Pikmin

Pikmin 4 (2023)

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Pikmin has always been a series that has had underwhelming sales numbers. The cutesy aesthetics paired with the horrific reality that you will lead your squad of adorable little guys to their brutal demise means that the audience for these games is limited. I suspect people are discouraged by the time limit or the stress of having your pikmin get eaten, electrocuted, lit on fire, or otherwise killed. After the long hiatus following the release of Pikmin 3, it feels like Pikmin 4 is an attempt to appeal to a larger audience. In some ways, this is a fantastic thing. Pikmin 4 is the biggest, most complete game in the series. On the other hand, the concessions made in hopes of attracting new players actively harm the game.

Like every other game in the series, Pikmin 4 is a real-time-strategy game where you grow hordes of cute creatures known as pikmin to complete tasks for you. They are fairly brainless, so they form a symbiotic relationship with the player. You lead them around and command them to fight enemies, retrieve treasures, and carry pellets back to base so that more pikmin can sprout. Individually, each pikmin is weak, but as an intelligent swarm they can conquer the environment and tackle massive foes.

The most impressive aspect of Pikmin 4 is its scale. This game is bigger than its three predecessors combined. And it combines all the elements from the previous games to deliver the most complete experience. Every zone is a sprawling playground to explore with dozens of treasures to find. Caves make a return from Pikmin 2, but are intentionally designed rather than relying on randomized layouts. Challenges from Pikmin 3 are now woven into the main campaign and are honestly my favorite aspect of the whole game. Every type of pikmin makes an appearance. It’s genuinely impressive how much they managed to squeeze into this game.

The larger areas don’t feel overwhelming as they are somewhat split into smaller zones. As you explore there are predetermined spots for you to move your ship and the pikmin’s onion to, making it easier to haul treasures and grow more pikmin without having to run all the way back to the original landing site. Much of the game’s content is also found in the caves. While I wasn’t a fan of caves in Pikmin 2 due to their repetitive nature and random layouts, I think Pikmin 4 executes on the idea much better. They have intentional design to challenge the player on their puzzle-solving, combat, and navigation skills. I still much prefer the open surface areas to caves, and I do think that Pikmin 4 has a handful too many caves, but the dungeon-crawling they provide is a fun detour from the open-ended exploration.

Aside from caves, there are also Dandori challenges to be discovered as you explore. Dandori is the art of strategizing and executing a plan for maximum efficiency. To me, this is one of the strongest aspects of the Pikmin series. Dandori challenges come in two forms: time trials and battles. The time trials are 5–10-minute challenges in a small arena where you have to strategize how to get all the treasure as fast as possible. I loved solving each of these challenges like it was a puzzle. Figuring out where I should start, which pikmin to pluck, which enemies to defeat, and what order to do things was quintessential Pikmin. Getting all the platinum medals on these time trials was challenging but achievable, and it was my absolute favorite aspect of Pikmin 4.

The Dandori battles on the other hand had a major flaw in their execution. These battles are similar to the time trials, but you are facing an opponent with their own army of pikmin. You both try to collect treasures to gain points, and it is a frantic experience as treasures and enemies frequently respawn. There’s also power-ups and items to sabotage your foe. I really like the idea behind these battles and there is an extra layer of depth as you have to consider which treasures are worth fighting over. But the big issue I have is that for some reason these battles have a split screen view. Half the screen is dedicated to the AI opponent’s point-of-view. It makes playing these battles feel super claustrophobic and hard to tell what’s going on. I don’t think I ever looked at the opponent’s screen to see what they were doing. At the very least, this should have been a toggleable feature so I could turn it off and focus on my own strategy.

Another major shakeup to traditional Pikmin gameplay is the inclusion of night expeditions. These are missions solely focused on defending your base from enemies. You command a new variety of pikmin, called glow pikmin, which excel at combat. These missions are fairly short and aren’t particularly difficult, but I did enjoy taking a break from normal daytime exploration to partake in some frantic defense. Ultimately, I think Pikmin 4 attempts to appease every aspect of the series’ fanbase. Between the combat focused night expeditions, optimization heavy Dandori challenges that require multitasking, dungeon crawling caves, and the laidback exploration of regular areas there is something for everyone to enjoy. 

