The Smoky Progg in World of Light is truly an enigma... 1. Its NOT an iconic enemy that everyone would recognize, its an obscure Pikmin boss that many casual fans didn't even know existed. 2. Its ability has NOTHING to do with its actual canon abilities, it just randomly turns metal for some reason. 3. Its a 1-Star enemy, and the easiest in the whole game, despite it being a serious threat and highly dangerous boss in its debut game. 4. As a spirit its ability gives you a Unira item (that spiky ball thing), which is very confusing because it has nothing to do with the spirit battle's ability to turn metal, and it doesn't have much to do with the Progg itself either! They really did my boy dirty like that... :(
One thing I don't see people talk about with the Water Wraith in 4 is it's entrance animation In 2 it was this slow, slide whistle that made everything else go quiet, followed by the thunderous crash of two stone rollers hitting the ground. It's slow and loud, a perfect build up to the unstoppable force that is the Wraith. In 4 it just falls with and boop! It's here now, the game even plays a cutscene every time it falls down, which just ruins the sense of being followed since you'll always find him, instead of him finding you.
Basically, the ENTIRE REASON people like these bosses is because they were special, one of a kind, and all the more memorable for it... But then in Pikmin 4, they brought back these bosses _because_ of how iconic they were, but made them no longer special by using them far to frequently. Pikmin 4's easier difficulty also removed all the fear factor from them.
And Its só Unnecessary like why did they make you fight 2 water wraith at The same time in The last Dungeon where you arely have purples. In The other hand threre The smoky prog that If you Just play The game not paying much atention for The night missions you Just fight him in The last cave and Its quiet good but them on night missions they spam him taking every thing that peaple like about him
So a thing to note with the Puffstool (and a reason why it probably didn't come back for 2 and 3) is that in the 1st game, all pikmin had the same body type and the shroomin could get away with looking like generic pikmin. When they introduced new pikmin types, their bodies changed too, meaning the switch from purple, white, or even rock and winged pikmin to normal shroomin would be jarring. With Pikmin 4, they had the Groovy Longlegs who takes control of your pikmin with song and has an effect that works for all pikmin, a pinkish plume on the tip of their plant, which all pikmin have. It was easier to use that design for the puffstool than design shroomin for other types of pikmin. Oh someone said this before me... DARN IT.
In that purple onion trial, its probably better to just break the wheels or even ignore the water wraith entirely than to actually kill it as the timer is so tight and he honestly doesn't do that much to hamper your progress. 360Chrism even realized partway through that, and I quote: "The Water Wraith is our friend!"
Idk about that, i had to redo the challenge for over 2 hours because he would always slow down my pikmin, even after breaking his cylinders he would walk around and slow all the process down.
I started the video and looked over at my husband (big time fan of Pikmin 2,) and went "honey, they screwed up the bosses in Pikmin 4" and he so genuinely went "damnit." We still plan to get it since we both love Pikmin, but I love how earnest his reaction was.
As someone who has never had any experience with Pikmin franchise outside from Super Smash bros., I think your video is pretty good when comes to explaining how the franchise is treating the lore and gameplay with its recent games to newcomers.
@Phils_Horrible_World I know! it's a major downgrade in the two-player mode, imo. SilokHawk made a series of videos analyzing PVP in every Pikmin game, they're really fascinating to watch. I recommend them if you have the time.
It's the same timer as the oringal iirc 5 minutes and he spawns though i stopped being worried about the wraith in pikmin 2 when i realized just how easy he is to cheese. He only chases your active leader and will ignore your pikmin carring things trying to get a captain he can't reach
they did my bro man-at-legs super dirty. instead of mowing your pikmin down after an already somewhat harder cave, you can now just run around it on oatchi and not worry about your slower pikmin being turned into swiss cheese
The real problem with engulfed castle was the fact its layout was very simple and oatchi making it both easy to avoid danger and finishing tasks fast means there's never any real danger from the waterwraith. I litterally beat the entirety of engulfed castle without encountering the wraith once because of how effcient i was (i got the alternate dialogue from collin because i had purples before the fight). You seemed to miss the point of the trial wraith, you arent supposed to kill it, just disable its rollers and ignore it. overexposure didn't knill the wraith, it was the fact the game made it too easy for it to ever be athreat in the first place. the twin wraith may have been more of a joke fight to empower the player during the boss rush guantlet... but it might have been more interesting had the cave not recommend purples or at least made the maze with hazards that put purples in danger. (also why not have both wraiths carry each of the joycons?) As a side note, the fact mud as a hazard is never utilized for the waterwraith was a massive missed opportunity. rather nintendo thought the btter idea was making numerous safe zones with clear boarders was the best thing to do. They really were afraid to let players struggle...
