Nintendo reimagines Pikmin as a much larger, more accessible adventure but is this really its Breath Of The Wild moment?
The thing that makes the Nintendo Switch so impressive is not just the device itself, and the general quality of the games, but that it’s played host to the most acclaimed entries in almost all of Nintendo’s top franchises. Considering many of Nintendo’s brands go back 30 years or more that’s no small feat but in terms of critical and commercial success it has had the biggest Zelda, 3D Mario, Animal Crossing, Metroid, Fire Emblem, Kirby, and Mario Kart. And now it can get ready to add Pikmin to that list.
Although, relatively speaking, it’s one of Nintendo’s newer creations, Pikmin will be celebrating its 22nd birthday in October. Inspired by Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s love of gardening, the series has always been one of his favourites, even though its sales have traditionally been much weaker than any of the name-dropped titles above.
If it wasn’t for his patronage, Nintendo would surely have given up on Pikmin long ago, but everyone concerned have realised that change is needed and so Pikmin 4 represents the biggest shake-up the series has ever seen. Previous comparisons to a real-time strategy game were already tenuous but here they’re stretched to breaking point. You’re still ordering around little plant people to do your bidding, but Pikmin 4 is not only a much bigger game but a more welcoming one too.
It’s never been clear whether Nintendo was actually inspired by real-time strategy games like, Command & Conquer or Age Of Empires, or whether Pikmin just happens to resemble aspects of them, but the preceding three titles were all basically the same, with surprisingly little innovation between them. This one starts off the same as usual, with you and your crew crash-landing on a planet that looks exactly like Earth, except for the pint-sized fauna.
Ironically, you’d gone there to rescue Captain Olimar from the first game, but before you can get to him you have to collect up all the lost parts of your spaceship and various discarded bric-a-brac (everything from a Game Boy Advance SP to a collection of rubber ducks) to use as fuel. It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it seems though, as strange characters with leaves growing out of their head keep popping up to challenge you to a dandori match.
Dandori is an existing Japanese term that refers to forward planning and effective organisation, and that describes the subtle change in direction for this sequel. You do still fight giant creatures, with an army of pikmin following behind you, ready to be thrown at your enemies, but combat has been streamlined as much as possible, with a new lock-on system that makes targeting much more precise than before, and new controls that allow you to select different pikmin more quickly and make all of them charge at once.
There are eight pikmin types in the game: the original red, blue, and yellow plus ice, rock, and a number of other returning varieties. The red ones are stronger, the blue ones can go underwater, and the yellow ones are immune to electricity. Those are your basics, and you can grow new ones just by collecting food and bringing it back to your base, but most of the others, with their more specialised roles, are harder to get hold of.
Pikmin 4 initially takes place across four medium-sized open world areas, each of which has to be unlocked, but you’re given a surprisingly loose briefing as to what you’re meant to do there. Although you still need to get back by nightfall each day – or all your unguarded pikmin will be eaten – there’s no overall time limit and you’re free to potter about and explore as much as you want.
On the one hand Pikmin 4 is more open-ended than before but at the same time you can sense Nintendo fretting that the whole concept is too weird and complicated for more casual gamers. There’s a cloying sense of Wii era style nannying about the tutorials and controls, most obviously in the fact that you can only take a limited number of pikmin around with you each day. You can eventually make it back to the old maximum of 100 but it’ll take you at least half the game to get there.
Pikmin games were never difficult, just unusual, but Pikmin 4 is definitely easier than ever before, in part because of the new controls but also a range of quality of life additions and the fact that pikmin AI is now much better. On the one hand these changes all make perfect sense but on the other they sand off so many edges it begins to make it seem like there’s very little core gameplay left. It’s now quite difficult to get large volumes of pikmin killed at once, especially as you can rewind time to an automatically created checkpoint whenever you want.
What once was easy is now almost trivial but the game leans into this, effectively turning Pikmin into a cosy game like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, where the enjoyment doesn’t come from arcade style action but slow and steady accomplishment. Pikmin 4 is more of an action game than either of those two, with the new, closer camera system creating some impressive vistas and boss battles, but you never fear for your pikmin’s well being in quite the same way as you did before.