Not only does Pikmin 4 impress with the scope of its gameplay, but it also is one of the best-looking games on the Nintendo Switch. The environments, characters, and creatures all look fantastic. More importantly, I love the environments of the game. Every area is obviously inspired by micro-slices of Earth. A backyard garden becomes a massive area to explore. The shifting tide on the beach leads you to climb a sandcastle. My favorite area is the inside of a house. Figuring out how to navigate the furniture in the living room and kitchen is a great mix-up from the more naturalistic environments that Pikmin is known for. I really do love the focus on the environments created by humanity. It inspires imagination about what sort of life exists at the micro scale on our planet. Who knows, maybe there are little aliens running around collecting bottle caps and buttons when we aren’t looking.

Despite everything that Pikmin 4 does right, it also makes a ton of mistakes in an effort to appease new players. The issues are immediately apparent from the start as Pikmin 4 has one of the most painful tutorials I’ve ever played. The game takes forever to let the player start playing. And when it does, it constantly wrests control away from you to give you a tutorial on even the most straightforward of mechanics. Even after the tutorial the game throws giant text boxes on the middle of the screen during gameplay. After playing for 30 hours, I don’t need my vision obstructed by a tip telling me that there are pikmin at my base ready to be plucked. 

There’s just too much talking in general. The original Pikmin was an isolated, alien experience. After every day the characters talk on and on about nothing. Despite the large cast of characters, I can’t remember anything about any of them. In Pikmin 4 you take the role of a member of the rescue corps on a mission to rescue characters stranded on Earth. The rescue corps sets up a base where everyone you rescue hangs out. I appreciate the idea of having a cozy hub to hang out in, but it’s extremely barren and all the characters just feel like they are stapled on. I wish some temporary buildings or structures would be built as you progressed. Like having shops for items, upgrades, and cosmetics rather than just having those characters stand around in the open. I would have loved it if this hub had some personality.

Gameplay wise, there’s a wealth of issues. First and foremost is the control scheme. The game forces automatic lock-on on the player, with no way of toggling it off. The result is that many combat encounters are dumbed down to a single button press. You no longer have to aim your cursor; the game takes that skill out of the equation and guarantees that your thrown pikmin will land on target. The mechanic also becomes unwieldy during late-game encounters with many enemies because the automatic lock-on is incredibly “sticky”. A frequent annoyance is trying to prioritize a high-threat enemy but the game decides to prioritize random treasure or other tasks.

Pikmin 4 provides the player with a massive toolset. There’s a robust upgrade system that not only increases your health and elemental resistances, but also provides utility such as calling all idle pikmin to your side. There’re purchasable items such as bombs and stunning lightning to be used on tougher enemies. But the biggest addition to your arsenal is Oatchi. Oatchi is an alien dog trained to assist in rescue missions. Listen, I love dogs, and it’s hard not to love Oatchi, but Oatchi borderline breaks the game. 

The problem with Oatchi is that Oatchi is too good at everything. Oachi can fight enemies and can defeat most of them single handedly. Oatchi can carry heavy objects. You can ride on Oatchi’s back with your squad of pikmin. This is particularly useful because it makes it remarkably simple to have your squad of pikmin avoid enemy attacks. In previous games, having a squad of 100 pikmin could be unwieldy to control, but now it’s a breeze with Oatchi. You can also charge at enemies which deals damage, stuns them, and flings your entire squad of pikmin on their back. The vast majority of enemies are decimated by the combo of being stunned and having 100 pikmin attacking them. It genuinely feels like the game isn’t designed for the havoc that Oatchi can wreak. It’s until the final boss of the post-game that I encountered an enemy that felt designed with Oatchi in mind.

Aside from Oatchi, another major addition is the inclusion of ice pikmin. This new type of pikmin can freeze bodies of water if enough of them are occupying it. This is a great strategic addition as it creates traversable paths for your squad, but at the temporary cost of dozens of pikmin. In combat, ice pikmin are extremely overpowered as they can rapidly freeze enemies. This is balanced by having ice pikmin do less damage, but just a handful of them is enough to freeze enemies while the rest of the squad deals the damage. They are at least somewhat kept in check by the fact that your supply of ice pikmin is limited until very late in the game.

I think there was massive potential with providing the player all these overpowered options such as items, Oatchi, and ice pikmin. It could be framed that beating the game is a foregone conclusion, but maximizing your efficiency to do it quickly is the point. There’s only one Oatchi, so choosing what to have them do could be an interesting decision. Picking the optimal place to use items to save time could be fun. Ice pikmin would be more balanced by their lack of damage if you had to go quickly. But unfortunately, I don’t think Pikmin 4 does a good job at encouraging this efficiency by default.