the mamuta isn't even considered a boss in pikmin 1, the wiki says the mamuta, armored cannon beatle, smoky progg, and puffstool are all normal enemies, people consider them bosses because of there unique designs
So that's a debated topic. There are two things to keep in mind with that: 1) the wiki is not an official source 2) the wiki has flipped flopped on whether the Mamuta is a boss or not
My guess is they were too lazy to make Puffmin models for all the different Pikmin types. Back in Pikmin 1 the reds, yellows, and blues had the same general body shape. But now we have large Purples, small Whites, Rock Pikmin, Winged Pikmin, and Ice Pikmin, which all have more distinct body shapes. I'm so disappointed. :(
@@SoultheKretsnik they can paste over from the standard puffmin model they make to have the eyes and mushroom, and making them hostile to the player wouldn’t seem that hard, as it could just be mostly the same code as the dog being attacked by a rival pikmin (just with them being able to die from being hit) if Miyamoto found a way 20 years ago to have each puffmin have their respective abilities, what’s stopping him with stronger technology and a foundation?
I remember when i first encountered the smokey progg, i was like “man this egg thing is weird…i can attack it? Sweet” and then the immediate horror and regret that followed. so so many pikmin were lost that day
11:50 it actually does not, pikmin 4 is the only game in the series with a battle mode that the pikmins dont attack each other, they can only attack the other player's dog!
Pikmin is one of the most unique series in all of gaming. How many other longrunning AAA franchises can claim to have made their combat more braindead with every single entry?
To be honest, auto-lock felt more like a hinderance than anything. I've had many situations where i want to throw my Pikmin at something I cannot lock on to, but there's treasure right next to it, so auto lock prioritizes that. It's so annoying.
I imagine the Puffstool in Pikmin 4 was mostly a way for the players to get familiar with how it worked, even old players with its new floor mold mechanics, in order to make the Toxstool boss fight more organic as players wouldn't have to figure what to do (which could have been frustrating especially since their Pikmins would be at risk) The issue is that they used the old puffstool, but probably should have either used a variant that also isn't very dangerous or put the Toxstool but with less mold, no poison mushrooms and no mold enemies to revive (although that would remove some of the uniqueness of the Towstool and its the bossfight in the cave, so I think they should have opted for the second)
in a nutshell, pikmin 4 was too afraid to make any of the bosses threatening and oatchi made encounters so easy that they cana't put up a fight even if they could. Not enough was done to balance the old bosses to the new mechanics... and questionable decisions were made to make some not even feature their main gimmick. Also you forgot to mention how 'man at legs' was ruined purely by how oatchi carries all the pikmin on its back and can simply outrun the bullets in a circle. You can techincally do this in pikmin 2 but the ai of pikmin following behind would only need to move just a bit in the wrong way to get shot. Cover was actually something most people would rely on for consistant safety. Now oatchi with or without speed buff can outrun the bullets and without pikmin running behind theres never a chance for a straggler to move into the line of fire. Man at legs was not designed to handle singular moving targets. It needed to be redesigned to account for the new player mobility. Also winged pikmin completely break ALL the long legs fights including this one. A single spicy spray and a few charges will win the fight instantly.
im glad to see a video criticising pikmin 4 without treating the whole game like hellspawn :D I just wish they actually kept the smoky progg design as actually scary
I don’t know what to say on this video, so I will just say dandori issue because you couldn’t figure out the purple onion trial because you’re just supposed to use the dog.
OH SNAP. I was wondering why your voice seemed familiar. Glad you're still making vids. I'm a big pikmin 2 guy myself, so as soon as I saw the water wraith in the trailer, Instantly thought something was up
The Water Wraith was terrifying to me as someone who only played 4. Like it is relentless and the music playing in the background really upsets me the fear factor. The only problem is that on the second last level I accidentally got it stuck near the exit of the level. But dispite that it’s still a scary boss
You ain't catching me calling it the soverin bulbblax, I've grown up my whole life calling it emperor, so I'll continue to call it that, as i think it just fits more and it's nostalgic to me. And funny enough i didn't play Pikmin when i first came out yet the way i found out it exists is the same as everyone else. Playing the first game.
