more freely. Nonetheless, these are minor gripes, and they honestly speak to how fun the game is because I couldn't stop playing it. Even if it is less than a month away, the wait for the full game's release is going to be agonizing!

@Joeynator3000 You're not alone. I'm going to have to settle for options I find okay instead of actually liking my custom character

part of me likes how.. weird the avatar options look. theres nothing conventionally attractive about them, they dont even have natural hair colors. with a game as weird as pikmin i think thats something you gotta embrace

i do wish the face/hair options werent limited to body types tho, id like more options to mix and match

am I a pikboomer?

Skipped the survey b/c while I'm really looking forward to my pre-ordered copy of the game I really hated the "demo". This is a demo like that "2nd player pebble assist" is a "co-op mode". I watched Olimar give me backstory for way too long then road the dog around the living room then finally quit when Pikmin finally showed up in my demo for a Pikmin game.

Sure it's nice that my save would carry over a month from now but I'd really rather just get dropped into a mid game level where I could play Pikmin for 30-45 minutes.

I heard it was overloaded with talking and cut scenes…. ugh

The character customization options are very limited. Plus, it wouldn't kill Nintendo to have gender options. Male, Female, and Other. The "Other" option could have the additional option of inputting preferred pronouns, if the player wants to. All it would take is Nintendo writing extra dialogue. (This also applies to Animal Crossing.) I wanted my character to be a "he", not a "they". I see that as laziness on Nintendo's part.

The gameplay, aside from what I mentioned, I found to be just fine, so far. Graphically, it rings Pikmin. Sound-wise, too.

The only grip I have so far is that the lock is annoying.
My worry is that the game might be too easy with all the stuns available but it is way too early to say

Will the demo stay or is it limited time? I have never played Pikmin and maybe the demo is a good way to try. Just have little time left besides TotK (yes, I'm still playing THAT).

@Captain-N It's Japan. LOL

Never played a Pikmin game before and I'm liking it, kinda slow going but sure it'll pick up.
Just wondering though, is it set on Earth with humans, seems to be an alien planet but in an Earth like environment, the house is clearly designed for humanlike beings 🤔

@Captain-N Gender options? No thank you. I think they handled it right, you can pick the avatar that suits you. Less is more.

@stevep I like reading.

Anyways this game is going to be fun. The graphics are better, more options and ways to explore.

The demo is maybe a bit too handholdy, but other than that, I love it!

@Captain-N Just one clarification. I don't know about Pikmin 4 (I still haven't played the demo, I've been busy) but, in the case of Animal Crossing New Horizons, you can choose whether you want the villagers to refeer to you as a "he" or as a "she". It is an option when you go to the mirror menu to change your apeerance.

@Nintendo-or-Noth Personally? Yeah. I like how Nintendo handles gender in their games with custom characters. It's just not a factor or, if it is, you can change your apperance outside of how the game refeers to you. It could be better (like adding a "they" option in non gendered languages) but it's not a bad approach in my opinion. Even outside of representation, the fact that you can wear any clothes in Animal Crossing with any assigned gender is an objectively good thing.

Pop in issues which I absolutely hate in games that is lazy unfinished game development along with frame rate problems

@jowe_gv in animal crossing it might be useful, but this game just refers to your name and the avatars could be anyone, so here it's not really an issue... it's nice to have a bit of customization but it's notmena to be excactly like the player here

I don't care for the limitations that this game places on the player. You're only allowed to take out 20 Pikmin at the start of the demo, and by the end of it, you may be able to take out 40, and you can only have three types of Pikmin out at any given time. It's frustrating, because you should be able to take out 30 ice pikmin, freeze the pond, and get the blue onion, but the blue onion requires 20 Pikmin, or Oatchi's Lv.3 Buff Up.

I found the dialogue and handholding so tedious that I never actually finished the demo. Games that have a 4 in the title that use many of the same mechanics as past games really ought to ask you if you remember how to play the other 3 and streamline these intros because man alive. Boring. I know there’s people whose first Pikmin game will be this one and so those tutorials are fine to include but the whole main series is now on Switch, there’s no reason to force everybody into going through tutorials of the core mechanics for a 4th time.

That said I will still be picking the game up. The actual game I got to play was a lot of fun and absolutely gorgeous, I just couldn’t be bothered to slog through the whole intro just to see a section of the full thing when I could have been playing TotK instead.

It kind of made me want to buy the first game and dive into some unconvoluted Pikmin action.

I wonder if that was the intention.