For a game that emphasizes the concept of Dandori, there is very little need for speed outside of the Dandori challenges. There is no day limit in Pikmin 4. Every individual day has a timer, but it’s irrelevant since you can just end the day and start a new one rather than risking running out of time while doing a task. Dandori challenges and some of the post-game content are my favorite aspects of the game because they do put some pressure on the player. Having to think about the best way to use the tools available to you and what route to take is engrossing even if the combat is on the easier side.

The major flaw of Pikmin 4 is that it lacks an edge. There’s no element to provide friction that inhibits the player from just steamrolling the whole game. The wealth of new tools makes most combat encounters easy. Without a time limit there is no need to optimize and think about how to tackle exploration efficiently. There’s not even a significant number of puzzles like were present in Pikmin 3. As I played, I often felt that I was just going through the motions, that the game just kind of plays itself. I really would’ve appreciated something that made the moment-to-moment gameplay a tad more thoughtful. I’m ok with the game being relatively easy, but there still needs to be a threat to keep the player engaged.

The Pikmin series is one of evolution. You could never say that it’s stagnating or failing to implement new ideas. I love the grandiosity of Pikmin 4; it certainly feels like the ultimate Pikmin experience. But the lengths gone to attract new players makes the experience feel neutered. The automatic lock-on, the drawn-out tutorial, the lack of an overarching time limit, and the overpowered tools that the game provides all dull the edge that the series once had. It is for these reasons that I give Pikmin 4 a 7/10. Every game in the series has something to offer, and while Pikmin 4 may lack friction, it’s a solid collectathon with a ton of content.

Pikmin 3 (2013)

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It should be no surprise that the 9-year gap between Pikmin 2 and Pikmin 3 led to massive visual and technical improvement. Not only does the game look better and feel smoother to play than its predecessors, but it further enables one of the best aspects of the Pikmin series: multitasking. What makes me excited about the Pikmin series is that the games aren’t necessarily iterative sequels. Each one of the games has its own unique structure that places emphasis on different aspects of the series. The first Pikmin was all about time management, Pikmin 2 focused more on combat and reacting to sticky situations, and Pikmin 3 hones in on multitasking. For full context, you can read my reviews of Pikmin and Pikmin 2.

The game begins not with our beloved Captain Olimar, but instead we follow the story of a crew of 3 new characters. Alph, Brittany, and Charlie have been tasked with searching the galaxy for a new source of food as their planet faces starvation. They crash land on Earth and lose critical ship parts that they need to get back home. As they track down the ship parts, they also discover the bounty of fruit that grows on Earth and set out to collect all the seeds that they can to revitalize their own planet.

The structure of Pikmin 3 is more objective based than its predecessors. You are often given an obvious goal to pursue whether it be tracking down a signal to a ship part or trying to rescue a crew member. There’s no looming 30-day limit like in the original Pikmin, but you do need a steady supply of fruit juice to stay alive. As you explore the world you collect fruit, partly to bring the seeds back home, but also to turn into juice for immediate nourishment. It’s more lenient than a set day limit, but I do appreciate that there was some form of time limit. Even if you’ll probably have way more fruit than you need, having that motivation to maximize every day is a good thing.

Having 3 crew members to control is just the beginning of how Pikmin 3 emphasizes multitasking. You can switch between them freely and have each character control their own horde of Pikmin. You often need to solve puzzles that require you to toss the crew across gaps or on higher up platforms. But the big addition is the “go here” functionality. When you open the map, you can click on a spot and command the character that you are controlling to walk there automatically with their horde of Pikmin. This enables the player to have all 3 characters be actively doing something and allows them to optimize for speed. You could be fighting enemies with Alph, have Charlie walk back to the base to pluck Pikmin, and have Brittany lead her horde to a new location all at the same time.

I also enjoyed the addition of both new Pikmin types. Pikmin 3 excludes the Purple and White Pikmin from Pikmin 2 and replaces them with Rock and Flying Pikmin. Not only are they adorable, but they have distinct strengths and weaknesses. Rock Pikmin can shatter crystals and do a ton of damage if thrown on an enemy, but they cannot latch onto enemies for repeated hits like other Pikmin types. Flying Pikmin can soar over terrain to carry objects and are great at dealing with airborne enemies, but they deal low damage overall. Both these new types are useful without being overwhelmingly powerful like the Purple Pikmin were.