Overall I agree with a lot of your points, but I have to say that I'm the final Dandori challenge, destroying the waterwraith each time I think was your own downfall. You can complete the level much faster by just avoiding the wraith the entire time rather than killing it. It's more fun too. Then you aren't fighting the timer you're fighting the giant steamroller. I'd recommend trying it again with that strat
I never really thought about it since i wasn't really playing pikmin much but seeing the challenge basically gone on iconic bosses is sad- great video overall and your editing is improving!! Great video all around qwq
The intended method of the final Sage Leaf Trial is to purposely lure the wraith to clear out all of that hazards in your path. They are all placed in a way where it is easy to get the wraith to deal with them while your Pikmin are carrying the onion and it doesn’t have room to turn around and attack your pikmin. Then, you can dodge or kill it at the end. Or, if you are fast enough, you can just try to avoid the wraith the entire time and just carry the onion ahead it, leading to a tense and suspenseful experience. You definitely aren’t supposed to just kill it first, they made the rest of the stage so tight compared to the time limit to discourage that.
Thank you for letting me know. I knew that already after clearing it the first time, but in the video I was telling it from the perspective of when I first played the trial. And I managed to get gold doing it the "wrong way" lol
Calling the Mamuta a boss is a joke, pikmin 1 has no idea what should actually count as a boss half the time, 2 and 3 had a way better streamlined idea
I will admit that calling it a boss is a bit of a stretch. But the other enemy fought in that arena is considered a boss. So easy or not, it has evidence of being one
I actually prefer how it is in Pikmin 1 where bosses usually don't have any special fanfare or distinction, they are part of the natural environment, just usually rarer, more dangerous creatures than others. So it also makes sense there is no clear line between boss and non-boss enemy. Pikmin 3 is the opposite where bosses have their giant arenas, intro cutscenes, special camera angles and such.
Who ever keeps putting treasures in mamutas is a sadist Also I agree with nearly everything about the smoky progg, but I like to comment about the scream which I think is pretty scary especially since it causes the Pikmin to scatter which can lead them into walking into the progg this killing them. The final boss on it's final phase did just that and I lost almost ALL my pikmin
I want to start off by saying this is an excellent video, well argued and some of it, I do agree with. I disagree with combat being half of the gimmick of the franchise, since Pikmin, to me anyways, has always been a focus on managing your Pikmin numbers and collecting stuff, be it treasure or ship parts or fruit. Combat is still important, don’t get me wrong, I just never viewed combat in Pikmin as important as something like Kirby, where you get all these abilities with crazy movesets that you want to use to get past all the enemies. But the combat in 4 is fine enough for what the game focuses on. On the other hand, I absolutely agree combat was made a lot easier than it needed to be because of Oatchi. Also, even with just one player, Pikmin 4’s combat can be broken even further with the 2 player mode and survey drone. All you need is to activate the survey drone and you can snipe enemies without being anywhere near them. I don’t mind the changes, but I do think the combat being easier is a valid criticism. I think the reason for that, though, is Pikmin 4 is a lot more beginner friendly. You don’t need to manage the Pikmin following you since Oatchi carries them on his back, but rather manage which types you bring out at a given time. You don’t need to focus as much on throwing Pikmin since Oatchi just rushes into enemies and throws a whole army on them, though that’s more effective with upgrades. Oatchi is just too useful in too many ways, for better and worse. Hopefully a Pikmin 5, if it includes another Oatchi like mechanic, will tone it down so things can be a bit more focused on better Pikmin management.
Thank you for the comment! When I say battling being half of Pikmin's gimmick, I was thinking more towards the first game where combat was very prevalent and was do or die. I really like Oatchi, really if they just made the enemies stronger or had difficulty options it would have made things better
i only played like. literally the wiiu land pikmin mini game but this definitely made me appreciate the old pikmin games just retroapecting on how werid this is as a series very nice video
The thing that angered me the most was the Puffstool. I was so excited to have the puffstool because the puffmin and puffstool are such cool ideas! But I play the game and I already wanted a refund.