@romanista Hm... I guess they could do like animal crossing and let you choose your pronouns. More personalization is always a good thing even if it is not necessary. Honestly, the whole character customization angle was not really necessary either seeing previous Pikmin games.

@KBuckley27,

You sound fun at parties.

@johnvboy whats so wrong with the truth these problems are there in plain sight why do people ignore them

I'm really disappointed that the plot is a reboot of the series (unless some really wild things happen in the story with Olimar to change that). Also as someone who's played since the first game, I wish they kept the world of the game more realistic and abandoned, instead of having well-kept looking scenery in the background. I'm hoping the darker tone the games usually hide is still present and that it's not all so cute and clean looking, but it does seem they're aiming for a wider audience this time. I'm sure the full game will still be really fun though

The safeguards for newbies does sound attractive so I think I'll download and play the demo over the weekend. Also it's funny to see Chaz or Choops or whatever features here! He's an... interesting character. Guess he does play more than just Fire Emblem!

This sounds really good.

Glad a lot of people enjoyed it.

I'm sure I'll really enjoy the demo too, will get around to it soon.

Haven’t finished the demo, but really enjoyed what I played. I wish the character creator was more robust, but not the end of the world. The new camera is great, and the graphics look gorgeous. Overall I was happy with what I played. Excited to finish the demo later!

PS—you can press + through literally all the dialogue and cutscenes if you so choose, and extend your demo playtime. 😉

Fantastic, lengthy demo, glad to have a playable Olimar for a short time, Oatchi was terrific! I never preorder. Bought a voucher and preordered Pikmin 4 and Super Mario Wonder.
Safe bets.

I'm enjoying it: I'm 10 sparklium away from the limit, so I'm leaving stuff everywhere to explore more. It was already a given that I'm getting this on day one, though I do have a couple (VERY MINOR) criticisms:
As has been said above, a chance to say "I've played Pikmin before and only need to learn the new stuff" would be nice, but I recognize that an overly thorough tutorial is better than no tutorial at all for the fourth mainline game in over twenty years.
Perhaps I'm mistaken and the full game will have co-op like Pikmin 3's, but it's disappointing that co-op appears to only be something akin to Mario Galaxy's. When quarantine ended, I played Pikmin 3 co-op with a friend who hadn't heard of Pikmin before, and she loved it: I was looking forward to doing that again (it seems particularly odd to create a character if you don't get to interact with anyone else's).

@Captain-N Why would you need gender options? You can make the character easily look like a boy or a girl, it doesn’t need to explicitly say what they are. Same in Animal Crossing, easier to just let you customise your avatar however you like since gender specific features aren’t really represented in these games.

If it were a game like Mass Effect with voice options and more realistic depictions of people then gender options make sense but for Pikmin who cares

I'm super hyped for the game but avoiding the demo because I don't want to start playing until I have the full game.

@larryisaman @jowe_gv @Nintendo-or-Noth I'm just used to, and prefer, that if games have some form of character creation, that it be a little more definitive: Man, Woman, and as I stated above, another option so people who are lgbtqia+ won't be left out, either. I don't like character creators being limited to only androgynous options. Otherwise, what's the point?

@Everyone_Else As I said, it's a good game, to me, so far. Also, I like the addition of Oatchi. That could add some interesting gameplay, it could make things too easy, or both.

This is the first Pikmin game that I got hooked on (don't ask me why), and I look forward to continue the adventure

@KBuckley27,

Only having a joke with you... hence the

I have no issues with people finding faults with this, and I am not a massive Pikmin fan myself, however I quite enjoyed the demo.

@Captain-N

What would you suggest?, as with the myriad of gender identities to identify as, there will always be some chance of non inclusion.

Unless of course you are suggesting a blanket "lgbtqia+" option that caters for everyone.

@johnvboy Nothing will ever be enough today it seems. Even this approach which literally lets you project whatever identity you have onto your character gets criticised. Bizarre world

@johnvboy Earlier I stated that for lgbtqia+ individuals, they should have the additional options to specify their gender, and preferred pronouns. For individuals choosing definitely male, or definitely female, it's a simple matter of "he", or "she". Edit: It's a system that caters to lgbtqia+ individuals, as well as men, and women. No need to nix one for the other.

Not to pile on because its such an irrelevant topic for pikmin where you play as little aliens, but as for the gender conversation, cant they just always refer to you by your name? wouldnt that solve everything?