There is also a plethora of quality-of-life improvements that make Pikmin 3 a much smoother experience than its predecessors. The Pikmin AI is much better in general and they rarely, if ever, get caught on terrain or fall off ledges. Instead of haphazardly swarming you can now use the specialized charge attack to order your Pikmin to rush at an enemy or item. But one of the bigger changes is the lock-on functionality. In previous games you constantly had to be aiming your cursor at whatever you were tossing your Pikmin at. In Pikmin 3, you can just lock onto your target and throw with confidence knowing your Pikmin would land on target.

The downside of having so many quality-of-life improvements is that it also results in the game being significantly easier than its predecessors. Without worrying about Pikmin killing themselves in frustrating fashion you can command your Pikmin with much more confidence. The charge attack makes it simple to burst down enemies quickly. The lock-on functionality makes it exceptionally easy to run circles around enemies. While I don’t think aiming should be the primary focus of a real-time strategy game, I do think it was a meaningful skill expression to keep the cursor on enemies as you kited. I’m torn on the inclusion of lock on because of this. Moreover, I feel like Pikmin 3 enemies have reduced health for whatever reason, making the game even easier. Basic enemies are just too easy to takedown and don’t pose much of a threat.

Even though regular enemies were a bit too easy, I did enjoy the dynamic boss battles that Pikmin 3 offers. They aren’t super challenging by any means, but they are fantastic spectacles with interesting arenas and mechanics. Figuring out how to exploit the boss’ weakness is an enjoyable experience, and it can be a little tense if you are running out of time during the day. Even if they are easy, I had fun with them. But if you are looking for a real challenge, you’ll have to look towards the mission mode.

The mission mode in Pikmin 3 is additional content outside of the campaign. These are timed challenges with a few variations: treasure hunt, battling enemies, and boss battles. These are specifically tailored maps that you really have to plan out routes and optimize if you want to get a platinum medal. I spent a good amount of time getting a handful of platinum medals on the treasure hunt missions. I think this was an excellent inclusion because it lets players play around with optimization, time management, and multitasking without having to replay the entire game.

Pikmin 3 is one of the best-looking games of its generation with wonderfully detailed microbiomes. It hones in on one of my favorite aspects of the Pikmin aesthetic: miniature naturescapes. Every level is like a little terrarium to explore with towering foliage, streams with lily pads to hop across, and dark caverns filled with bioluminescent plants. The visual fidelity and environmental design are absolutely superb. And I love that there is an occasional rainy day to add some ambiance even if it doesn’t have any gameplay implications.

I personally played Pikmin 3 on Nintendo Switch with the remastered Pikmin 3 Deluxe edition.  Aside from being graphically enhanced, it has some gameplay changes like having a bigger whistle radius, being able to call loose Pikmin back to the ship, and the charge attack only using the Pikmin type that you have currently selected. The game originally was designed for the Wii U and made use of the gamepad for the map, but I didn’t have any frustrations with having to open the map separately. There are also some new additions such as the Piklopedia and new side stories for Olimar and Louie. Overall, this is the best way to play the game.

I don’t think Pikmin 3 is my favorite in the series. It may be because of nostalgia, but the structure of the original Pikmin was just so compelling. The tense 30-day limit to find all your critical ship parts provided a real sense of urgency. I do appreciate that Pikmin 3 did reintroduce some time limit with the juice system. The focus on multitasking and the ability to order all 3 characters at the same time is superb. And of course, Pikmin 3 is technically and visually impressive. It certainly has my favorite environments, levels, and bosses of the series thus far. I will always vividly remember riding a lily pad downstream on a rainy day as dandelions tower overhead. I can’t wait to finally give Pikmin 4 a try.

Pikmin 2 (2004)

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Pikmin 2 is the perfect example of an excellent game that torpedoes itself with an abundance of repetitive and poor-quality content. Despite making plenty of improvements over its predecessor, the majority of Pikmin 2 is spent engaging with its worst content: caves. I wanted to love this game as much as I loved the original Pikmin, and truthfully it surpasses the original game in many ways. But unfortunately 75% of the game is at best dull, and at worst frustrating.