4:42 In the trial of the sage leaf water wraith puzzle, you’re not supposed to fight it because it wastes time. You still could fight and win, obviously, but it makes it easier to play around it, and if you’re going for a better time you need to not kill it. Also, regarding the Mamuta, this enemy was lame and annoying even in the original. It shouldn’t count as a boss bc there’s nothing boss like about it. I don’t at all mind it being treated like a normal enemy. However, I agree with the other 2 points here. While I like the Smokey prog in Pikmin 4, I can acknowledge the definite downgrade, and the puffstool is just sad now.
Pikmin has multiple problems facing its core game design that defeats its ability to be a difficult game. And it's not even just Nintendo being the baby game company either. Both being an RTS game and the core design philosophy of the Pikmin stop the games from actually being difficult. The original Emperor Bulblax isn't hard he's just an inflated health bar and the dodongo gimmick. Same with the Phrogg it's not difficult it's just a check for how many Pikmin you can throw at it. Pikmin is just rock paper scissors of problem solving, if anything doesn't comply with that its difficulty tends to just be arbitrary and not well designed. Adding more gimmicks and the sequels necessarily must just further removes the RPS from the game making more and more content arbitrary in how it's balanced. Pikmin 1 also has some problems with the optional bosses being pure optional, since they are just kinda there for fun. They don't really represent a super boss that other series would use them as. And yeah it's a really really cool element of world building and exploration but when they are given a purpose by the later games they just fall flat because they never had a purpose to begin with. I think if they really want to make special and difficult Pikmin bosses again it would require a massive change in how the game functions
Ngl I kinda, didn’t feel a thing about the differences in these Bosses Pikmin 2’s WaterWraith felt like nothing to me once because I fought it literally 15+ times The Man At Leg’s was always easy to me because learning the pattern wasn’t that tricky to me (yes including the blue Pikmin only one surrounded by water) Smokey Progg is a joke, in both Pikmin 1 and 4 it’s a joke idk why people are saying it is now it always has been (honestly think it’s pretty overrated boss considered as “hard”) but PuffStool was also just, a existing boss to me in Pikmin 1, the first time I played it I just killed it, and to this day I never encountered Puffmin (Mushroom Pikmin whatever) Also I take Fluffy Mamuta Cute Idk maybe it’s because I started Pikmin 9 months ago when Pikmin 1 Switch edition game out but I just don’t see the hate for these changes
I'm enjoying this video so far. I'm one of the weirdos who enjoys 1 the most (with 3 coming in second place). 4 just felt so underwhelming to me. Probably won't ever touch it again once I'm done 100%ing it.
I have played 2 after 4, and i'll die on this hill that it's not the waterwraith per se being hard. It's the fucking level design for floor 3 and 4. You can't just boobytrap every single tile in the room and expect me to go fast or to activate them all before hand when i NEED to be fast. Yes Oatchi helps a lot, Yes the cutscene alerts me of the wraith being there, but remove all the bombs from Pikmin 2 and the game gets much much easier trust me.
For the other bosses, yeah the smoky progg is way easier. The Puffstool wasn't that hard in the first game either, if you know what it can do then you hust have to time your whistle right or call them even before it gets backup if yoy want to play it safe. And the Mamuta... i don't really care it just likes to chill.
Honestly, I feel like Oatchi... kind of ruined Pikmin 4 for me. And I hate to say that, because I love the concept, but Pikmin 4 really does feel like a different type of game than the previous three. It feels like they heard people complaining about the removal of the ability to move your entire squad with the C-stick in Pikmin 3, and decided that the solution to that was to remove the need to have a squad following you around altogether. I loved Pikmin 4, but Pikmin 3 feels like the peak of what I enjoyed about the series. I liked the multi-tasking, the managing of your Pikmin, the balance between combat, puzzles, and resources management. Pikmin 4 is much more a puzzle game with a side of resources, and even then, barely so. It just feels different to me, and while that's not inherently a bad thing, I still find myself missing the gameplay of the older games and going back to them whenever I feel like playing Pikmin.
The game is much more difficult in a minimal oatchi playthrough, but I think a lot of the points in the video still stand. I think the reason the water wraith is so easy in 4 is also in part because there isn't as much of a need for the AI to make sure it doesn't get stuck, since the caves are predetermined instead of randomly generated. You really start to notice the difference in AI in the other 3 appearances of it. You are practically able to just walk by it and it takes forever to turn back around. Goes to show how a more demanding environment can lead to programming a better and more dynamic AI. A small correction also, Pikmin in Pikmin 4 battle mode don't actually fight each other, they only fight over what side carries more weight.