@antisumo Pikmin is set on Earth in the future when humans are gone basically. The Astronauts are from different planets, and are really tiny. In the manual for the first one, they showed Olimar as being the size of a Gamecube memory card, lol. Yeah, the gameplay will pick up a bit when you get all the Pikmin types and the crazier enemies. It's way better than 3 so far, and it might end up being better than 2. The first one can't be ranked relative to the others since that one has a time constraint of 30 days to work within. Basically if you play 1 & 4, you'll experience the franchise. All are on Switch now since the latest Direct.

The game is probably better later on, but I did not enjoy the demo. It's very handheldy, and there's so much dialogue to skip. All that plus the RPG style elements just get in the way of what I want most from the Pikmin experience: to explore and to experiment across the environments with the various different Pikmin.

@stevep You can always just skip the cutscenes if you’re so impatient.

I really like the demo so far! Kinda want to get the first three games first before getting the full version of 4 though.

@crimsontadpoles I just started playing Pikmin 1 again last night for the first time in over a decade and man. It’s so refreshing to just get straight into it after this demo and to a lesser extent Pikmin 3. No endless dialogue and constantly stopping and starting, it just tells you what you need to know and lets you get on with it.

It’s also really striking how different the atmosphere of the game is to the others. Very lonely and desperate. Kind of wish they’d taken more cues from the first game but I still have high hopes for 4, I’m just praying the training wheels don’t stay on for long

@tobsesta99 The point is here more that @captain-n is sort of missing the point the others make here.. Nintendo choose a different strategy for inclusion than he propagates: by giving you freedom to choose an avatar (an alien remember) and referring to you by your chosen name (@sputnik_corner it does), pronouns aren't relevant in the game, therefore the game circumvents discussions it about while letting people identify with their avatar (which always helps).. and making it alien (purple hair!) helps that even mre.

You might disagree with the strategy of course, but don't forget the pronouns discussion is very much an Anglophone thing, so I can see why they chose this one

I liked it a lot. Too much text here and there and the skipping stuff could "skip more" as usual, but it was fun. (3376 sparklium )

I found annoying that on exit of dungeons you "loose" Pikmin if you don´t remember what you need. I ended up on the little island and required 20 ice pikmin to transport the guy to the main land, but unlike when getting there I had only 12 or so and no blue pikmin at hand. So I wasn´t able to rescue the guy right away.

A nice touch is that the pikmin are now more smart, when you throw them onto piles. Unlike the other games they don't return to the empty space after collecting all pieces.

I also hope there is classic bingo battle in the full game. It was more strategic and intense than this basic grab all stuff with more or less instant respawn of item instead of having a fixed amount of fruit and enemies to collect. This mode is nice, but not a full replacement. I played over 500 hours bingo battle and it would hard to not have this in Pikmin4.

Motion controls are useless in Pikmin 4. It was always nice to run up and throw pikmin left, right and backwards when running forward. This is no longer possible. The hole process is more complicated now and I never used MC in this demo.

I found the demo frustrating with its constant, pointless interruptions. I’ve never seen so much dialogue that says so little. I gave up after an hour, bored and disappointed

Pikmin was a game I just never got around too, despite how interesting it always looked to me. Played the demo for 3 and enjoyed it a lot. Just finished the demo for 4 last night, and absolutely loved it. I enjoyed the new gear and upgrade elements, and the dog adds a fun extra layer. The graphics look really nice too, and it performs well overall. I can see everyone’s complaints about the handholding and excessive dialogue, but I’m sure that will drop off once everything is introduced. I already preordered a while ago, but as a first-time Pikmin plugin I am beyond excited. I think I need to play 1 to warm up before July 21!

Nintendo really seems like they are doing a solid job at marketing Pikmin this time around and it's going to be the best-selling entry in the franchise

Really enjoyed it a lot. I already pre-ordered before the demo and will play the full game.

I agree there is a lot of cutscenes and dialogue at the start and I didn't mind it much but I can see it bothering people and agree with them, even though it was just about okay with me. But yeah it does seem a bit much at that stage of the game.

However the people saying that this remains for the rest of the demo, hard disagree there. Evetually it tones down a lot and lets you enjoy playing the game. Don't see any issues with a little bit of dialogue after that.

Anyway, the game felt really fun for me so yeah, I agree with people on Twitter as well.

I have played all of the Pikmin games multiple times so far, and I know I'll be playing this one too. Probably not close to launch, because I have other things that I'm wanting to do/play, but I will get around to playing it because it looks like an improvement in every single way on the original formula. And they also managed to add a bunch of extra features that will make the game much more enjoyable, and expand what you can do in the game. It is definitely on my to buy list.