To start with the positive, Pikmin 2 delivers more content than its predecessor. There’s more Pikmin varieties, there’s more enemies, there’s more treasures, there’s more hazards, and there’s even an additional playable character. This is all fantastic. I liked having two captains to control as it allows for more multitasking, which is a core component of the Pikmin series. One captain can oversee a group of Pikmin knocking down a wall, while the other captain can command the Pikmin to attack enemies and replenish their numbers.

The two new Pikmin varieties both are unique and integral to your success. Purple Pikmin are heavy but slow. They can carry 10x the weight of normal Pikmin, and they are incredibly effective in combat. They deal bonus damage and stun enemies upon landing from a throw. White Pikmin are faster than normal Pikmin, are immune to poison, can find treasures underground, and deal massive poison damage to an enemy that attempts to eat them. Both of these varieties are powerful, but are cleverly balanced by their rarity.

Both purple and white Pikmin do not have their own motherships, and as such you cannot use the normal chips and enemy corpses to spawn more of them. Instead, you come across colored flowers that you have to sacrifice other Pikmin into five at a time. This heavily limits how many of these special Pikmin that you will have. While the purple Pikmin in particular are incredibly powerful in combat, I felt nervous bringing large quantities around because losing just a handful of them could be catastrophic. I think this was a great way to balance these new varieties. Having powerful Pikmin at your disposal is very fun, but limiting their quantity makes them risky to use.

Another welcome addition is the inclusion of sprays. You can spend time having Pikmin collect berries that will be refined into two varieties of sprays: bitter and spicy. The spicy spray speeds up your Pikmin and increases their attack power. The bitter spray turns enemies to stone briefly. I enjoyed how these provided some additional decisions to make during combat. You could use them to make encounters much easier, but you had a limited quantity of them unless you spent a ton of time farming them. I saved them for dire situations or tricky boss fights, and I appreciated their inclusion.

When I played the original Pikmin my biggest issue with the game was the poor AI. I haven’t done any sort of extensive testing, but I definitely feel like this was improved in Pikmin 2. They seem to not get stuck on random bits of geometry as often. They don’t get distracted by grass as much. They are quicker to pluck and faster to respond to the whistle. I still had some occasional woes when trying to dismiss Pikmin into groups, but overall, I appreciated how much more responsive they were overall.

While I didn’t spend a ton of time reading the entries, I loved the Piklopedia. This journal has fun descriptions of both the enemies and the treasures that you collect. These have a lot of personality and charm. They’re funny and a great addition for people who want to delve more into the world of Pikmin.

The gameplay loop of Pikmin 2 is almost identical to the original. Instead of crash landing on Earth, you voluntarily journey there to collect treasure to alleviate your company’s debt. You command your troop of Pikmin to knock down barriers, fight enemies, and collect goodies. A major difference however is that Pikmin 2 lacks a maximum number of days. In the first game, you had 30 days to collect 30 parts. With each day being roughly 15 minutes, there was a sense of urgency to get something done with every second. 

The looming time limit in Pikmin was something that many players felt anxious about, but I think it was a critical element of gameplay. It encouraged the player to maximize their time and take risks. You could leave a troop of Pikmin to knock down walls or carry things back to base, but there was always the worry that they could be intercepted by hungry enemies. And even if you had a couple minutes left in the day, there was always the question of what you could do with your time. Whether it be replenishing your Pikmin supply, feeding them nectar to upgrade them, or knocking down barriers to make the next day easier, I wanted to maximize my time. 

Thirty days was plenty generous unless you were wasting a ton of time, but the looming threat of failure was crucial. This isn’t present in Pikmin 2 at all, as you have an unlimited number of days to accomplish your goals. There’s no rush to do anything, you can play incredibly safe and not have to do any risky multitasking. You don’t have to squeeze every second out of the day, as you can just go to the next day with no downside as the timer approaches night. The lack of urgency was definitely unfortunate, but it was a minor issue when compared to the biggest flaw of Pikmin 2: caves.

Before I begin ranting about caves, I want to make it clear that I genuinely think that they are a good idea. They act as dungeons in which you progress floor by floor with no opportunity to replenish your Pikmin. They have a heavy emphasis on combat, each floor is packed with enemies and there is usually a boss at the end. Defeating the boss usually yields a special treasure with a unique upgrade such as immunity to electricity. I think this is all great. Entering a cave is anxiety inducing as you don’t know what lies ahead, and losing Pikmin can devastate your odds of success. This is all great, but the caves have a few issues: bland aesthetics, monotonous gameplay, and frustrating level design.

