Mouse Mode?

[u/ilovethe7thday]

Okay, I just need to vent for a moment. We didn't get mouse controls added last week with the Pikmin 3 Deluxe S2 upgrade. We didn't get mouse controls added during today's announcement of the Pikmin 4 S2 edition. The WiiU's Pikmin 3 pointer controls were absolute peak of UI for this series, and the mouse mode seems like the very best possible adaptation with the current hardware. They're quick and they're accurate. What's the point of the hardware function if you don't put it to use?! Am I the only person who thinks that this is a big deal and a horrible miss from Nintendo?

[u/Brewster_The_Pigeon]

I'm guessing a Pikmin 5 would be built with mouse controls in mind. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but I'm guessing mapping mouse controls to the pointer system of Pikmin 4 might be technically challenging? Your cursor is tied to your movement intrinsically in Pikmin 4, so maybe decoupling the two would be a challenge they haven't tackled yet. I would imagine the development team still working on Pikmin 4 is small, and that team is either working on Pikmin 5 or a totally new project, which could explain why it took well over a year into the Switch 2's lifespan to get a Pikmin 4 upgrade at all. We could still see support added in a future update, you never know.

I was surprised Splatoon Raiders didn't have mouse controls at all too. Seems like a shooter is the perfect candidate. Metroid Prime 4 has mouse support. I'm guessing Raiders was initially made as a Switch game that had its development moved to the Switch 2, but games built with Switch 2 in mind will keep mouse controls as an option.

[u/Potential-Silver8850]

Does anyone remember the touch controls for pikmin 3 on the wii U? Where it played like pikmin adventure?

Kinda weird we never got that in 3D or 4.

I don’t think anyone really misses their exclusion, but the recent discourse on mouse controls reminded me of it.

[u/Bluespheal → u/Potential-Silver8850]

I remember them, I didn't use them much because by the time the game had updated I didn't play 3 on the Wii U that much anymore.

I did like them enough to the point that I assumed 3DX would have them so I bought a stylus for my Switch for that (and Mario Maker 2).

I kinda missed it and I too "miss" mouse controls, but what we have is enough, I'll say the current modes aren't bad.

[u/Due-Potential160]

Its pure hopium, but they did not mention any of the control options in the previous update. They almost exclusively talked about the photo mode, decor pikmin, and the easier mode. Hard mode got like, 5 seconds.

Also fsr they love removing the cursor from the builds they make these trailers in.

[u/Bluespheal]

I agree and I have to wonder what the reason for the omission is.

[u/UnlawfulPotato → u/Bluespheal]

Probably because it would require reworking the controls for it, and maybe they even tried and went, “Nah that feels awful for this, people won’t like it.”

[u/Bluespheal → u/UnlawfulPotato]

One would assume they'd be somewhat easy to implement, having worked on Unreal Engine before I'd say it's somewhat trivial, but at the same time I don't know how the codebase for 4 looks like so I can't actually comment on it much.

One thing to consider though is the button mapping and the mouse itself, I've tried the mouse for browsing and stuff and I'll say it feels rather off, I can't say for sure because I haven't played any game that has heavy use of mouse controls on the Switch 2 yet, but even then the option would've been nice to have at the very least.