That’s in part because, instead of having two other allies you can switch to, you now have a single helper in the form of a two-legged puppy called Oatchi (all the animals in Pikmin have half the number of legs you’d normally expect). Both you and the pikmin can ride Oatchi, who can also swim, carry, dig, and attack. This makes getting around a lot easier, as Oatchi essentially becomes a mobile attack base, from which to take down critters and scope out treasure.
He has a substantial skill tree to unlock, which includes more advanced commands such as collecting up stray pikmin or patrolling a base. Although it’s only necessary very occasionally, you can switch to controlling Oatchi directly, or order him about via the map – where it becomes clear the game hasn’t lost all of its real-time strategy influences.
The game is easy but it’s also charming and fascinating, with a rare example of Nintendo attempting photorealistic graphics. They look very nice too, especially one map where the tide comes in halfway through the day. And while indie title Tinykin beat it to the punch, this is the first Pikmin game to feature a house interior, that you explore from your Smurf-sized perspective.
As well as your overall goals there’s also lots of side quests and resources to collect, which are used to build bridges and use as currency to buy new gadgets and one-off items (many of which are overly powerful and seem to have been added to give unfamiliar players an extra helping hand).
Dealing with *Leaflings* is a lengthy process that first involves convincing them of your dandori skills, either in special time-limited maps or in one vs. one competitive matches – both of which are amongst the hardest challenges in the game.
You then need a special nectar that can only be collected at night and involves using the all-new glow pikmin. This ninth variety can only be grown by collecting special gems at night, as you frantically try to snatch them up to get enough pikmin to defend their burrows from attacking monsters, something like a Tower Defense game. Glow pikmin are immune to everything but being eaten and while you can only grow them at night, they make for a handy reserve force to call upon during the day.
The only aspect of the game that doesn’t work so well with the new, more mellow attitude is the caves, reintroduced from Pikmin 2. These are multi-level dungeons where you can’t grow new pikmin. But they’re so easy, with no real time limit, that they really do seem pointlessly trivial.
By the time you get to the end credits you do begin to wonder whether that couldn’t describe the whole endeavour. Reaching that point will take around 20 hours but what we initially took to be just typical endgame content is actually a false ending, with a third or more of the game still to go after that.
We don’t want to spoil what comes after but it’s not only substantial but notably harder than the rest of the game – not difficult on a normal scale but a challenge more in line with the original games.
Pikmin 4 is a surprisingly massive game. We’ve been playing the original one, via its recent Switch re-release, and you can zip through the whole thing in eight hour or less. You certainly can’t do that with this game, with secrets upon secrets and entirely optional challenges like a two-player competitive mode that works like regular dandori battles. (There’s also a co-op option where the other player throws rocks at enemies.)
No matter how big the game is though it’s still a fairly shallow experience, but rather than that being a fault, Nintendo tries, and largely succeeds, in turning that into a positive. We definitely would’ve liked to see some proper puzzles though, as beyond some faint Metroidvania elements there aren’t really any. Some harder boss fights would’ve been nice too, as the few the game does have are some of its best moments.
We’re not sure how many hardcore Pikmin fans there are in the world, but some people are bound to complain that the series has been dumbed down. But that’s not how it comes across. You might instead say that it’s been repositioned, and since the original formula has been treading water for so long a more varied and accessible sequel is entirely welcome.
We doubt it’s suddenly going to catapult the franchise into best-seller territory, but it’s still not quite like any other video game around, and all the changes and improvements to Pikmin 4 are certain to grow its audience far beyond the original games.
Pikmin 4 review summary
In Short: Nintendo successfully reinvents Pikmin as a Stardew Valley style cosy game, that’s both much bigger and more approachable than ever before.
Pros: A huge game, with improved controls, a wide range of play styles, and impressive visuals. Oatchi is a great help and the glow pikmin and other additions fit in well. Extensive post-credits content.
Cons: The game is very easy and by the halfway point begins to feel like empty calories, even if it does rally after that. Caves are not very interesting. No real puzzles.
Score: 8/10
Formats: Nintendo Switch
Price: £49.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD and Eighting
Release Date: 21st July 2023
Age Rating: 3
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