There are 14 caves in the game, and even shortly after beating the game I can only really remember 4 of them. And 2 of those I only remember because they were infuriating. A big reason why caves aren’t memorable is because they are just plain ugly and bland. Many of them are just big dirt pits with little to distinguish themselves. Moreover, the levels are semi-randomly generated, so they can’t make up for forgettable visuals with interesting level design.

 Most of the caves lack anything to make them unique. Just floor after floor of basic battles with no end in sight. And many of these caves can take upwards of an hour to complete. It grows old quickly. There are a couple of good examples in Pikmin 2 of what caves could be: Submerged Castle and Glutton’s Kitchen. 

Submerged Castle is easily the best in the game. You have to work quickly to recover treasures in this water-filled cave, because a nightmarish blob appears after 5 minutes on each floor to steamroll your Pikmin. This is a unique mechanic that encourages you to move quickly, but even if you aren’t fast enough there are strategically placed pipes that allow you to hide from the monster. Glutton’s Kitchen is nearly as horrifying, but it is memorable nonetheless. It takes place in a child’s playset of building blocks and a wooden train set. Fat breadbugs try to steal your treasures and drag them back to their dens. The combination of being visually distinct and having a central mechanic is vital in making caves more interesting. It’s a shame that none of the other caves live up to the quality of these two.

I have to mention that my entire experience was left on sour note because of the final caves in the game. They were memorable for the wrong reasons. They felt completely unfair. Every floor was a cramped nightmare filled with dangerous enemies. Not to mention traps such as bombs, rocks, and enemies falling from the sky. I don’t mind a bit of elevated difficulty, but the difficulty spike here is egregious. There are so many ways that you could instantly lose half your army deep into a dungeon. The saving grace here is that you can hard reset to the beginning of the floor.

I don’t think relying on frequently resetting your system is a great mechanic, but it feels necessary here. There are so many catastrophic things that can happen, and it often feels unavoidable. Due to the randomized nature of enemy placement, some configurations are far, far harder than others. The final dungeon, Dream Den, has many floors that feel like the developers just threw every enemy they could into cramped rooms. These aren’t cleverly designed challenges, they are meat grinders that require unsatisfying tactics to succeed.

Like I previously mentioned, you can always just reset and hope for a better outcome or easier layout, but there are some ways that you can combat the tougher encounters. You can play super carefully, going through each floor with no Pikmin at first, triggering every trap. Then abuse the enemy AI to bait them out one at a time. This is time consuming and feels a little cheap as you are just bypassing every obstacle. You could also use purple Pikmin and bitter spray as they are surefire methods to simplify tougher fights, but these are very limited resources unless you spend time farming them. Truthfully, some of the floors in the later dungeons feel like absolutely no thought went into them and they weren’t even playtested.

In my perfect world, Pikmin 2 would have cut down the number of caves dramatically. Instead of 14 repetitive caves, having 5 unique and intentionally designed caves would be a massive improvement. The caves would have their own aesthetic themes and unique mechanics to make them interesting. Each floor would be designed with care and there would be thought into the layout and enemy placements. I understand that randomization can increase replayability, but in the main campaign I wanted purposefully designed dungeons. Randomized dungeons could’ve been a great challenge mode.

I was let down by the number of poor-quality caves in Pikmin 2. Even without a day limit to encourage efficiency, I still was having a great time up until I started delving into the caves. The vast majority of the game is spent in the caves, and it’s by far the worst aspect of the game. More isn’t always better, and Pikmin 2 would’ve been greatly improved by cutting the number of caves in half and spending more time carefully designing them. It really is a shame because Pikmin 2 gets so much right, it just sabotages itself with an abundance of uninteresting and occasionally aggravating content.

Pikmin (2001)

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Growing up I loved Pikmin. I never beat the game until I was older, but I loved playing it nonetheless. Real-time strategy (RTS) games can be intimidating as they have steep learning curves and can brutally punish the player for mistakes. But not Pikmin. This is an approachable RTS, so much so that it’s accessible for children. Yet there were plenty of bold design decisions that shaped how Pikmin is played, and I think those risky choices ultimately are what make the game so fantastic.

 You play as Captain Olimar, a funky little spaceman who crash landed on an alien planet. He only has 30 days of life support to sustain himself and you need to recover 30 missing spaceship components. Captain Olimar discovers a creature that he dubs Pikmin and he learns how to command and lead them so he can fix his ship and return home. It’s a simple premise, but there’s a few key aspects to take note of.

One of the first things that any player will notice about Pikmin is its setting. While Captain Olimar says he has landed on an alien planet, you’ll realize that the planet is only alien to him. The foliage and environmental design of Pikmin is obviously Earth from a microscopic perspective. Grass, stumps, and flowers tower over the player. Empty bottles and cardboard boxes are common obstacles. Most of the threatening fauna seem like evolved versions of common worms, flies, and ladybugs. I love this setting because it is immediately recognizable, but it does feel remarkably alien. Being scaled down makes the world feel monumentally different, and you have to learn how to survive.

A key component to survival in this alien setting is learning how to utilize Pikmin. The game frames this excellently to compliment the context of learning how to persevere in an unfamiliar environment. There are three types of Pikmin, each with their own properties and niches to understand. The world is rife with hazards such as fire, water, and of course various enemies. I love how Captain Olimar makes observations like how the Pikmin respond to the whistle, or that the blue Pikmin have gills and may be able to swim. While it seems tempting to just bring a bunch of each type of Pikmin everywhere you go for every situation, that can be a risky proposition.

I love how many subtle decisions go into playing Pikmin. You can have 100 Pikmin in your legion at any time, but controlling a big group can be massively unwieldy. It’s easy for them to get caught going through corridors, get picked off by roaming enemies, or accidentally fall into a pit of water. There’s a sort of parental instinct that kicks in when you play Pikmin, they are cute little guys who you planted and raised, there’s no way you want to risk a single death if you can help it. I often only explored with smaller groups of Pikmin so that I could always account for each and every one of them. 

While the primary objective of the game is to recover ship parts, there’s a lot of preparatory work to achieve that goal. Walls need to be knocked down, bridges need to be built, you need to build up a force of Pikmin, you need to feed nectar to your Pikmin to empower them, and enemies need to be cleared out of the way. The game is a constant juggling act of small objectives, and it’s easy to feel accomplished with how quickly you progress.

Part of what fuels the rapid decision making of Pikmin is its most risky aspect: the time limit. It’s intimidating at first. 30 days to recover 30 parts. 1 part per day. And each day is only 13 minutes long. Truthfully, it’s a pretty generous limit. It’s often feasible to recover multiple parts every day, or at least make progress towards the next one. Nevertheless, the pressure of a time limit fuels the player to work quickly and attempt to multitask and make risky decisions. You can leave Pikmin to their own devices to take down walls or carry things back to base, but they are extremely vulnerable to predators. Moreover, any Pikmin left alone at the end of the day will be eaten. But if you want to get multiple parts in a day, you have to take that risk.

Time limits can often be off-putting by putting pressure on the player. But the time-crunch serves Pikmin well. You have to make decisions on the fly about what to do with your limited time. Whether it be planting new Pikmin, knocking down walls to serve as shortcuts, or just defeating enemies so they aren’t an issue for a few days, there’s always something to do. The time limit provides real tension and a sense of stake. But it isn’t oppressive as there’s an abundance of time to fully restore Olimar’s ship. 

If I had to complain about something about Pikmin, itis the artificial intelligence for the Pikmin themselves. I think it’s ok that they’re kind of dumb, as it contextually makes sense. They have a symbiotic relationship with Captain Olimar. They can use their overwhelming numbers to assist him, and he can use his brain to tell them what to do and help them reproduce. But at times they are just a little too dumb. Enough to be frustrating. It’s a pain to wrangle suicidal Pikmin who got distracted by grass or nectar. Or when throwing them at enemies to engage in combat I often found that the Pikmin would prioritize picking stuff up to carry home rather than attacking. I think it’s fine that they have a one-track mind, but when they actively ignore the player’s direction it can be frustrating.

Ultimately, Pikmin expertly marries its gameplay and narrative. From the somewhat-familiar alien setting, to the learning process of commanding Pikmin, to the parental responsibility that you feel for the titular creatures, to the impending doom that the time limit imparts, the game really does put the player in the shoes of Captain Olimar. And it does all this while remaining fun and accessible for all audiences. Pikmin has always been overlooked compared to other Nintendo juggernauts such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, but in my opinion it’s just as classic.